[chrishobza]

Greetings,

I've been brewing for 2 and half years and in that time I've made 30 or so batches of really nice, drinkable beer.  I was kegging a couple of beers this evening; a west coast red ale and a Belgian Golden strong ale.  I thiefed a bit of the west coast red out of the bucket for a gravity reading and to take a quick taste.  The beer looked a beautifully bright clear beer, however it smelled bad and tasted God awful.  Like band-aids, kind of rubbery too,  like licking a truck tire or something.  I couldn't bring myself to taste it again. Needless to say I dumped it. 

Since I've always been really conscientious of sanitation, this really took me by surprise.  I do not want this to happen again.  Anyone have any ideas on exactly went wrong?  I fermented the beer in a plastic bucket for about 3 weeks.  The FG came out about right.  The bucket had the dried yeast ring around the top and the there was a good yeast cake at the bottom.  Looking in my notes the bubbling from the blowoff hose began about 6 hours after pitching.  For those reasons I'm thinking this infection came after the first 5 or 6 days of fermentation.

Any thoughts or ideas that I need to investigate further would be really helpful.

Chris

[Hokerer]

What's your water like? 

"Band-aids" sorta screams Chlorophenols which result from chlorine and/or chloramines in the water you use for brewing.  Human taste threshold for Chlorophenols is very very low.

[chrishobza]

I run my water through a charcoal filter for the chlorine and then I add 1/4 Campden tablet to my HLT per 5 gallons of water for the chloramine.  I usually try to taste my brewing water before I started mashing.  Maybe I forgot this time.  I did a Belgian Golden strong ale the weekend after this beer and it tastes fine.

[majorvices]

"Band aid" also can scream wild yeast. Sometimes it happens. Could have been fruit flies, they can get in under the bucket lid and are prevalent this time of year. Or who knows, all I can tell you is it happens sometimes. I will say I try to move my finished beer out of buckets pretty soon after primary fermentation is finished. They are not air tight and you have more chance to pick up aerobic type infections, which can take off pretty quickly once the Co2 has all leaked away.