# Rubbery Bandaid Smell and Taste Strawberry Wine



## seth8530 (Aug 25, 2013)

So, my girlfriend decided to pick and make a strawberry wine. The FG is sitting around .990 The original gravity was 1.03-1.04 before sugar was added to bring it up to 1.100 ish. ( bad notes) 

55 lbs of fresh picked strawberries were used to make 5 gallons of wine. It was aged on light french and medium american oak spirals.

I apoligize for the bad notes, this was her first batch of wine and she did not take great notes. 

So the issue is that the wine currently has a band-aid rubbery smell and taste to it. As well as a very strong strawberry taste. The colour is bright red (Awesome). Any thoughts on the taste? Something that will most likely age out? Anyone know the cause of it?


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## ShawnDTurner (Aug 25, 2013)

Sounds like Brett, but I will let others chime in! Cheers


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## Pumpkinman (Aug 25, 2013)

I'll have to agree, Bandaid smell is one of the aromas associated with brett. 
I'd distance my wine and equipment from that batch!


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## Norske (Aug 25, 2013)

This is from my copy of wine flaws''''''

FLAW - Band-Aid odor;

CAUSE - Too little yeast is trying to complete
the fermentation.

Resolution if any;

Add Yeast Nutrient to the wine. The
addition of more Wine Yeast may be
necessary. If the odor does not
improve, you can rack the wine in a
splashing manner to release the odor
once the fermentation is complete.
Then treat the wine with 1.5 Campden
Tablets per gallon.


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## Arne (Aug 26, 2013)

Is she using all new equiptment? If so, see if the bung smells like you are saying the wine smell. If smelling directly out of the carboy, you can get the new bung smell from it. Arne.


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## seth8530 (Aug 26, 2013)

Thanks for the replies everyone. The equipment was all new. The wine went completely dry ( Brett needs sugar right unless it developed during fermentation).. 

The thing is about the smell and taste is that it is not truly unpleasant, just kind of young smelling in a way.... But, it is disturbing that the smell is associated with brett. I figured brett would of been more unpleasant on the palate. Perhaps I should keep that equipment separated from the rest for now and wait and see what happens with time before I declare it brett for sure and the equipment used with that wine ruined? 

I suppose it is possible that the wine did not have enough nutrient during fermentation, but I think she added nutrient.... The questions is whether or not it was enough... 

Or it could be brett...

Or it could be just the new bung smell...


Hmm, so many choices....


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## Boatboy24 (Aug 26, 2013)

My money is on bung odor. Mmm, sounds delicious. 

I sniffed 4 wines yesterday - Carmenere, Malbec, Pinot Noir and Amarone. Every single one of them smelled about the same. My bungs are almost all over a year old, and I still get that smell when I sniff from the top of the carboy. Thief some into a glass and it's a very different story.


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## Dend78 (Aug 26, 2013)

yeah that bung smell/taste hangs on forever, give it some time let it age it seemed that after a month on my first DB i made with all new stuff it all came out of it, there was for sure the smell and taste to the wine though until it aged out.


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## jswordy (Aug 26, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> Any thoughts on the taste? Something that will most likely age out? Anyone know the cause of it?



Yes, it will age out. Causes cited are as many as you care to think about - yeast stress, "bung taste" from bad rubber in the bungs, etc. I have done specific experiments to see if this flavor will age out. It does.


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## Arne (Aug 26, 2013)

jswordy said:


> Yes, it will age out. Causes cited are as many as you care to think about - yeast stress, "bung taste" from bad rubber in the bungs, etc. I have done specific experiments to see if this flavor will age out. It does.


 
Are you sure you have aged wine?? Didn't know that was possible. LOL, I believe I'll join ya. Arne.


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## jswordy (Aug 26, 2013)

Arne said:


> Are you sure you have aged wine?? Didn't know that was possible. LOL, I believe I'll join ya. Arne.



Once I stepped up to Brute-sized batches, it has been easy to accumulate bottles. I have about 200 in the root cellar right now, another 40 in the Vinotemp, and 65 in carboys waiting to get bottled. That doesn't count the wine that's not ready to bottle yet.

Here's the post I made about my experiment...

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f6/apple-wine-bung-taste-aging-experiment-result-38795/


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## robie (Aug 26, 2013)

Hey Jim, good to know you have finally accumulated a good month's supply of wine!!! 

