First off let me say that I’m new to home brewing so I’m still understanding just the basics. I have 5 small batch brews under my belt with great success I feel but I recently did a Saison au Miel and it has a very distinct Aspirin after taste. I read a bunch of home brew forums but haven’t really nailed down what may have caused it. I followed the directions and sanitation to a “T”. I kept the fermenter around 68-72 in a dark cabinet for 2 weeks and left at the same temp in bottle conditioning for 2 more weeks. This past Saturday I open up a bottle and it appeared to have a nice golden color and was definitely carbonated but then I took a sip and this very robust Aspirin taste hit me right in the mouth :oops: . I have no idea what I may have done. Is this an infection of sorts? Did I not let it ferment long enough? Any help is appreciative. Thanks
Medicinal/band-aid is usually a chlorophenol, and is usually water-related. Even if you have a chlorine filter on the water you are using, many municipal water supply systems are treated with chloramine, which is more stable…aka harder to get rid of.
I had this happen once in an American wheat beer (there is a particular protein in wheat malt that makes this more likely in them), and I have used Campden tablets ever since.
A $4.95 package I bought 4 years ago has lasted me over 30 batches and will likely last another 30.
Unfortunately, there really isn’t a way to get rid of this, though if you keg, you CAN add campden after fermentation, but the result isn’t ideal.
http://www.winning-homebrew.com/off-flavors.htmlIt can also be a yeast ester if the fermentation is too warm (not the ambient temp, but the beer itself, which gets warmer than the room its in), or a combination of the two.
I am almost wondering if the aspirin taste isn’t…saison. Saisons are by nature bitter, funky, somewhat acidic. Definitely one of the strangest beers I have ever loved. If you are not very familiar with saisons, then I suggest you pick one up from a bottle shop or brew pub and try a commericial example to see if you think all saisons are aspirin-like.
I don’t think its my water supply, i use Deer Park Spring Water new from the store for all my brews so far with this one being the first to have a crazy distinct off taste. Honestly i don’t think i ever had a Saison that i can recall maybe its the taste. Any other thoughts?
I made the same recipe this spring. It tasted weird and aspirin-like after 2 weeks bottle conditioning also. I left it another 3 weeks and it was SO much better. Just needed time. Don’t know what exactly happened but its good now and I’m going through the 1 Gallon batch pretty quick.
