husky/grainy flavor?

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bengerman

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just pulled a sample of the Protoporter, and it tastes pretty darn good, but has a slight husky/grainy flavor.

Looking around it says that's usually from sparging too hot or too long.

how long is too long?

i sparged at 165 for 30 minutes, and from what i've just read, 165 is within normal limits.
is 30 minutes too long? or do i have a different issue going on?

is there anything i can do to fix it? or just drink it and learn?
 
Could be your water. Done a test on it? If your sparge water is too alkaline it will pull more tannins out of your grain...

Cheers!
 
aren't tannins the more astringent flavor?

this taste is like taking a pinch of malted barley out of the mash. not bitter or astringent. fresh and grainy.
 
i did not check pH.

this was only my second BIAB, so it was kinda ghetto :)

no idea about shredded husks. didn't know to look out for them/what they look like.


side topic - big science, who do you shop with around here?
 
So you sparged a BIAB? I thought you were supposed to use full water in the mash for those. Care to elaborate on the process?

Was this a hoppy beer? I'm wondering with MO, what you are tasting is this thing called "malty". A couple of my beers have come down with that before.

As for shopping, I get my bulk grains from Larry's in Kent, specialty and yeast from Mountain Homebrew off 85th and buy hops in bulk from Hops Direct. Mountain will give a discount to Cascade Brewers Guild club members too. If you're not a member check it out. First Tuesdays of the month.

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i did sparge. i did a psuedo-maxi-biab. basically getting 5 gallons of wort out of a 5 gallon kettle. i read up on it over at biabrewer, and didn't go quite as crazy as they talk about.



i had been goign to mountain almost exclusively, but i found the cellar to be a bit cheaper on ingredients (equipment is about equal, though)
That's a heck of a drive for grains, they must have killer prices.
 
I believe Larry's sells to the other stores and breweries in the area. he's half as much on bulk grain. For things that nobody seems to carry locally, I'll order from MoreBeer. They always get me with the free shipping.

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just looked at larry's prices online and they are insane.

i'll have to keep him in mind after i get a grain mill.
 
Buy a bag and them grind it for you and then just use it up within a month. Even the lb prices are low. Nothing fancy there and the web presence is minimal but they pass the savings on to you. :ban:
 
As a possibly relevant aside, I brewed my first all grain helles/pilsner years ago with RODI water - no mineral additions. Very, very starchy beer. No body. Cloudy. Sometimes it is more helpful to hear fukkups than success stories. I really appreciated jp's experiments where they intentionally brewed both a stout and a pale at inappropriate end of the pH scale, and then commented on the resulting beers.
 
Bigscience said:
Buy a bag and them grind it for you and then just use it up within a month. Even the lb prices are low. Nothing fancy there and the web presence is minimal but they pass the savings on to you. :ban:

That way I have an excuse to brew more "if I don't brew, I'm wasting money!"
 
Was the beer cloudy? What brand of maris otter did you use? I've made a few maris otter based beers that were very cloudy and had unpleasant grainy flavors.
 
tomj said:
Was the beer cloudy? What brand of maris otter did you use? I've made a few maris otter based beers that were very cloudy and had unpleasant grainy flavors.

The beer was cloudy, but was cooled too slow and had virtually no cold break.

It's been bottled and the husky flavor has all but disappeared. Not sure what brand the MO was, but I've got two other batches from the same supplier without that issue.
 
You might want to have your water tested to see if you should be adding anything. It seems like a problem with the mash. If you can, do a no sparge batch to see if it was your sparge. I now mash maris otter for 90 minutes and it seems to have solved this problem for me.

Also, my husky flavor did not disappear with time and it remained cloudy with little head retention. In his book, Gordon Strong mentions that he has to do a protein rest when using Muntons maris otter.
 
tomj said:
You might want to have your water tested to see if you should be adding anything. It seems like a problem with the mash. If you can, do a no sparge batch to see if it was your sparge. I now mash maris otter for 90 minutes and it seems to have solved this problem for me.

Also, my husky flavor did not disappear with time and it remained cloudy with little head retention. In his book, Gordon Strong mentions that he has to do a protein rest when using Muntons maris otter.

I haven't had my water checked, but I checked the water report and it looks like I should be adding a little of everything. ;)
I'll update more when it's carbed.
 
Bigscience said:
You need to add some Ca around here. Our water is lacking.

Yeah, the water report had us at like 10-20% the amount of all the minerals recommended by the link I found in the sticky up top. (Also way low on all the baddies to)
 
quick update -
the beer was well-recieved and quickly drank, so i made another batch.
this one was triple-hopped (like MGD!) but was the same grain proportions. made it in my new cooler mash tun, turned out well, but with the same flavor to it.

i think i may have figured it out though. i was looking at the malts chart and noticed brown malt is recommended at 10% or less, checked some other sources and they all said the same, 10% max. well, this recipe had 31% brown malt, so i think it may just be the brown flavor pushed too far.
sound plausible?
 
I have used Bairds brown malt before (which malster's are you using?) and found it to have a grainy quality to it and it was in much smaller quantities than what you are using. You could always tone down the brown and use black patent to darken the beer. I remember reading the tasting notes on some porter recipes using brown malt on the Shut up about Barclay Perkins blog and husky/grainy were used to describe the beer.
 
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