Man that's bitter...astringent?

Ok, so I attempted my first AG 2 weeks ago. I picked a simple Nut Brown AG kit from my favorite HBS. Had some issues with a stuck sparge and ended up draining the sparge water at a trickle over the course of about an hour.

So I tasted the wort before adding yeast after taking my gravity and man was it bitter. I thought the low OG of 1.034 (instead of the 1.040 it was supposed to hit) was the culprit. But, after transferring to the secondary this weekend, I am now wondering if I really leached the heck out of those husks and got some tannins. I know the astringent taste is described as sucking on a teabag, but I'm still not sure if it is more hops bitterness or tannins. Can anyone describe the astringent taste in more detail than the teabag or maybe just based upon my description of the sparge problem, is this most likely the bitter culprit?

Thanks!
Greg

Astringent taste somewhat bitter but I think it is best described as a much puckering bitterness, makes your mouth feel really dry.

Give us a run down of your recipe and process. Did you keep temp records?

The bitterness in my green beer is due to the...green beer effect. The hops are still powerful strong and the flavors are not mellowed yet.

Let's see what you brewed and how and that'll help.

Note that I often do slow sparges but that alone (in my brewery) doesn't drive up the bitterness.

Like Beerrific said, if you puckered up and crossed your eyes...that's astringency.

If not...that's just a good hoppy beer.

No prob wort is always more bitter that the finished beer. Odds are it will be fine.

It is curious you would get a stuck sparge on what I assume an all barley beer. Was the grain crush too fine? That can contribute to bitterness.

Unfermented wort is wicked bitter, you'll be fine. Astringency isn't a flavor its a mouthfeel, dry feeling on the back of your tongue.

did you oversparge at all?

Your tongue is more sensitive to astringent flavours on the sides, and more sensitive to bitterness near the back.
So when you taste it, do you 'feel' the flavor on the sides, or closer to the back of the tongue.

chillHayze said:

No prob wort is always more bitter that the finished beer. Odds are it will be fine.

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I second that. Imho, the wort just after the boil is not very appealing at all.

Any chance that you used too much hops or boiled them for too long. I didn't double check my last all-grain stout recipe and it was very very bitter. I went online to a recipe and the IBU's where around 90! Oops..

That extreme bitterness has chilled out a little bit, but it sounds similar to what you are describing.

Wow, thanks for all the replies folks! I used an AG kit from NB since i wanted to play it safe on my first AG. I used the Nut Brown kit here: http://www.northernbrewer.com/docs/kis-html/1033.html

Single infusion mash, started around 153 and then batch sparged at about 168. Hard to say how much sparge water got used. I let it slowly leak out of the cooler for about an hour before I finally gave up and just added the extra gallon or two of water to the brewpot to make 6. Then added hops and boiled for an hour.

Maybe I am just used to the extract kits where the wort tastes really sweet and the bitterness doesn't show itself until after the yeast does it's work. Another week or so in the secondary and we'll see!

Greg

I had the same problem with my first few (5) all grain batches. My bitterness was from the 60 minute hops. I was agitating the heck out of them during the boil, because I thought I was getting more goodness from the hops. It turned out that I was getting waaay too much bitter from the hops!
Is this your problem? The easiest way to tell is to taste the hops that float at the top of your boiling wort and see if the flavors match on your next batch.

If so, then don't worry it will age out in a month or three.

Cheers

Water ph, water hardness, mash ph and sparge water ph can all contribute to atringency and or harsh bitterness from hops. As I said before you cannot judge bitterness by tasting unfermented wort, it will almost always be extremely bitter.

Greg, let us know what works for you!

Waldo said:

Water ph, water hardness, mash ph and sparge water ph can all contribute to atringency and or harsh bitterness from hops. As I said before you cannot judge bitterness by tasting unfermented wort, it will almost always be extremely bitter.

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True. Adding gypsum to already hard water accentuates the hop bitterness.

Thanks again everyone. I will taste it again in a week or so at bottling and then after it has time to condition for 2-3 weeks. Let's hope for the best!

I'll post a follow-up report.

Greg

Good idea. Next time I brew a batch I will check.

Imbranato said:

I had the same problem with my first few (5) all grain batches. My bitterness was from the 60 minute hops. I was agitating the heck out of them during the boil, because I thought I was getting more goodness from the hops. It turned out that I was getting waaay too much bitter from the hops!
Is this your problem? The easiest way to tell is to taste the hops that float at the top of your boiling wort and see if the flavors match on your next batch.

If so, then don't worry it will age out in a month or three.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Imbranato said:

I had the same problem with my first few (5) all grain batches. My bitterness was from the 60 minute hops. I was agitating the heck out of them during the boil, because I thought I was getting more goodness from the hops. It turned out that I was getting waaay too much bitter from the hops!
Is this your problem? The easiest way to tell is to taste the hops that float at the top of your boiling wort and see if the flavors match on your next batch.

If so, then don't worry it will age out in a month or three.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Agitating the hops by stirring won't affect the hops, it may cause some HSA but I don't see it affecting the bitterness. As far as tasting the hops durning boil, I doubt you can really tell the difference. I know that when I add say magnums @ 60 minutes and taste the wort then add cascades @ 10 minutes it all taste the same to me over the top bitter.

Orion, If you are interested have a look at this thread, this was me working my way through my bitter/astringient flavor issue...
http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/93476

Thanks for the thread, that makes me feel better.

