Well, I know this is my fault and I think I know what happened. For war of the worts we used wort from coppertail brewing to make whatever beer we wanted. I participated, but I had to piece together a system. Also, I used my old ferm chamber. I think everything went well except for a few things.
1. I used a big mouth bubbler for the first time. The lid acts like an air lock. The only downside to this is that the air lock solution is exposed to the air and it evaporates quicker than normal. I didn't pay careful attention to the fermentation. I also used vodka as the air lock solution instead of starsan, which I'd never done before either.
2. I added water and belgian candied syrup. The first time I tried to do this I fell asleep and whole house was filled with smoke that smelled like burnt marshmallows. The second time I don't think I boiled the solution long enough. I was adding about a gallon of water. The problem could be that I don't remove enough of the O2 from the water.
3. I didn't pay attention to the fermentation. It say in the fermenter for over a month and the air lock dried up.
So the beer is fine, except for an acetaldehyde aroma. It's not in the flavor, just the aroma. It's really noticeable when I used a snifter glass.
I didn't make a starter for this beer. It was in the 1.058 range and I used 2 smack packs. Really should have been enough yeast. I also oxygenated the wort with pure O2. Somewhere I ended up getting acetaldehyde. I think it's from air/O2 intrusion during the fermentation. I think it's ethanol that was oxidized and reverted back to acetaldehyde.
I think I'll rebrew this beer, because I really liked the hops I used, but the outcome was ####ed because I didn't pay attention. Had I brewed it on my system I think it would have turned out just fine. I've not had any acetaldehyde in any beers I've brewed on that system.
Anyway, at least it's only 5 gallons of beer. I am disappointed that I didn't get to impress the guys at coppertail and win the competition.