Klarstein Mundschenk

[Druss]

Little to no Milton residue suggests some! This could be your cause, what did the beer taste like before you bottled it?

It's probably the only beer I've ever brewed that I didn't taste immediately before bottling, sods law really, that certainly would have narrowed it down a bit.

I use Milton to sterilise everything, have done for decades, this is the first time I've ever had off flavours of any kind.

The more I read up on this, the more I'm inclined to believe it may have actually been the water after all. I've only ever done one gallon at a time, left the water overnight to de-chlorinate and it's been fine.

This was the first time I've brewed five gallons at a time, would it need to sit out longer? Would stirring it every once in a while help? Or is it a good idea to use a campden tablet?

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I always use a few mg of sodium metabisulphite. Add it into the unit as I fill it with water.

 

[Caramel Ox]

I have had that off flavour before when accidentally pouring yeast sediment into the glass. Maybe from bottling with too much suspended yeast? Or it was just certain strains?

Neither water or kettle seem likely sources to me - not that chlorinated water couldn’t be an issue but plenty of people use no treatment.

 

[foxy]

Ultrasonic cleaning in degreaser followed by a good rinse and finally passivation.
So not from the unit, most likely infection in the beer.

 

[Druss]

I just finished bottling the second batch I made in the Mundschenk, it smells and tastes like beer, no TCP whatsoever.

I put this batch directly on the trub from the previous (infected/chlorophenol infused) batch so I was a bit worried that there would be eighty odd bottles of beer going down the sink, but it seems fine.

I'm intending to reuse the trub again for my next brew, but as that won't be for a couple of weeks, I've filled a sterilised water bottle with some of it and set it aside in the fridge. There was an almost imperceptible smell of TCP that came from that, I'm assuming it was what was left over from the ruined batch.

So I'm still not really any the wiser, although, on checking my notes it seems the dodgy batch was made with tap water that was left to stand for about ten hours or so and the (so far) good batch used water stood for about 48 hours.