Just kidding! That really is the way to be able to stay away from the wine until it is ready - make lots of it; maybe even hide some or at least separate some from the rest and mark it "do not touch" 'till...


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## jswordy (Aug 26, 2013)

robie said:


> Hey Jim, good to know you have finally accumulated a good month's supply of wine!!!



Hey let's not exaggerate - no way that would last me a month!


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## sdelli (Aug 26, 2013)

I had a rubber smell once... Found out the so2 crashed on me... Brought it back up and in a couple weeks it was fine again.. It did take more then usual though since some had to bind.


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## sdelli (Aug 26, 2013)

Seth,

Here is some info for you on that if you think it might be Brett.... I still think good levels of so2 will help it though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brettanomyces


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## seth8530 (Aug 27, 2013)

Thanks for the postings everyone. 

Sdelli, I just read the wiki article, I am starting to think it is not brett, the only flavour/aroma it comes close to matching is bandaid and that might be because it smells so rubbery. The taste is kind of like a rubbery warm plastic kind of smell. The over all taste is very strawberry taste that kind of turns into that rubbery kind of taste.

jswordy, I will give your topic a looking at when I get a chance!


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## GreginND (Aug 27, 2013)

Personally I am not a fan of strawberry wine. And it is because of the funky aftertaste I always taste in them. Perhaps I am more sensitive to it than others because folks have told me they don't taste the off taste. I notice it in nearly all strawberry wines. So, I wonder if what you are tasting/smelling is from the strawberries themselves as opposed to another flaw.

That and the color usually turns into a very unappealing orange. For me there are better fruits to ferment.


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## sdelli (Aug 27, 2013)

I don't think you do either....


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## botigol (Aug 27, 2013)

Based on my one, and hopefully only ever (fingers crossed), brett infection I would say that it could be early in the infection or it is something innocuous like the bung. I would probably splash rack it and definitely hit it with a dose of SO2, then wait to see what develops. If the smell and/or flavor become stronger it would pretty much have to be brett. I have had Band-Aid/rubber smells come and go in ciders and apfelwein, but I haven't made a strawberry wine yet so I don't know if it gives off odd odors or not.


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## seth8530 (Aug 27, 2013)

Thanks for the advice everyone, we dosed it with SO2. Hopefully, it will come around with some time. If it starts to get stronger then we will know its brett, if it stays constant or starts going away in a few months then perhaps its just going through a phase or perhaps just a stressed fermentation.


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## seth8530 (Mar 25, 2014)

Looks like the bandaid flavour has slowly been reducing. It is possible that we were misinterpreting the young dry acidic strawberry smell. Either that or it had a bit of sulfur in it. We plan on adding some redulees to it to see if it helps it any.


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## JohnT (Mar 25, 2014)

If it is sulfur related, then it is probably a mercaptans issue. 

If that is the case (classic burnt rubber or Band-Aid smell), then reduless will not do a whole lot of good. 

You should first treat the wine with ascorbic acid to revert the mercaptans back to H2S. You can then use your reduless to deal with the H2S.


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## seth8530 (Mar 25, 2014)

Why do you think it is a mercaptans issue? I do not have much experience dealing with these kinds of things.


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## sour_grapes (Mar 25, 2014)

JohnT said:


> If it is sulfur related, then it is probably a mercaptans issue.
> 
> If that is the case (classic burnt rubber or Band-Aid smell), then reduless will not do a whole lot of good.
> 
> You should first treat the wine with ascorbic acid to revert the mercaptans back to H2S. You can then use your reduless to deal with the H2S.



I am curious: Is it known (i.e., established) that the copper in Reduless will not bind mercaptans (AKA thiols)? In general, mercaptans do bind strongly to copper in other systems, so I would have thought Reduless would work on mercaptans in wine. Do you know of any place this lack of effectiveness is described?


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## JohnT (Mar 25, 2014)

SG, 

Considering the odor, I was thinking in terms of poly-mecaptans/disulfides (or diethyldisulfide) which can not be treated with copper. 

In the case of this compound, you need to first apply an antioxidant (ascorbic acid) to break the compound down into a form of mercaptans that can be treated by copper.


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## sour_grapes (Mar 25, 2014)

Ah, I think I see (or smell?). 

I have smelled my share of H2S and thiols, but what do disulfides smell like?


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## sour_grapes (Mar 25, 2014)

Ah, never mind. Google helped me out: http://www.fruit.cornell.edu/shared/pdfs/SulfurOffOdor.pdf

Thanks for the insight, that helped.