Imbranato said:

Orion, If you are interested have a look at this thread, this was me working my way through my bitter/astringient flavor issue...
http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/93476

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Ok, so I got a little impatient and took a sample with the thief last night. First off, it was still pretty bitter. I decided it kind of reminded me of plain carbonated water, which I think tastes bitter. After sampling this I waited a bit and tried one of my extract brown ales. I did detect some of the same flavor although barely. So, I think everyone was right and it is just hops bitterness. Strange how it tastes different from the really hoppy beers I've had.

Next time I think I'll use less hops with a full boil!

Yup, I had a amber, brown ale and to lesser degree some other extract beers come out with some harshness up front and throughout the taste profile. Never recovered with aging. Best way to describe it is harsh bitterness with with some copper/mineral profile.

just did first AG and upon first taste there was suprisingly no harshness up front like i'm used to with extracts. I suspect maybe tap water is too hard coupled with transfering too much hops from kettle to primary fermenter and/or maybe weak yeast?

I'm a eastside madtown og. maybe swap beer to see if were having same taste prob.

I tasted a beer a couple days ago with the same type of problem. This was an all grain clone of Pliny the Elder. This is an extremely highly hopped imperial IPA. The batch in question was brewed at about the same time as a batch I brewed with the same recipe. We both batch sparge with a cooler system and chill with an immersion chiller. We did a side by side tasting. Mine was very smooth, very hoppy with a complex hop flavor. The other had an extremely harsh bitterness that made it difficult to drink

The only difference was the water. We both have similar water. The water is high in carbonates. I mix my water 50/50 with reverse osmosis filtered water. The other guys water was straight from the tap. He also has a water softener in his system. Water softeners use an ion replacement process to substitute sodium ions for the carbonates. This high level of sodium ions accentuates the bitterness even more than the carbonates and contributes to that harshness/astringency.

The harsh batch will end up getting dumped. My batch has won a couple medals already and has also been entered in the NHC Regionals.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

Update:

First off, I should say that the beer has mellowed a bit and it pretty much drinkable. It's still a tad bitter but I can pretend it was suppossed to be a bitter and not a nut brown.

I've been doing a lot of research on this beer, as I really want to find out the source of the harsh bitterness. Everyone's comments have been most helpful. So far here are a few of my thoughts based upon what I have read here and elsewhere.

1) Hops. The reciepe called for 1oz of Challenger hops, which I suspect were on the high end of AA. That plus a full 70 minute boil at 6.5 gallons increased the utilization.

2) Water. I used tap water but I usually try and do 50/50 hard/soft water mix to even them out. However, I am still not convinced I had the right water profile for this beer and I think this had a lot to do with the initial very strong bitterness that has mellowed out a bit.

3) Low OG. There just wasn't much body to this beer to even out the hops. I'm in the process of reading 'Designing Great Beers', and using his balance calculations, I'm way at the high end of precieved bitterness.


Good news is that it is in the keg now and it's drinkable, so I'll try and get some guests over to finish it off. Also, my second AG was a dunkel and it came out wonderful.

Thanks for all the help guys!

At 1.044 which was the OG for the kit it would have been around 26.6 IBU's the max for the style is 24 IBU's so that really isn't to far off. At 1.034 which is what your brews OG was it would be around 28.7 which is pretty bitter for a 1.034 beer unless its a bitters. NB has some great kits but they tend to hop everything 1 ounce additions, when you create your own recipes you soon find that some hops are better in small doses fuggles being one of them. I would have hopped that beer more like this .80 oz of challenger @ 60 minutes and .5 oz of fuggles at 1 minute.

Do you remove the chlorine from your water? Chlorine and or chloramine can really mess up your beer, it has some nasty effect in the mash. I filter all of my brew water and then use a 1/8 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite per 5 gallons of water to remove any chlorine the filter missed.

Waldo said:

At 1.044 which was the OG for the kit it would have been around 26.6 IBU's the max for the style is 24 IBU's so that really isn't to far off. At 1.034 which is what your brews OG was it would be around 28.7 which is pretty bitter for a 1.034 beer unless its a bitters. NB has some great kits but they tend to hop everything 1 ounce additions, when you create your own recipes you soon find that some hops are better in small doses fuggles being one of them. I would have hopped that beer more like this .80 oz of challenger @ 60 minutes and .5 oz of fuggles at 1 minute.

Do you remove the chlorine from your water? Chlorine and or chloramine can really mess up your beer, it has some nasty effect in the mash. I filter all of my brew water and then use a 1/8 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite per 5 gallons of water to remove any chlorine the filter missed.

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Yes, in hindsight, too much hops. I had specifically choose a kit for my first AG so I wouldn't mess anything up. But I feel comfortable with reciepes now and have a better understanding of the process so should be good going forward.

No chlorine in the water since it is well water. But we do have really hard water from the well. Tastes good though.

Waldo said:

Do you remove the chlorine from your water? Chlorine and or chloramine can really mess up your beer, it has some nasty effect in the mash. I filter all of my brew water and then use a 1/8 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite per 5 gallons of water to remove any chlorine the filter missed.

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The city water here uses chlorine. Wouldn't the chlorine dissipate quickly when heating the mash strike water to 160`-170`? I understand chloramines are alot tougher to get rid of.

Well I've heard conflicting reports on chlorine removal, some say you need to boil for 15 minutes to remove it others say simply heating it to strike temp will do it. My personal experience has shown that even after filtering I was still seeing some effects from chlorophenols on my lighter ales, since I've been using the potassium metabisulfite along with filtering I haven't had any problems.

Chloramine isn't affected by boiling or filtering with carbon filters, Potassium met will remove it in just a few minutes, its really cheap insurance.