Nutty/Cardboard Flavour...

[Battleaxe]

So I've brewed two SmaSh's recently one with challenger the other Amarillo and both have developed a weird not overpowering or undrinkable Soft Nutty or Wet Cardboard aromas and Flavour... That is the only way I can describe it I've looked for the common off flavours and it doesn't really fit into any, one was with Nottingham and the other is US-05 yeasts. The only similarity between the two is the break and Trub in the FV looked like scrambled egg before is compacted down during fermentation.

I was wondering if anyone has had the same thing? And what it might be?

[BrannigansLove]

I had a weird peanut flavour in a saison I made last year. I put that down to diacetyl. Wet cardboard is usually the result of oxidation, though I've not experienced it myself.

[daf]

Wet cardboard is definitely oxidisation in m experience. I transferred the bottom half of a keg to bottles without care once and it got that cardboard flavour. Unfortunately it got worse over time and I poured them down the drain.

Can you remember if you splashed the beer a lot between fermentation and packaging?

[Battleaxe]

The only time I "Splashed" the beer was during transfer from the kettle through my Voile filter as it runs through it does foam slightly as it hits the wort below in the bucket before I sy phone into my demijohns... Other than this I never agitate my FV or splash the wort.

[Kev888]

Splashing the 'wort' en route into the FV (provided its cool) is good. Dried yeast will happily use up any oxygen introduced, and liquid yeast actually 'need' plentiful oxygen in the wort for a decent fermentation. The only downside is if said splashing accidentally allows nasties in, like vinegar flies or yeast spores. For completeness I'll say that splashing hot wort excessively (at any stage) should probably be avoided, but don't get paranoid about it - Hot Side Aeration (HSA) isn't really a myth, but the effects are far less than is sometimes suggested.

However, splashing the 'beer', say when racking/kegging/bottling, or keeping it in gas-permeable containers is a different story. By this stage the yeast's capacity to hoover up oxygen is considerably reduced so the beer can taste oxidised, with stale cardboard type flavours.

That said, cardboard or wet paper are the classic descriptions of oxidisation, but flavours are notoriously difficult to identify and describe so its possible you are detecting something else.

[Battleaxe]

That said, cardboard or wet paper are the classic descriptions of oxidisation, but flavours are notoriously difficult to identify and describe so its possible you are detecting something else.

That's basically what I'm thinking, I'd really love to do some type of tasting class... I've seen many Brewers use tasters that can identify and describe 30+ different Flavours and even identify different malts and hops used...

Unfortunately after Quitting 18monts ago 10+ Years of smoking didn't do my taste buds any favours so I'm possibly still rediscovering flavours even now!