Off flavoured Grainfather brews

[Fletch]

The last two brews I've done on my Grainfather have an off flavour, and I don't know why. The first was Brew UK's Hopback Summer Lightning clone. It had none of the fruity hop flavour that I like, just an odd aftertaste. The second brew, which has just finished conditioning, is similar. It's a Proper Job clone, and it smell fine, but again it has the odd aftertaste.
Last time I had a problem, it turned out to be a lump of mouldy grain stuck in the spring in the pump valve. I now make sure I take it apart and clean it after every brew. That caused a TCP flavour, which made the beer undrinkable. This time, it's not undrinkable, but it's not very pleasant.
I'm pretty sure it's not happening after fermentation, as I keg half of the brew, and bottle the rest, and it all tastes the same. So it must be in the Grainfather, or in fermentation. I put the Summer Lightning failure down to too high a fermentation temperature, as we had hot weather at the time, but the Proper Job went into my beer fridge at 19degrees C.
Any idea what could be going wrong folks? I would be very grateful if anyone can solve this for me.

 

[chub1]

Guy living along the road to me had similar problems with two brews. Alas he is away so can't ask him about it in detail at present,but i do know he went to town on a cleaning session:thumb:

 

[Fletch]

Yes, I've spent this morning pumping Starsan through the whole kit, as recommended by David Heath on his YouTube channel. What I might do is go back to extract brewing for the next brew,and if that turns out OK, it proves the problem is related to the Grainfather. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Soton]

This might give you something to consider
I had a problem with small amounts of grain getting tucked away in the seam where the sides and the boiler base join, you can't see they are there, I hadn't used my grainfather for a couple of months and when I got it back out it smelt funky and brown stains were seeping from the join, I jet washed it all out, I now wash the seam out with a brush and now store my grainfather upside down, ( you can still store all the bits and bobs inside just put the top filter in last and it holds everything in place) my thinking is if bits of grain get trapped in the seam after washing it out they will dry quickly and no harm done, then on the next brew the boil kills any nasty's

 

[BeerCat]

Dirty conterflow chiller perhaps.

 

[Fletch]

Cheers guys. I took your advice Soton,and took my Grainfather out into the sunshine to have a proper look. There are indeed a few bits trapped in the seam. I cleaned it with a brush and some diluted bleach. I also noticed a film dried on to some areas of the side walls, so I gave them a good scrub too. You can't see this indoors but bright sunshine shows it up.

It did cross my mind that the counter flow chiller might be harbouring some nasties, but I'm not sure what you can do about that, other than what Imake recommends. Hopefully, the flushing out with Starsan will have cleaned it.
Appreciate all your responses.

 

[Dads_Ale]

Yes, I've spent this morning pumping Starsan through the whole kit, as recommended by David Heath on his YouTube channel. What I might do is go back to extract brewing for the next brew,and if that turns out OK, it proves the problem is related to the Grainfather. Thanks for your reply.

Starsan is not a cleaner so will not remove any crud.
I swear by PBW (I know it is expensive :)) but it does what it says on the tin. A good going thorough with PBW after use then starsan on brew day should work. Oh and try and dry everything fully before being stored away helps.
I have a CFC (not gf) and always run through with boiling water after and before next use.

 

[serum]

You can get malt millers own pbw equivalent and it's cheaper. Works for me.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[Fil]

+1 starsan wont clean much at all, PBW is the gold star product, i use laundry oxi mostly, a single scoop with 10l+ of warm water pumped htru the g/f and CFC for 10-15 minutes, followed by 2 x water rinses pumped thru before upturning to drain and DRY out ..

Drying everything before storage is CRUCIAL!!! even with abundant food micro life cant flourish in dry conditions without moisture. But store something damp and it will go manky.. sit the cfc with its hoses laid to drain freely in the sun for a day or 2 or in winter on/close to a radiator

good luck..

 

[Fletch]

Thanks guys, I always clean with PBW after each brew, as per the manacturer's instructions. I think, maybe, I'll have to pay more attention to cleaning the inside of the vessel. The cleaning cycle flushes the pump and the chiller, but it doesn't really clean the sidewalls very well.

 

[aamcle]

Cleaning - PBW is hard to get and expensive, vast �£'s have been spent developing dishwasher tablets/detergent.

I'ts cheap, it's available and it WORKS.


