pitching too high temperature?

[Aleman]

I read in John Palmer's "How to Brew" that aerating the wort when it is still warm/hot (above 27C or so) can easily oxidise the beer.

Budweiser (Yeah I know) protein strip their wort by spraying it from the boiler into the top of two tall columns that have air injected at a great rate of volumes in at the bottom (a bit like a protein skimmer in a marine aquaria) which carries the protein to the top on the surface of the bubbles . . . the wort is then cooled and aerated. . . . If any beer would show signs of oxidation from this treatment Budweiser would be the one.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Any further information OldThumper?

There are a few other brewers with a similar issue all thinking it's something different.

[OldThumper]

Not really any more info. I guess describing the taste is the key to my issue. May be it is cardboard like or very stale tasting rather than pure yeast. Not sure. Certainly not a whiff of vinegar to be detected. "How to brew" does mention in several places that pitching in to warm wort is bad practise and may give unusual flavours. I also read that it is far better to pitch in to worth which is aronud 18 - 20C (fermentation temperature) otherwise the yeast can be shocked and never really recover.

what else can it be apart from:

1) an infection? (surely I would smell and taste this. e.g. I have had plenty of bad pints in a pub so not what an off pint is)
2) Oxidised
3) too high a temperature during the yeast pitch/initial fermentation

I don't see how it could be poor ingredients as I exceeded my starting SG and it smelt and tasted nice when I transfered from boiler to fermenter. There are stacks of cascade hops in this brew (150g for 5 gallons) so the fact that I cannot detect them at all is a surprise.

I will report back on my next batch which I am doing tonight when I get home from work (yeah going to be a late one!)

[Deebee]

is it in every bottle or just a selected few?

[OldThumper]

The current beer is still in the fermenter (25L). But my last batch was bottled and every bottle I have tried has the same cardboard/yeasty taste to it.

Only thing I think ti can be is something to do with the yeast.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Hi Oldthumper

It does sound like oxidation (which is a cardboard taste). Did the brew get splashed around on bottling? Did air bubbles go through the siphon when racking?

If it's not that then it could also be water treatment?!
Southampton is a hard water area like Suffolk right?

My symptoms are similar to yours, I only have final gravity and primary fermentation time to rule out. After that I'm stuck with water treatment as the cause.

Some helpful people on this forum suggested that if your mash isn't at the right pH then the beer can throw off some odd flavours on conditioning. I am planning to get either some gypsum and bottled water or some 5.2 pH mash correction buffer for the next brew if I still have a problem with the beer that is currently fermenting.
I tried using darker grains in the beer I have fermenting now to correct the mash pH this time round but I don't think it worked because:

In my previous beer I managed to get a gravity of only 1.040 for a five gallon batch using 4.5 Kg of grain. (64% efficiency)
In the beer that's currently fermenting I got a gravity of about 1.050 for five gallons from 5.5 Kg of grain (66% efficiency)

Poor efficiency is a sign of a problem in the mash (or sparge procedure) so it would appear that I have a problem with the mash as I have been as careful as possible with the sparge.

How much grain did you use and what gravity did you get and how much wort did you collect?

If you still suspect the yeast you could try switching to a different yeast and see if this helps.
When I did this it altered the presentation of the problem, it didn't remove it. However, we may have a similar issue but not the same issue.

You could also try bottling as well as barrelling (which I'm doing) to see if you can eliminate oxidation as the cause.

If I were you I would look for the solution rather than the cause. If you can keg ok and it's just bottling that's a problem then stick to a keg for the time being and work it out later.

Good luck with the next brew.

[OldThumper]

Cheers gnorwebthgimi.

Not it i not bottling that is the problem because my beer is still in the primary fermenter, e.g. it is about 12 days old or so and already very yeasty or cardboardy tasting

My water is hard and I have been treating it for the last year with CRS, epsom salts, gypsum and a campden tablet. My mash is always around 5.2

I just mashed the new brew 1 hour ago (a bitter in the style of london pride) and the mash PH was about 5.2 as well.

I made a brilliant porter recently and that has none of the symptoms, unless somehow it is masked by the strong roasty malts?

I once got awful efficiency but I then I found out my digital thermometer was 10C out so I was mashing at about 56C! I don't use a digital thermometer anymore

I will report back to this thread in about 1 week or so to say how my latest beer is going (i have to use SO4) as that is all I have got right now.

Let us know how yours go gnorwebthgimi.

Like I said above I believe the only thing I rush is waiting for the wort to cool right down before pitching. Everything else in the process seems to be bang on in my view.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Interesting!

