Do tannins go away?

GuitarBob · 05-14-2009, 02:34 AM

If you accidently extract a bunch of tannins into your beer does it ever condition out? Right now my beer is tasting bitter and grainy.

**Donner** · 05-14-2009, 03:49 AM

tannins are usually astringent. How old is this beer of yours? Bitter and grainy make me think it's something other than tannins, but i'm no expert. I'm sure someone will be along to give you the correct answer.

**the_bird** · 05-14-2009, 03:55 AM

How/why do you think you extracted a bunch of tannins?

Young beer always tastes like crap relative to properly-aged beer. Bitterness tends to mellow.

**Revvy** · 05-14-2009, 03:55 AM

How long has the beer been in the bottles? Honestly I have noticed a lit of green (young) beers, especially all grain, or partial mashes taste like grainy ice tea until they have carbed and conditioned for a few weeks.

GuitarBob · 05-14-2009, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revvy

How long has the beer been in the bottles? Honestly I have noticed a lit of green (young) beers, especially all grain, or partial mashes taste like grainy ice tea until they have carbed and conditioned for a few weeks.

I didn't know that it was normal for all-grain beers to taste like grainy ice tea when green. I thought maybe I got some tannins from squeezing the sparge bag. I guess the jury is still out on bag squeezing.(sigh I wish there was a better word for that particular brewing practice.)

It's only been 3 weeks so I'm not too worried about it. I just tasted a green flavor I've never tasted before, and paniced.

noisy123 · 05-14-2009, 02:17 PM

I noticed the exact same thing in my Nut Brown beers when I used to squeeze the grain bag. It always aged away. You are tasting green beer, I'd be willing to bet on it.

GuitarBob · 05-14-2009, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noisy123

I noticed the exact same thing in my Nut Brown beers when I used to squeeze the grain bag. It always aged away. You are tasting green beer, I'd be willing to bet on it.

Hey this is a brown ale too. So whats whats your opinion on bag squeezing? I noticed you used the words "used to" which is past tense, did you decide bag squeezing was a bad idea?

Also I realize yeast have their own schedule, but how much aging are we talking about? Is this a matter of weeks or months?

noisy123 · 05-14-2009, 04:25 PM

Hi Bob,
I thought it might be a brown. Mine have always need to age a bit ( roughly 4 weeks or so at 65-68 F) to get rid of the taste you describe. I would say after 1 month in the bottle I saw the astringent grainy taste diminishing. At 2 months the beer is perfect (if I do say so myself). YMMV

As to squeezing, I have heard mixed advice. There are plenty of folks with more experience, and better tasting beers than me on here that squeeze away. I really don't think it matters much.

I say "used to" because I switched to all-grain. Now I worry about tannin extraction from over-sparging instead of bag squeezing. Something new to worry about. I should RDWHAB...

GuitarBob · 05-14-2009, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noisy123

I say "used to" because I switched to all-grain. Now I worry about tannin extraction from over-sparging instead of bag squeezing. Something new to worry about. I should RDWHAB...

Well I did sparge the hell out of that bag of grains so I hope over-sparging isn't too much of a problem. I kept the temperture at 170 during the entire sparge, but I used the tea bag method to sparge, and (I wish their was a better way to put this) tea bagged the wort a lot.

Ugh we need to come up with better to describe these things. I'm tired of using words like tea-bagging and bag squeezing to describe my brewing process.

I bet this post is blocked on some internet filters.