Medicinal taste

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lsayer
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2015 8:20 pm

Medicinal taste

Post by lsayer »

Hi all,

Just tried a first bottle of a small batch of an american pale ale I had brewed. There is an awful medicinal taste.

I was a bit worried as it had a very long lag time even though it was an whole 11g packet of rehydrated wilkos ale yeast in only 8L. It also stopped fermenting and dropped bright at FG 1.020 which is rubbish compared to my other brews.

Reading around the internet it seems that medicinal taste comes from phenols, or chlorine in sanitiser reacting with phenols. My fermentation temperature was quite low (18c) so I don't think phenols should have been excessive. I'm wondering if I didn't rinse the fermenter well enough post sanitisation which might explain slow yeast and early yeast death. At first I thought it might have been a temperature drop from 18 to 16c which happened when my boiler broke but now I'm not so sure....

Only other thing I can think of is chlorine from the tap water. Is this an issue for any of you?
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steve crawshaw
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Re: Medicinal taste

Post by steve crawshaw »

It can be down to chlorine. A campden tablet in the brewing water prior to brewday will sort this out. Temperature fluctuations can also lead to off flavours as the yeast becomes stressed. I use a builders bucket with an aquarium heater to immerse by fermenting vessel. This keeps a constant temperature as long as ambient temps are below your desired fermentation temperature.
As far as your high FG is concerned i would recommend rehydrating your yeast, and possibly ramping up temps after primary fermentation is concluded, say from 18 to 22 from days 3 - 7 of fermentation. Also a yeast like US-05 will likely give you better performance in this regard than Wilko's (not sure what it is?)
cheers
steve
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lsayer
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2015 8:20 pm

Re: Medicinal taste

Post by lsayer »

Thanks steve, Yeah my temperature control isn't great so that could definitely be it. I heard that the wilkos yeast was just danstar nottingham repackaged, seems to be a well supported theory on various websites.
PMowdes
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 4:29 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Medicinal taste

Post by PMowdes »

lsayer wrote:Hi all,

Just tried a first bottle of a small batch of an american pale ale I had brewed. There is an awful medicinal taste.

I was a bit worried as it had a very long lag time even though it was an whole 11g packet of rehydrated wilkos ale yeast in only 8L. It also stopped fermenting and dropped bright at FG 1.020 which is rubbish compared to my other brews.

Reading around the internet it seems that medicinal taste comes from phenols, or chlorine in sanitiser reacting with phenols. My fermentation temperature was quite low (18c) so I don't think phenols should have been excessive. I'm wondering if I didn't rinse the fermenter well enough post sanitisation which might explain slow yeast and early yeast death. At first I thought it might have been a temperature drop from 18 to 16c which happened when my boiler broke but now I'm not so sure....

Only other thing I can think of is chlorine from the tap water. Is this an issue for any of you?

Phenols are often caused by yeast stress, not just temperature issues.

Medicinal occurs as a result of chlorine in your water + phenols from your yeast. Chlorophenol is really distinctive, just like TCP (trichlorophenol- the clue is in the name). Phenolics on their own are often spicy or clove-like, and chlorine is fairly obvious on its own to.

You can also get chlorophenol from some bacterial infections, so it might be worth while reviewing your sanitation practices.
60 percent of the time it works every time.
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EckersKlein
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 11:42 pm

Re: Medicinal taste

Post by EckersKlein »

If this is an extract brew, the high FG may be due to malt extract of limited fermentability. My early extract brews rarely attenuated below 1.022, despite SGs of around 1.055. After going all-grain, the FGs came down to more reasonable figures. I also noticed that my extract brews tended to have a taste that somewhat resembled lemsip, another problem which also disappeared when going all-grain.
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