just checked my ipa and .......

[alfie09]

hello all

just tried my ipa thats been fermenting now for 12 days and i think i just tasted a very and i mean a very slight taste of tcp maybe i did maybe i dint if you know what i mean it was in the first taste only, the ipa as had 105 grams of cenntennial hops in it 30 grams of them dry hopped, could the taste be from adding to much high alpha acid hops or is it something else

all my water is treated with a whole campden tablet and i have never witnessed this tatse before i have read to much hops can cause this taste but i have use more than 100 grams before with no problems, but this is the most bitter beer i have ever made could i be mistaking the taste for something else?

would it smell of tcp and taste of tcp or would it just tatse of it if you know what i mean ???????

because it certainly smells ok very very hoppy but no smell of anything like tcp

hope this dont go down the drain this beer as cost me close to £15 quid to make it was my 10th brew not had any problems yet!

and also do you lot clean all your tap connectors and take them off and all pipe work before making a brew i dont and have never thought of it because i had a nightmare fitting my tank connectors to make them water tight do you think a infection as come from the tank connector and pipework ?

i do just before the boil fill the boiler half full with water and put in some cleaning soloution and leave it soak while mashing and sparging then after that i let it run out into sink very slow over half a hour to what i thought woud steralize all the tank connector and inside all copper piping then i boil rinse everything once then cold water rinse it then dry with clean tea towell? am i right in thinking this will steralize the lot

[crookedeyeboy]

Personally I think its more of a taste thing than smell although you would certainly be able to smell it if it was an infection.

Then again I wouldnt worry just yet there are many weird smells coming from the FV during ferentation.

[alfie09]

phewwwwwww just took another sample from deeper down in fermenter last one was taken from the dead yeast cells on top and this one is much better very malty and hoppy very alcoholic tasting still is a weird taste but i think it will die down hopefully think it may have somthing to do with heats up here at the moment 23-24oc in the room there in at the moment had a hot week !

thinking the funky TASTES are coming from over heated yeast WLP-001 YEAST

[Horatio]

Not that this has anything to do with the slight TCp taste but... Once you have cleaned and sterilised, if you then wipe it all with a tea towel it will no longer be sterilised! Tea towels and the like are great colectors of bugs and germs etc. Just a tip.

[smdjoachim]

Dont sterilize the boiler taps.When you get near the end of the boil , open the tap up and let the boiling wort pour through into a jug and recirculate for a few minutes.If the copper pipe is in the boiling wort why would you need to sterilize it ?

[Blackjack]

Assuming you made about 5gals. then you have a bitterness of about 130 or more units. ( I fired up beer engine to calc this )
I would think that any very slight hint of a medicinal taste is simply part of the hop extracted flavour. I do not know much about Centennial but I believe it may be one of the more modern bittering hops less suited to dry hopping and flavour/aroma, than say good old Fuggles and Goldings.

[Spud395]

Re: your sanitation method.
I wouldnt be happy with that myself.
Having taken apart my taps after a brew, I've found residue left in the pipe/tap.
You cant sanatise dirty equipment, it has to be clean first!

[alfie09]

i know the copper inside is goin to be sterile but i mean the pipe coming out of the boiler the into a 90 degree bend all them parts i am worried about. i do clean the plastic hose after every brew and steralize it up until i am goin to use it to drain the beer into fermenter but its the taking of the ball valve the tank connector off everybrew these things will break if i did it every brew woudnt they

does anyone else take the ball valve tap off and the undo the tank connector?

i can imagine it needs cleaning and i can fully understand how bits will be in there but i am afraid of the parts breaking and having to buy new every 2-3 brews works out very expensive hobby then !?

[alfie09]

the hops went in at different times here is my recipe

Date:
Gyle Number:
Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Pale Malt 5 EBC 10 lbs. 6.8 oz 4730 grams 85.3%
Crystal Malt 130 EBC 0 lbs. 10.7 oz 305 grams 5.5%
Sugar, Household White 0 EBC 0 lbs. 5.3 oz 150 grams 2.7%
Torrefied Wheat 4 EBC 0 lbs. 12.5 oz 355 grams 6.4%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Centennial Whole 11.7 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 0.8 oz 23 grams 28.4%
Centennial Whole 11.7 % 15 mins 0 lbs. 1.3 oz 38 grams 46.9%
Centennial Whole 11.7 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 24.7%


Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 49.5513348295459 EBU
Colour: 21 EBC

[HighHops]

You've got a hoppy brew there alfie, but nothing wrong with that.

WLP001 is quite tolerant to high temperature and is recommended for 20 - 23C. Ithink it might be the temperature of your room if it is 23-24C then the ferment might be 26- 27C. What temp was the brew?

At higher temps - you will get more esters and fusels and can start to have a solvent taste if too high for too long. I've had to ditch 40 pints recently because of high temp of a brew I made in June. I thought it might go away. It didn't.

It won't be your boiler. As long as it's clean, heating up to 100C for 90 mins kills any bugs. Copper pipes and metal valves get hot enough through conduction.

I would bottle or keg it anyway and leave it for a few weeks to see how it turns out.

[Spud395]

My point is (and I've seen it) there will be residue from a brew in your hop strainer and tap .
If you boil this up I'm sure it will kill anything sinister in it , but it cant be adding anything good in the way of flavour to your brew.
I take apart everything after every brew and clean and sanatise before I put them back together.

[alfie09]

did check tem it was 22oc fermenting not to bad that really is it. thinking about it this is the hoppiest yet so must be my taste buds lol

[johnbarleycorn]

Defo take off and strip down your boiler tap and clean thoroughly each time its used for boiling wort; I immersion chill my wort in the boiler and I was getting recurring infections etc. when i finally worked out that it was the tap that was causing the probs i stripped it and there was a lovely amount of gunge that was only visible when the tap lever was in the open position; this small area was not being subjected to the full force of the boil and my newly chiled sweet beautiful wort was beng takn through the tap and over the "gunge" as it went into the FV. Since cleaning this correctly i have not had a single problem. you live and learn!

[Deebee]

I always take the time to run the boiler tap through with boiling water at the end of each brew. I then always wash it through once again before collecting the sparge.

The only infection i ever had came the brew after a stout. I put it down to the tap spindle on the FV.

Having just bottled another stour i took the tap off and leaft it to soak in cleanser for 36 hours, and made a point of turning the spindle regularly then blasing out with more water before re submerging it in sterilizer.

tap looks almost new again now.