Help with band aid bombs

Band aid comes from chlorine or chloramine in your water. Using a Campden tablet to treat the water before it touches the grain prevents this problem. Always use a Campden, even if you think you don't need it.

The other source of band aid is infection. Since two previous beers were fine. This is more likely to be the current problem. Plate chillers can get gunked up pretty easily and become a source of infection.

How are you cleaning and sanitizing the plate chiller?

 

That could be the problem. Just flushing it with water, even if it's really hot water, won't clean it completely. Sanitizing a dirty chiller isn't too effective.

Now to fix the chiller, you can soak it in hot PBW (2oz/gal) and water inside a pot on the stove. Keep the temp from 180-190F for at least a few hours. Let it soak overnight. I'd be surprised if you don't see stuff coming out of the chiller. You may have to do this more than once.

 

Cleaning and rinsing with heavily chlorinated tap water has never been a problem for me. Chloramine might be a different story, but I doubt it.

StarSan works fine with tap water unless your tap water is too hard. It works very well with distilled water and can last several months with distilled water.

1/2 a Campden tablet treats 10 gallons of water. Crush the tablet into a powder. Put it in your water. Stir it. Let it sit for 15 minutes. Then start heating the water to brew.

 

I agree with Brew_Betty, you're not cleaning your chiller at all, just rinsing it, and a bio-film will develop. However, I'm not a fan of PBW. I don't think it works well, and it leaves a residue. If you're going to use it, I'd suggest you at the very least follow it with an acid wash. I'd try to find some real caustic (sodium hydroxide), but I'm not sure of how home brewers go about that (?). Just my 2 cents. Good luck.

 

Clean the chiller as talked about above. Bake it in an oven preheated to 350F for an hour plus, that should kill the bugs and critters.

 

I want to say carbon filtering wont do a damn thing for chloramines. My city water switched, and while my carbon filter worked well to remove chlorine, it wouldn't touch the chloramines leaving me with band aid babay diaper tripels.

 

Eliminating chloramine is more difficult. You need a multi-stage carbon block filtering system and you need to operate at a slow flow rate in order to eliminate chloramine.

Cheers!

 

For those of you treating tap water, do you use potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite? I see both listed as campden tablets on some sites.

 

Or just use a Pur or better yet Berkey http://www.trmplumbing.com/blog/chloramine/chloramine-filter-test-1

 

Thanks for that link!

I was surprised how effective the Brita water filter was given that it is constituted of a single filter stage. I was under the impression that multiple filters were needed but the Brita eliminates 90% of the chloramine which is quite impressive!!

Cheers!

 

Well crap. I just brewed a Tripel with tap water. I'm really hoping I'm not going to have this off-flavor. We're making another batch soon so I'll check the water report again and see if I need to do some mitigation.

ETA: Water report doesn't list Chloramine, it looks like Chlorine is used in our tap water. Hmm... not sure what I can do with this data.

 

your tripel _may_ have that off flavor, unfortunately. As Brew_Betty said Campden tabs are cheap insurance for your beer. 1/4 tab for 5 gallons. Chlorine or Chloramine, doesn't matter, works for both. I would use it even after filtering. May help hot side oxidation.....some concerns about the oxygen scavenging affect but not a problem with all grain as it is boiled off eventually. With extract Campden could conceivably reduce available oxygen for your yeast if you top up after boiling with campden treated water.....

 

We are doing extract brews right now. Don't have a scintered stone to oxygenate the wort.
Tasted the beer as we were bottling it, didn't taste bad but I felt like it was really lacking in balance. Needs 2-4 weeks in the bottle I'd imagine before it's at it's full potential.
Maybe look into using RO water for the next batch and build up the minerals the way we want. I have no problems using Campden but like you said sounds like it may produce other issues.

 

It has been my consistent experience that higher gravity beers really benefit from extended time in the bottle. I would suggest that you will need a longer timeframe than 2-4 weeks for your Tripel to reach its "full potential". I would highly recommend patience here.

Cheers!

 

Thanks man, really appreciate it, and sorry to sidetrack the thread. I estimate the ABV we were able to get is pretty close to 9.0-9.2, FG was 1.018; we got it down a few more points by letting it ferment for 17 days. If it turns out really good might do a mini write-up on it. I might skip the usual 1-week bottle and try it first at 2+ weeks.

 

I am sort of planning on brewing a Tripel in a few months. I would enjoy reading your write-up.

Cheers!