A relevant snippet from that document referenced above:


> If the aroma screen indicates the present of methyl and ethyl mercaptan, aeration should not be attempted under any circumstances. Mercaptans are readily oxidized to form other less-potent compounds, e.g. to their corresponding disulfides, which are significantly harder to remove. Mercaptans can be removed to some extent with appropriate copper sulfate additions, though this operation has been found to be only about half as efficient as H2S removal. The reaction forms an insoluble copper mercaptide salt that can be filtered from the wine.
> 
> If mercaptans have oxidized to form dimethyldisulfide (DMDS) and diethyldisulfide (DEDS), they must be converted to their parent mercaptan species prior to removal. Disulfides are first reduced with the addition of 50mg/L or more of ascorbic acid, immediately followed by an appropriate addition of copper sulfate. This reaction can be fairly slow, requiring as long as two months to reach equilibrium- obviously not something that you want to do right before bottling. It’s important to make sure that free SO2 levels are adequate before adding ascorbic acid, which can increase the potential for wine oxidation.


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## JohnT (Mar 25, 2014)

of course I would suggest that a bench trial be carried out to prove it.


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## seth8530 (Mar 25, 2014)

Hmm, thanks for the input. So it seems that copper treatment might be at the very least partially effective at treating mercaptan so long as they have not oxidized. This guy has been kept under airlock for a very long time since then so I think it is possible that the redulees might be able to treat the wine.

If not, I will look into asorbic acid treatment.

EDIT

NVM, I read the rest of the article, looks like I will HAVE to treat with asorbic acid first. Thanks for the link.


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## JohnT (Mar 26, 2014)

seth8530 said:


> Hmm, thanks for the input. So it seems that copper treatment might be at the very least partially effective at treating mercaptan so long as they have not oxidized. This guy has been kept under airlock for a very long time since then so I think it is possible that the redulees might be able to treat the wine.
> 
> If not, I will look into asorbic acid treatment.
> 
> ...


 

Seth, 

I strongly recommend that you do a bench trial before you add ascorbic acid to your wine.


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## seth8530 (Mar 26, 2014)

Can you explain why? Is their a possible major downside to using absorbic acid other than oxidation risk? 

I would not mind using a bench trial but it might be difficult to measure the proper amount of ingredients for small volumes since my scales resolution is only down to the gram.


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## JohnT (Mar 27, 2014)

Ascorbic Acid is very biting. It will make your wine much, much more sharp in taste and mouth feel. That combined with a higher risk of oxidation, makes it really that you do not want to add to your wine if you do not have to.


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## seth8530 (Mar 27, 2014)

Ahh, I see. The wine is already has a pretty strong acidic bite from all the strawberries. What I might do instead is do one dosing of just the redulees and see how that goes.. If not then I will use the absorbic acid and redo the redulees.

If I understand the proccess completly for using asorbic acid I pitch at a rate of 50mg/L (minimal) and wait around two months for all the chemistry to happen. Then I pitch the copper solution ( in my case yeast with copper in them such as redulees). Scott labs says it is ok two double treat with redulees so I am not too worried about getting too much copper in my wine that way so long as I follow instructions.

Sound like a pretty good plan?


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## sour_grapes (Mar 27, 2014)

seth8530 said:


> If I understand the proccess completly for using asorbic acid I pitch at a rate of 50mg/L (minimal) and wait around two months for all the chemistry to happen. Then I pitch the copper solution ( in my case yeast with copper in them such as redulees).



Well, I looked briefly, but did not find directions from Scottlabs for the ascorbic+Reduless treatment. However, that is not the way I read that snippet from Cornell:



> Disulfides are first reduced with the addition of 50mg/L or more of ascorbic acid, immediately followed by an appropriate addition of copper sulfate. This reaction can be fairly slow, requiring as long as two months to reach equilibrium- obviously not something that you want to do right before bottling.



To me, that says pitch the ascorbic acid and Reduless in quick succession, but then be prepared to wait two months.


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## seth8530 (Mar 27, 2014)

Ah, yes you are correct! Ok, that is what I will do then if the initial treatment does not work.


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## sour_grapes (Mar 27, 2014)

Hey, just found this interesting writeup from ScottLabs. It does not answer your question specifically, but it is a very good overview of sulfur compounds in wine. It has come closest for me for explaining why you shouldn't add yeast nutrient too lat in the fermentation (but I still want to know more about that).

http://www.scottlab.com/uploads/documents/sulfurcompounds.pdf


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## seth8530 (Mar 27, 2014)

Looks like a good short article, I will give it a read.. My god I love scott lab!


