Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeJones
I just got done bottling my second brew. It tasted good coming out of the secondary, but after being in the bottle for only a few hours it was really astringent (dry mouth/hairy tongue). I didn't let the StarSan completely dry from the inside of the bottles before filling (not soaked, but not all the way dry). Has anyone had this problem with StarSan? Could this be caused by oxidation during bottling? I had the same problem with my first brew and blamed it on over heating during grain steeping, but this time I noticed that the astringency didn't come until after putting it in the bottle.
Any ideas?
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No starsan wouldn't cause anything, it basically become yeast food once it come in contact with anythign fermenting.
The astringency you perceive is just a harshness from co2 being produced right now, many folks misdiagnose that.
The biggest thing is that you beer has a LOOOOOONG journey over the next minimum three weeks that it is going to need to carb an condition.
It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.
I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.
A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.
If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.
Fementation is often ugly, smelly and crappy tasting in the beginning and perfectly normal. The various conditioning phases, be it long primary, secondarying, D-rests, bottle conditioning, AND LAGERING, are all part of the process where the yeast, and co2 correct a lot of the normal production of the byproducts of fermentation.
Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.
Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same.
If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.
Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer
And the remaining 50% of the last 10% are where these tables and lists come into play. To understand what you did wrong, so you can avoid it in the future.
Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here
Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word,
"patience." 
So right now, there is no cause for concern, nor is there really any reason to waste your beer by sampling it "after a few hours in the bottle." All you are going to be tasting is green beer...and just as you discovered it often tastes like crap.
Astringency from sanitizer?
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