Chlorine taste in 3 batches 🤬

Question

I’m new here, but wondering if any of you guys & Girls help!

I’ve been brewing for about a year and done over 20 brews of various different beers mainly PA’s and IPA’s using a Grainfather. For about 8 months beers were coming out consistently using everything, when it came to tap water, raw ingredients, same supplier, same sanitisers, grainfather cleaner, vessels for fermentation (plastic) and exactly the same cleaning methods. Here comes the bad bit I’ve recently done 4 brews all IPA’s 2 of which tasted strongly of chlorine no other issues, normal dizziness, colour, in 2 separate vessels for fermentation. Next brew was fine. I’m then thinking he’s out of the woods, to my horror I’ve just bottles the 4th batch and I’m back to square one the chlorine taste is back!

The first 2 brews I dry hopped previously I tried out doing a batch of raspberry beer and thought even though I sanitised the hop sock maybe the raspberry’s did it and caused the strange taste. So for the 3rd I didn’t dry hop and hay presto issue gone! Thought for the 4th no hop sock to rid this problem forever but no it’s back and I’m mortified.

It’s always after fermentation 14 days (usual period) that I allow before bottling, I then take the final ABV reading, have a little sip and Yuk, always taste the beer before fermentation no problem beer stored in London in cellar at near consistent temperature of 21 degrees

Please please please can anyone suggest anything?

TIA

Jolly

Answer 1

There is this homebrew question which already has some good answers.

The first thing to look at is your brewing water, and your cleaning and sanitizing solutions. If your brewing water is not highly chlorinated, and you are not using any cleaners solutions that would impart this flavor you may be getting phenolic off flavors as a result of an infection.

Your example doesn't provide much information, but it seems the instance in which you did not interact with your beer during secondary you did not encounter this. This may lead one to believe you are introducing unwanted bacteria during your secondary fermentation phase (dry hopping, fruit additions, etc).

I would check to ensure all of your equipment is very clean and sanitized before use and as a precaution replace any plastic tubing or scratched plastic brewing vessels that may be infected with bacteria.

Answer 2

Chlorine can only really come from your water or your cleaning process. Make sure you get filtered water or use a campden tablet in your water to get rid of chlorine before you brew.

How are you cleaning your equipment? You should only be using chemicals like PBW and Starsan to clean and sanitize everything.

Are you absolutely sure it's chlorine? You might be confusing some other off flavors with chlorine. Check this list to make sure you have the right description