My current project is early in its secondary and has developed a plastic smell and off taste. It's not 'chemical' as some mead problems typically smell and taste nor it is burnt, sulphur or like burnt rubber but like actual plastic. I'm trying to pinpoint cause.
The after taste must have developed somewhere between racking from primary right until before I took the sample today. I remember, and my log confirms, that there was no such plastic smell or taste back then.
Fusels: mostly plastic tastes with a chemical background are fermentation problems. As one can read in my log the high S.G. might have resulted in stressed yeast. It did start up quite slow. I've kept the temperature down to 19 degree Celsius and slightly lower though. From my log I can tell that, between May 13 and May 27 the gravity dropped 80 points. Then between May 27th until June 20th (as far as I can still tell) the gravity dropped only 24 points; in other words, the second time lapse was considerably longer but not 1/3rd of the gravity drop.
This would indicate to me a stress point where the yeasts had an exceptionally harder time. This does coincide with a particularly warm week where I live so perhaps the temperature did rise above 19 degrees without my knowledge.
Orange peel contaminants: I've removed the orange peel and it smells much stronger like plastic than the sample I took. Other than pesticides I can't think of a reason why it would cause a plastic taste. I did a very throrough rinse and then simmered it for a while because of this very reason; to get rid of pesticides. Or maybe the oranges I bought just taste like plastic -.- genetic engineering anyone?
Bleach contaminants: I use chlorine as a sanitizer and rinse with sterilized water afterwards. Though I stick to a regimen of 10 rinses, maybe some was left behind in the tubing for racking from primary to secondary.
Full recipe and detailed log: http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/24619-Nefu-s-1-1-Trad-amp-Meth-(Log-amp-recipe)
Halp!
The after taste must have developed somewhere between racking from primary right until before I took the sample today. I remember, and my log confirms, that there was no such plastic smell or taste back then.
Fusels: mostly plastic tastes with a chemical background are fermentation problems. As one can read in my log the high S.G. might have resulted in stressed yeast. It did start up quite slow. I've kept the temperature down to 19 degree Celsius and slightly lower though. From my log I can tell that, between May 13 and May 27 the gravity dropped 80 points. Then between May 27th until June 20th (as far as I can still tell) the gravity dropped only 24 points; in other words, the second time lapse was considerably longer but not 1/3rd of the gravity drop.
This would indicate to me a stress point where the yeasts had an exceptionally harder time. This does coincide with a particularly warm week where I live so perhaps the temperature did rise above 19 degrees without my knowledge.
Orange peel contaminants: I've removed the orange peel and it smells much stronger like plastic than the sample I took. Other than pesticides I can't think of a reason why it would cause a plastic taste. I did a very throrough rinse and then simmered it for a while because of this very reason; to get rid of pesticides. Or maybe the oranges I bought just taste like plastic -.- genetic engineering anyone?
Bleach contaminants: I use chlorine as a sanitizer and rinse with sterilized water afterwards. Though I stick to a regimen of 10 rinses, maybe some was left behind in the tubing for racking from primary to secondary.
Full recipe and detailed log: http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/24619-Nefu-s-1-1-Trad-amp-Meth-(Log-amp-recipe)
Halp!
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