If it tastes yeasty in the fermenter then normally I would say that is because there is a lot of yeast but you did say that you don't think this will settle out with time and it tastes cardboardy too.

Could be because you're leaving it a while on the trub and yeast cake, S04 is very quick and I have barrelled within 5 days in the past (trying to be patient and wait at least 7 days now for better conditioning).

Did you rack to a second fermentation vessel, oxidation could be getting in if you did?

Other than that, I'm a bit stumped.

[OldThumper]

Nope - I never rack to secondary. I leave in the primary for 10 to 14 days and transfer straight to corny/pressure barrel or bottle it using a little bottler stick.

What is most important is that my beer in fermenter tasted fine after say 6 days (as I say above) but then it goes right down hill rapidly a few days later.

[Blackjack]

Nope - I never rack to secondary. I leave in the primary for 10 to 14 days and transfer straight to corny/pressure barrel or bottle it using a little bottler stick.

What is most important is that my beer in fermenter tasted fine after say 6 days (as I say above) but then it goes right down hill rapidly a few days later.

I still reckion the clue is in the question, rack to barrel after 6 days and see how it goes.

[OldThumper]

OK Blackjack, I will try this and see what happens. This should not need to be done (all advice I see is it fine for at least 4 weeks) but I will follow this advice to increase my chances of success!

The wort is cooling now and stirring it often makes a big difference to the speed at which is cools.

Come on Mr S04 do your stuff now.....

[gnorwebthgimi]

I have to agree with blackjack, but the question is why is this necessary?

I've heard many brewers say they leave there beer in the primary for up to weeks but I've never thought it a good idea.

S04 is quick to ferment as people have said and when no more CO2 is being produced by fermentation O2 could get at the beer. I guess this is happening if you take the lid off a few times after fermentation has subsided. I think that brewers who leave the beer in the primary fermenter a long time tend to use airlocked fermenters.

So my feeling is that it's getting oxidised.

Good luck with the new brew.

[Blackjack]

OK Blackjack, I will try this and see what happens. This should not need to be done (all advice I see is it fine for at least 4 weeks) but I will follow this advice to increase my chances of success!

The wort is cooling now and stirring it often makes a big difference to the speed at which is cools.

Come on Mr S04 do your stuff now.....

I have sent you a PM

[CJBrew]

I have 40+ pints of cardboardy oatmeal stout

I don't know what I could have done wrong although my scales failed so the recipe wasn't quite what I'd intended -- I added a handful or two of black malt midway through the mash to darken it a bit... The oats were cooked into porridge before mashing (was that necessary?)

I used S04 and my typical cleanliness regime that doesn't usually produce bad beer. It's three-four weeks old now and been in bottles 10 days.

The flavour I get is like the smell of wet cardboard that's been left in the garden too long. I.e. wet, slightly rotten wood. Any ideas what might have caused it?

[OldThumper]

Hey all,

I have done a little reading and I am currently wondering if the cause of my problem could be excessive DMS. However, I find it very hard to say if my beer tastes like the description of DMS, which is "corny".

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

A few points of interest:

1.
I now boil for 60 mins exactly. I read that a boil of at least 90 mins is required to remove most of the DMS.
Now for the naughty bit: I put my boiler lid on when bringing the wort up to boil in an attempt to get it to the boil quicker. By the time I go back to the boiler out in the garage it is already boiling away with the lid on. I then sometimes partially remove the lid, leaving the boiler, say, half covered. Seems like some habbit of mine for no real reason! I read that DMS is removed during the boil vapour so obviously leaving the lid on (partially or fully) will allow condensation to drip back in to the wort, hence DMS will not be removed, or not as much.

2. The same article says that DMS is not as detectable in darker roasty beers. Well, the London Porter I made a month or so ago (had this issue for a few months now) tastes superb - my problem has only been seen in my bitters (highly hopped). It could be a coincidence that I got lucky with my Porter of course. But may be a roasty beer would hide many other problems as well.

How likely is DMS to affect me? Can high levels of DMS make an undrinkable beer? At what stage of the process would this be evident? As I mentioned previously, the taste of the beer when put in to the fermenter tastes spot on. It is only after fermentation that the hop flavour and aroma goes away (rapidly) and I get this horrible dry taste, may be cardboard, may be corny - dunno to be honest.

I am not convinced that the boil has to be 90 mins (or does it depend on equipment - e.g. a more rapid boil (better elements) removes DMS quicker) and I know breweries such as Fullers boil for 60 mins.

Anybody got any experience in this area? Can you describe DMS other than "corny"?

May be I should up the boil to 90 mins and leave the lid well and truly away from the boiler (10 gallon PVC, 2 kettle element boiler)

Thanks again for any thoughts.