Bottle conditioning issues

Hi Guys

So I seem to have an issue with bottle conditioning.... I made two batches of beer before Christmas (i used campden when brewing) and tasted it before bottling and it tasted great minus the fact it was uncarbonated and needed to mature a little... I bottle conditioned using dextrose and have had it at room temp (a pretty consistent 23 deg) ever since bottling and have been trying them every few weeks.... They are all carbonated nicely but still have an underlying band aid flavour that seems to have come from the bottle conditioning... I don't have anywhere with a higher temp to condition them so Im leaving it for a while longer to see if the flavour will drop out of them over time... is there any way to stop this?.... Now my concern is that I am about to make another couple of batches and obviously dont want to have the same issue. Any help would be much appreciated.

Wondering if I should prime with something else.... maybe DME?

tell us about how you prepare your bottles. bandaid is likely either infection or chlorophenols from chlorine or chloramines getting in there somewhere.

A variety of different phenols are almost
always the cause for medicinal flavors in beer.
Phenols can cause solvent, astringent, plastic and
medicinal flavors. Medicinal-tasting phenols are usually
brought out during mashing and/or sparging and
are caused by incorrect pH levels, water amounts and
temperatures. " Yeastalso produces phenols, and a clove-like characteristic
is deliberate in some ale," especially Hefeweizen and
other wheat beers. I'm thinking its the water that your yeast and mash are in. had this problem about 20 batches ago and I've gotten much better at mashing since then. I also have changed my water profile and that change has did wonders for flavor and mash efficiency. there are so many variables in brewing that it is almost imposable to nail down one cause. for me mash ph and the water I use  was my biggest improvement for great tasting beer. some times yeast will act differently and give you off flavors when there in different waters. good luck, hope this helped

I boil some water (~200ml) and disolve the dextrose and simmer for 5 min stirring constantly. I then pour into my bottling bucket and stir gentle when transferring my wart to the bucket to make sure its mixed evenly. All my bottles (glass) are pre washer and sannitised using starsan. I then open the tap on my bottling bucket and fill the bottles gently and cap.... The strange thing is that it all tasted great before bottling...

okay,

so is the water used to mix the star san free of chlorine/chloramines?

if so it sounds like an infection problem. check the spigot of your bottling bucket. does it come apart? and have you taken it apart and made sure it's totally clean in side?

are the bottles really clean? remember you can't sanitize something if it's not clean first.

I like to bake my bottles the night before about 20-30 minutes at 350 then turn off the oven and leave it closed until the next day when you bottle. should be plenty sanitary after that.

After doing some googling on the subject, it looks like there are two main culprits in creating a Band-Aid taste. (How do we know that it tastes like Band-Aids? Did we chew on them as children?)

One is related to chlorine, which you indicate is not the issue.

The other is an infection. Brettanomyces to be specific.  Google it.

Take an unopened bottle, hold it to a bright light, tilt it, and look closely at the neck.  Do you see any rings? If so then you've got an infection.

I had a string of infections before. Sucked. There's a thread on here about it somewhere.

So i just did the "ring test" on a bottle and yes i see a ring on the inside of the bottle.... Looks like i have an infection..... Damn it... Looks like ill be ditching all 80 bottles and baking the bottles before washing them out with star san...  Ahhh soooo upset....  Better take my bottling bucket apart and give that a good sanitize too before i bottle the next batch... Thanks for the advice ...

this is gonna sound crazy but if you have room and more bottles consider saving at least some. infections can sometimes turn into something amazing. it's safely tucked away in your bottles now so it's not going to hurt anything if you do save it.

Maybe ill just do that..  It seems that only one batch has the ring but the other batch doesnt ... They both have the same underlying taste though...

Knock on wood I haven't had any infections, YET!! 
Early on I found oxi-clean "free" (free of perfumes and additives) was my friend to clean all my brewing equipment.
Also, if you hadn't considered it, I would replace your plastic racking hoses as they are cheap and thoroughly clean your any spigots.
Till last week, I didn't realize that the LHBS spigots do come apart for cleaning (guess I have been lucky on that).
I also take apart the bottle wand and soak it in oxi-clean, rinse then into starsan.  Crud can even get under the tiny o-ring on the tip that retracts when you press it on the bottom of the bottle.  Anything and everything that touches the wort is re-sanitized if it removed (spoons, thermometers, etc.)...
You probably already know this but it may help the newbies who are just starting out..

Don't forget to sanitize your hands.

I reckon a lot of infections get in after you've sanitized your equipment and then you transfer bacterior from somewhere else on your hands. I mix up a pot of weak bleach to dip my hands into before I touch anything.

I'm off to suck a bandaid now to find out what you blokes are talking about. I'll have to do it in secret because her indoors already says I'm one tin short of a six pack.

Start kegging. You will wonder why you ever bottled in the first place.

morticaixavier said:

this is gonna sound crazy but if you have room and more bottles consider saving at least some. infections can sometimes turn into something amazing. it's safely tucked away in your bottles now so it's not going to hurt anything if you do save it.

Click to expand...

Ok so I took this advice and stored them.... I opened one up last night and it has an amazing farmhouse ale taste with a wonderful apple undertone now, no weird taste... It has similar characteristics to liefmans goudenband, so great suggestion!!!