Phonolic off flavors

So after a long hiatus from entering my brews in competition I jumped back into the fray in the last month, with no good results. I seems I have issues with “plasticy phenolic” flavors and aromas. I don’t seem to notice them but I still want to try to fix the issue.

I recently installed a carbon filter but that was after the three batches that I entered in the competition, and I’m waiting to receive my test kit from Ward Labs to find out what I’m really dealing with. My water does taste fine to me, but I know others in town (we are on a municipal well) have complained about a chlorine taste/odor in the tap water.

I checked with the village water utility and told they add Sodium Hypochloride and Sodium Silicate in the water treatment process so I don’t think I have to deal with chloromines will the carbon filter be enough to get the chlorine out or should I take other steps (campden,bottled water, install an RO filter) to start trouble shooting my issues?

A few other details about the brewhouse

  • usually 10 gallon batches
  • electric RIMS mash system
  • electric brew kettle
  • sanitize with STAR-SAN in distilled water
  • yeast starters stepped up from smackpacks on stirplate

Any advice is much appreciated!

I would try camden to start. Someone with more water experience might chime in as to exactly what compounds camden will precipitate out. Though this does sound like a water issue.

RO filters do not seem to be worth the money unless you spend crazy amounts of money on a really good system. As an aside, that water is not good to drink as it supposedly leeches good gut bacteria from its drinkers.

I had a similar problem when I first started all grain. My problem was that I have pretty hard water and was doing nothing to control mash pH. You’re doing the right thing in getting your water tested, you’ll then know what you’re working with and then can figure out what you may need to do to adjust it. I use Bru’n Water to do my water calculation, there are lots of other options for water calculations but that is the one I learned and it works well for me.

Chlorine is classic plasticky phenolic in homebrew. Yes, the filter should take care of this and works great for me. Do ensure the charcoal in the filter is “activated” and designed for chlorine removal. Also remember the filter does not last forever and I recall the mfr suggesting changing at 6mos but I manage to get a few years out of mine as it is dedicated to brewing use only. Occasionally I do a real scientific test to determine if the filter is still operational: tasting the filtered water side by side plain tap. :lol: Thanks for reminding me, time to test again! From there, get the water stats and most likely you will be dealing with removing excess alkalinity to dial in mash and beer pH for light beers. Report back with the data and we’ll talk more.

Sodium Hypochloride is also called bleach. I believe it will evaporate if you simply leave the cover off vessel it is in overnight. Someone please chime in if that is wrong. Campden tablets might also work but I agree with the carbon filter and use one every time I brew. I don’t believe any of those methods other than the filter will remove chloramines.
I am impressed by judges that can pick up on some of these off flavors. Many times I could not so the feedback can be very helpful. Now days I don’t enter competitions and just brew for me and if it tastes good, then good enough. Might get back in someday soon too though.

Crush 1/4 Campden tablet per 5 gallon batch and add to your water before brewing. Chlorine is eliminated instantly and you’ll never have this problem again. It’s as simple as that!

So I got my report back from Ward Labs…will start playing with Bru’n Water later to see that it comes up with, at this point I’m not really sure what any of these numbers really mean.

pH 7.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 888
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 1.48
Cations / Anions, me/L 14.8 / 14.4

                                                     ppm

Sodium, Na 335
Potassium, K < 1
Calcium, Ca 3
Magnesium, Mg < 1
Total Hardness, CaCO3 12
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 170
Chloride, Cl 10
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 212
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 175
Total Phosphorus, P 0.03
Total Iron, Fe 0.18
“<” - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

That’s a pretty high amount of sodium and sulfate. Not sure how you would deal with the sodium, other than diluting with some distilled water.

The high bicarbonate levels means your mash pH was too high and you extracted tannins from the grain, which is most likely the source of the phenolic off flavors. Some lactic or phosphoric acid will easily correct this, though, if you go by the recommendations from Bru’n Water. :cheers:

Judging from what i,ve seen in your report it would be easier to use disstilled or ro water and add from there… :cheers:

I think Tank is probably right… But it’s probably worth trying a batch with a corrected mash and sparge pH. Your sodium and sulfate are awfully high, but it still might be good enough. Not ideal, but you might be happy enough with the result to not bother with buying water every brew day. High mash pH definitely causes your off flavor.

Do you have a water softener?

Yes, we do have a softener, although I thought the basement sink that I tapped into was not on the softener line. I could be wrong though, the plumbing is a bit of a mess, the house was built as single family, converted to upper/lower duplex, and then back to single family before we bought it, so there are some pretty funky utility connections.

Yes, we do have a softener, although I thought the basement sink that I tapped into was not on the softener line. I could be wrong though, the plumbing is a bit of a mess, the house was built as single family, converted to upper/lower duplex, and then back to single family before we bought it, so there are some pretty funky utility connections.

I plumbed our old house to bypass the softener so it was easy. In your case it sucks that you can’t find how the sink is fed. Try drinking some from the sink and from another source. You may be able to tell the difference. One other thought is if you can get at the softener and turn off the output then try your sink to see if it still works. Good luck.

It took some doing, and a nice tight fit for my fat ass, but I traced it back thru a crawlspace and yes my basement slopsink is fed from the softener.

I am thinking about an RO filter either way then I will not have to worry about it at all anymore.

It took some doing, and a nice tight fit for my fat ass, but I traced it back thru a crawlspace and yes my basement slopsink is fed from the softener.

I am thinking about an RO filter either way then I will not have to worry about it at all anymore.

I’m sure your already looked, but often there is a valve for the incoming water before it enters the softener. In a previous residence, I was able to get water from such a valve before it entered the softener. It meant carrying water up from the basement, but that wasn’t really an issue.

Worst case you should be able to get water from the bleeder valve of your pressure tank. I would do that and send a sample to ward labs for testing. You may not need RO or anything else. Lots of people brew with well water successfully.

I’m more than willing to put in some more plumbing, so I will run a second test with Ward labs.