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## JohnT (Mar 27, 2014)

What I have done in the past is to first treat with ascorbic, give the tank a good stir, then allow to work for 2 days. After 2 days, I treat with reduless and give the tank another stir. I let this sit for 3 days then rack.


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## seth8530 (Mar 27, 2014)

That does not sound like a bad idea either.


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## seth8530 (Apr 4, 2014)

So applied a light dose of reduless, it seemed to help a bit but not amazingly so. We are going to rack and redose but this time with acid 48 hours prior to the next reduless addition.


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## JohnT (Apr 4, 2014)

seth8530 said:


> So applied a light dose of reduless, it seemed to help a bit but not amazingly so. We are going to rack and redose but this time with acid 48 hours prior to the next reduless addition.


 
You may not need another dose of reduless. You wine might already be impregnated with copper. I suggest that you taste if after the 48 hour application of ascorbic acid. 

How much ascorbic do you plan on using?


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## seth8530 (Apr 5, 2014)

Ill try that. I plan on using 50mg/l ie the min recommended dose.


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## JohnT (Apr 8, 2014)

seth8530 said:


> Ill try that. I plan on using 50mg/l ie the min recommended dose.


 
Seth, 

With ascorbic acid, a little goes a very long way. 

A standard low-end treatment of ascorbic acid is about 10ppm. 

That is 0.04 grams of ascorbic acid per gallon of wine..

For a 5 gallon carboy, that translates to *.2 grams TOTAL*

Unless I did my math wrong (and that would not surprise me), at 50 milligrams per liter, I am afraid that you will be adding a total of 1 full gram, which I think is going to be too much.


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## seth8530 (Apr 8, 2014)

Welp too late for that now, the guides I read said 50mg/l so that is what I used. I need to give her another sniff soon and see if it needs some more reduless.


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## seth8530 (Apr 12, 2014)

Just a little update, it seems the smell of the wine is improving quite nicely. I have not yet added a second dose of redulees after adding the asorbic acid. I will give it a sniff today and see if it needs some more redulees.


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## JohnT (Apr 14, 2014)

Seth, 

Giving your wine a good stir would also help.


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## seth8530 (Apr 14, 2014)

Yeah, I will give that a try as well. The treatment is helping a LOT already though.


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## JohnT (Apr 14, 2014)

Glad the wine is turning around and that I could help!


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## seth8530 (Apr 27, 2014)

Welp, looks like the ascorbic acid did the trick. The strawberry wine now smells like strawberry and the funky smell is now receded away and either blended in with the strawberry smell or has gone away to the point of not mattering anymore.

Thanks!


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## JohnT (Apr 27, 2014)

So glad it all worked out for you. This is the whole purpose of this forum....

enjoy and let us know how good it is after a bit of time of bottle aging.


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## seth8530 (Apr 27, 2014)

Will do, we plan on racking her soon, adding honey to backsweeten to take the acidic edge off and bulk age for a month or so before filtering and bottling.

I agree whole heartedly, the tools and resources this forum makes available to amateur winemakers is invaluable.


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## seth8530 (May 17, 2014)

Did some bench trials with a tasting glass and we decided to add in 334 grams of mostly raspberry honey with a little bit of pumpkin honey to the 6 gallons of strawberry wine to balance it out. We found that with larger amounts of honey that the strawberry kind of got a little intense. Not sure what the SG is but I will check it prior to bottling for future notes. I do not imagine the gravity is above 1.010 at the highest.

We will let this sit over the summer while we are gone in Oregon. We will bottle sometime after we comeback, so it should be a nice welcome back present for ourselves.


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## paston (Sep 11, 2014)

You are indeed an ambitious person mate. Like you spirit, At first I just thought that it may be the equipment. You know that good scales are very important when you are going to make good wine at home. Lets see what comes out when you come back....


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## seth8530 (Sep 11, 2014)

He thanks, well I am actually back now. I just have not gotten around to bottling yet. If all goes well it should end up in a bottle this weekend though. And yes, having good equipment really helps, but it does not make good wine/.


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2014)

Welp, just got this guy filtered and into the bottle tonight. Overall, I think this will be a very nice if not slightly simple wine to enjoy on the weekends. I might upload a picture of the final result with some tasting notes soon.


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