Over sparged beer

[aorrick]

I believe I over-sparged a batch of a summer seasonal beer I wanted to make. Kind of an astringent, rubbery, band-aid flavor. It comes through pretty strong. Any ideas on how to save this? Can I fruit this beer with some puree or something?

Thanks.

[burcher]

are you sure you oversparged it? I was haunted by a recurring infection in our brewery that gave a phenolic, band-aid, medicinal flavor and aroma and am convinced (read kind of sure) it is an airborne infection. I never sparged over 175 and never had final runnings below 1.011. I eliminated chlorine and chloramine as a variable, and finally, all contact with brewery air alltogether. It's all a crapshoot like most of it I'm learning, but I am still leaning toward infection.

As far as fixing it, I dumped all mine and now I'm super cued into that particular flavor/aroma. Sucks but good luck, hopefully yours is sparging and does not keep coming back.

[beerking1]

Phenolic, band-aid, medicinal, plastic are all good descriptors of a wild yeast infection.
Rubbery could be autolysis.

[Woolsocks]

Yeah, I'm not sure where that flavor came from, but I doubt it's from oversparging. Why do you think you oversparged it? My rule is the bed should stay at or under 170F, runnings should stay at or over 2P, and pH of runnings should stay under 6. If you did all those things, I bet you didn't oversparge.

In any case, I can't think of any good way to get rid of that flavor. Maybe try a CO2 scrub just to say you tried everything, and then dump it if it still tastes bad.

[Ted Briggs]

I aggree, its probably infection. Unfortunatly phenols are not as volitile as sulfur compounds and cant be effectivly scrubbed out. It may be dump time I suggest you send some to white labs, BSI or another lab and get it identified so you know what you are up against. There are also swab kits available so you can pin-point the contamination source. Although, id put $20 on the heat-Ex. And get a fresh batch of yeast of course....

[gabewilson50]

Agree, rubbery band-aid flavor is not from oversparging. The only problems caused by oversparging are increased polyphenol extraction and low OG.

The off flavors you describe are either from an infection or free chlorine in your brewing/sparging water.