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hey guys i just opened my latest batch - 1st bottle of my barleywine. and i have a problem......last 3 batches have all had an off flavor/odor. to me it smells like wet cardboard. most people dont notice it but it really boithers me. a few other guys have described it as melted plastic. i read up on both and the only thing im finding is that its possibly oxidation, and my guess is that its coming from rinsing my equipment with tap water after i sanitize. does anyone else do this? any issues? is that little bit of chlorine that big of an effect? today i brewed and i used boiled de-ionized water to rinse. i see on other forums that rinsing isnt even necessary (when using pbw and star-san as i do).
any tips/ advice? i use a digital temp controller and have a refridgerator and heat wrap to keep it within 1 degree and always ferment at spec temps reccomended by yeast supplier.
i hate puttin all this time in and having a brew i dont like. i use the same equipment all the time and it has just recently started. or i just noticed it more. could my bucket be contaminated no matter how much i clean it?

With starsan as your sanitizer, you don't have to rinse. I never have rinsed. I like to get all of my bottles washed, dried, sanitized, and hung upside down to dry. After sanitizer dries, I put them into 6pk holders and drape a sheet of saran wrap (with freshly sprayed sanitizer) over the tops of 6 at a time. These will go into the chamber where the beer is to come to temp equilibrium with the beer. I pull one out at a time from under the wrap, while leaving the others covered, to bottle.

Couple of questions:

How do you bottle? ie, off kegs (force carbonation) w/ gun or from bucket w/ bottle conditioning.

Also, have you tried the "oxygen absorbing" caps? Might be worth the experiment, if it'll help alleviate oxidation.

Lastly, how are you storing the bottles after filling? ie, temp controlled "cellar" or in a temp fluctuating room/closet.

the issue is occurring before bottling. i can smell it and taste it while in the carboy. my carboy is glass - i usually go in a plastic primary and then to a glass secondary (most of the time).

Wet cardboard is oxidation, but I would be surprised if you had it already before packaging. Usually it shows up months or years later in bottled beer. You're not splashing, stirring, or anything like that after fermentation starts are you? Glass carboy should purge most oxygen as primary fermentation kicks off, so you just need an airlock to prevent oxidation.

Star-San should not be rinsed with water. I don't dry it ever, though I guess I dump most of it out of fermenter, bottles, etc. But there is always some that goes in and no off flavors.

I'm wondering if its something else entirely. Do you use tap water; chlorine or chloramines will cause off flavors. Light infections can also have a variety of off flavors. Once a year or so I bleach bomb everything. 1 tbs of bleach per gallon of cold water. 20 minute soak followed by some hot water rinsing.

i was using tap water to clean everything along with the pbw and star san. and then a tap rinse. but my brewing was always spring or purified - de-ionized if lager style. i do not splash or rock the carboy after fermentation. i open the lid maybe 2-3 times to take a sample for gravity readings.