TCP taste

[mrobinson]

Hi,

I've had problems with chloramine in my local water supply causing my beer to taste like TCP so I switched to bottled water.

My last batch was from a kit, so out of habit, I used 2 litres of tap water in the kettle to get the extract out of the tin. It was too late before I realised my mistake, so I finished the batch anyway, using bottled water for the other 21 litres.

This batch tastes like TCP too. Can such a small amount of chlorinated water ruin the beer?

The reason I ask is because I wanted to make sure I wasn't screwing up in some other way ( such as in my cleaning ).

 

[Wardy]

What temperature is the wort at when pitching the yeast and during fermentation. High temperature might be the reason for the TCP taste.

 

[HisDudeness]

What do you use to clean and sterilise? TCP taste can also come from leftover chlorine from cleaning products that havent been rinsed out sufficiently. Your water would need to be very heavily chlorinated to cause this with only 2 litres that had also been boiled

 

[mrobinson]

I didn't measure, I went with my gut. I'll be more careful from now on, if that is a potential side-effect.

I always assumed that 2l of boiling water and 21 litres of cold water would work out about right. I've also heard that pitching sooner is more important than perfect temperature to prevent infection.

 

[mrobinson]

What do you use to clean and sterilise? TCP taste can also come from leftover chlorine from cleaning products that havent been rinsed out sufficiently. Your water would need to be very heavily chlorinated to cause this with only 2 litres that had also been boiled

Apparently our tap water is heavy in chloramine at the moment, which apparently can't be removed by boiling.

I use sodium metabisulphate to clean, but I do make an effort to rinse properly. I do have some no-rinse stuff ( sodium percabonate ) that I could use instead, I suppose ( I like the sodium metabisulphate because it's cheaper, but I could stop using it if it is causing problems ).

 

[HisDudeness]

Apparently our tap water is heavy in chloramine at the moment, which apparently can't be removed by boiling.

I use sodium metabisulphate to clean, but I do make an effort to rinse properly. I do have some no-rinse stuff ( sodium percabonate ) that I could use instead, I suppose ( I like the sodium metabisulphate because it's cheaper, but I could stop using it if it is causing problems ).

I don't think those sterilising agents would be causing the issue (do correct me if im wrong someone!) so I guess maybe it is the water, can you smell an obvious chlorine odour from it?

 

[mrobinson]

I can't smell chlorine in the water, but my sense of smell is terrible. My local HBS says the chlorine/chloramine levels are high at the moment and I take his word for it.

 

[Leon103]

More chlorine is put in the water supply when we have heavy rains.

 

[cheapbrew]

Campden tabs or sodium metabisulphate are supposed to eliminate both free chlorine, and chloramine.

 

[Sandimas]

There are a number of things that can cause a TCP taste including infections (which may be why you asked about technique / cleanliness).

As you switched to bottled water and just used a small amount of tap water to swill out the tin, I don't think that would have tainted the beer. After all, you can only just taste chlorine in tap water and that little amount would have been diluted by the 40 pints of bottled water.

Is you beer bottled or kegged? If it's bottled, is it a bit lively? Infections eat the non-fermentables so you will keep getting more CO2, so that's a good way to test - leave a bottle a few more weeks and see if it produced a load more CO2. But be careful: infected beer in bottles will just keep going and going and may result in some exploding, I've had some of these recently.

 

[duncans]

Sorry to hear you have had a problem.

It doesn't take much TCP to taste it, and it can come from chlorine during fermentation.

If you are cleaning with chlorine based cleaners, then it is possibly this. More rinsing needed.

If you think you have chlorine in your water at extremely high levels then try boiling it first or dropin half a campdentablet (or 1/4g of sodium metabisulphite, same thing) for upto 50l water.

If that doesn't fix it it could be an infection.I have had TCP taste along with a slight darkening of the beer, which I believe was an infection.

 

[TheRedDarren]

I didn't measure, I went with my gut. I'll be more careful from now on, if that is a potential side-effect.

I always assumed that 2l of boiling water and 21 litres of cold water would work out about right. I've also heard that pitching sooner is more important than perfect temperature to prevent infection.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble, I'm sure it'll be a one off.

TCP flavours can be caused by chlorine as discussed. But there are a few other things that can cause it...
Look at your kit, there is a chance that old plastic can leach nasties back into the beer.
If you use any cleaners that contain either bleach or hypochlorite and don't thoroughly rinse them out can cause this off flavour (Always rinse a minimum of three times after using them, including VWP).
Infection form wild yeast or bacteria is also a possibility, so always maintain good cleanliness, as you know.

You can also get solvent flavours from the yeast that were held at too high a temperarture, althought these are more solventy than medicinal but I guess it would be similar to taste.


You mention that you heard it was better to pitch sooner rather than at the correct temperature to help ward off infection, I would seriously disagree with that.
Yeast health is really quite vital to a good pint and pitching at a high temperature will stress it (try to keep the pitching temp within 3*c of the yeast temp) as will many other things. Its much better to wait for the correct temp than rush it, if your hygiene is good you'll have no worries having the wort hanging around a good while.

 

[Hoddy]

Chlorine is dosed at the clean water distribution point at 0.50mg/litre. Chlorine naturally degrades over time. It's a contact disinfectant so it's highly unlikely that you would have it after fermentation. Unfortunately my money's on an infection.

Look up "off smells" on brewing websites like byo and see what they describe and if it sounds like your issue.