Phenolic flavor from WLP007?

[joel5000]

Has anyone ever experienced a clove-like phenolic with WLP007? I just tapped a keg of the Oakshire Ill-Tempered Gnome clone recipe from the Craft Brewing for the Homebrewer book, and it has a distinct clove flavor. It is actually not unpleasant, and it adds some additional complexity, but it wasn’t what I was going for. I used harvested WLP007 slurry for the batch, as that is what I had on hand (recipe calls for Chico strain).

I did have about an 18 hour lag time, so I’m concerned that the slurry may not have been as viable as I thought it was. Also, temp was not well-controlled and primary got up to about 71 degrees. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[blatz]

if the ambient temp got up to 71df, your beer may have been up as high as 80df at the peak of fermentation. that certainly could cause the yeast to spit out some unwanted phenols.

not sure which hops are used in that recipe, but its possible that you could also be getting a spicy note from the hops?

[joel5000]

[quote=“blatz”]if the ambient temp got up to 71df, your beer may have been up as high as 80df at the peak of fermentation. that certainly could cause the yeast to spit out some unwanted phenols.

not sure which hops are used in that recipe, but its possible that you could also be getting a spicy note from the hops?[/quote]

Thanks for the response. The 71 degrees was the beer temp as measured by the fermometer on the carboy; ambient was around 64.

I don’t have the recipe in front of me and I’ve brewed a couple batched since then, so I can’t remember the complete hop schedule, but it was American varieties, not nobles that I would expect to get a spicy note from. The grain bill does have some special b, kiln coffee, and extra special malt that I suppose could be contributing, but I would expect more dark fruit and plum/raison from those.

[blatz]

aye. yeah - i wouldn’t expect that from 71df beer temp.

I’ve had some friends use kiln coffee malt and the beers they made with it always had a weird note to them - not something i would describe as clove, but not real pleasant either.

maybe with some time it will mellow out a bit.

[joel5000]

It was my first time using kiln coffee malt, so I guess that could be contributing that note. Fortunately the beer is still enjoyable; I just like to figure out why when something I’m not expecting happens.

[flip]

I’ve used 007 quite a bit in the past and am on a run of 5 different beers of repitching it and haven’t run into a clove flavor though I do ferment at a bit lower temps (typically topping out at 67 degrees). Odd but I’ve got something kind of like clove (or at least a bit ‘belgian-y’) out of my leaf Amarillo hops. It has happened on 3 different beers now so I’m pretty sure it is the hops. It isn’t bad, just unexpected.