ATB. aamcle

 

[foxy]

Before I do a brew I put in a desert spoon of sodium percarbonate (perborate) is as good into around 10 litres of water heated to 60 degrees C and reciculate for 10 minutes. If you think it could be the counterflow chiller run some through there or try a no chill and see if you get the same result.

 

[Fletch]

Just had a thought that it might be my hop spider. It's very difficult to get the crud out of seam between the sides and the base. Sure enough, on close inspection there's a lot of muck in there. Even if you manage to dislodge it with a brush, it generally gets stuck elsewhere in the mesh. Think I might abandon it and just chuck the hops in, next time.

 

[Soton]

Before I do a brew I put in a desert spoon of sodium percarbonate (perborate) is as good into around 10 litres of water heated to 60 degrees C and reciculate for 10 minutes. If you think it could be the counterflow chiller run some through there or try a no chill and see if you get the same result.

I will stand corrected but I think that sodium percarbonate is perfume free oxy.
I have read else where that people use non perfumed oxy instead of the Grainfather cleaner, I have to say after not being able to clean some protein crud from the bottom of my Grainfather I rain oxy through it with the same cleaning cycle as Grainfather recomend and witn minimal scrubbing it came off a treat

 

[xozzx]

I dont understand how some grain/hop remains in the GF can cause off flavours? Surely this cannot cause any infection as the wort is boiled for at least 60 mins in the GF before being transferred to the FV.

Do you flow the boiling wort through the counterflow chiller and back into the GF for about 10 mins before turning on the cold water?

Appreciate if someone can explain the possible reason for the off flavours from remnants of previous brews. Whilst I do clean the GF thoroughly after each use I dont put as much effort in as the rest of my equipment. Ive only done 5 brews so far but not had any issues yet.

 

[Soton]

I dont understand how some grain/hop remains in the GF can cause off flavours? Surely this cannot cause any infection as the wort is boiled for at least 60 mins in the GF before being transferred to the FV.

Do you flow the boiling wort through the counterflow chiller and back into the GF for about 10 mins before turning on the cold water?

Appreciate if someone can explain the possible reason for the off flavours from remnants of previous brews. Whilst I do clean the GF thoroughly after each use I dont put as much effort in as the rest of my equipment. Ive only done 5 brews so far but not had any issues yet.

Do you know what I agree with you, but at the same time if you have hidden spent grains and a off flavour wouldn't you think that this might have some sort of baring on the cause
Even if this isn't the cause of the problem you just can't ignor it!

 

[Fletch]

I must admit that I never worried too much about absolute cleanliness of my Grainfather because I believed that the boiling wort would kill any bugs (I do circulate the wort through the chiller to sterilise it before cooling it). However, my daughter trained as a Microbioligist and she says that some micro-organisms are not killed by the boiling process. Apparently, some spore-bearing bugs will survive boiling which may account for why I'm having this problem. I too, had no problems with the first few brews; it's only recently the off flavours have kicked in.

 

[foxy]

To be honest I think it is something that is happening in the fermenter and spraying starsan into the GF is just a waste of starsan.
Yes sodium percarbonate has no smell it is a just a powerful oxy bleach, I use it for all my cleaning, it lasts for about 6 hours and is cheap to buy by the 20 or 25 kg bag sodium perborate is more stable and is the main ingredient for teeth whitening. The the sodium perc can be used for almost any cleaning job carpets, laundry, decking, concrete but really handy for home brewing.

 

[JapanBrew]

It's more like tannins. Just a tad will add this over steeping of tea like flavors. Same as if you used old grains. It probably is a kind of spore that's growing on the grain husk.

 

[Keviebaby]

Sorry this reply is a bit late, not been on the forum for a while as I haven't been brewing over the summer.:sad:

I had an issue with a couple of my Grainfather brews tasting off. Got lots of good advice here but I found the root cause of mine to be a build up of crud in the spring valve at the top of the recirc pipe.

It looked like bits of trub and hop matter had accumulated in the spring body over time and wasn't washed out by cleaning.

I'm pretty sure this was the problem as the off taste and smell in the beer smelt the same as the crap on the spring.

I gave the spring, ball bearing and the whole valve a number of cleans and a couple of boils in a pan but I ended up just taking the spring and ball out and don't use them anymore. No more off taste...well, no more of THAT particular off taste.:mrgreen:

Hope you get it sorted, nothing worse than spending all that time brewing and not being able to drink the results.

Kev.