RiffMagnum
Well-Known Member
Cap and Hare is a good beer club in the DFW area.
Cap and Hare is a good beer club in the DFW area.
Stauffbier you stole what I was going to say! As guitarist we KNOW exactly what it's like to be totally frustrated with something you love so much. When I get pissed I step back for a bit then I remember...Oh yeah this is supposed to be fun.
Grapefruit flavors make me think of a possible infection, review your sanitation techniques, also it could be the lactic acid your using. As for the other off flavor you mentioned I agree with the above about extracting tannins from the mash. Is your sparge water too hot? What temp are you mashing at? How much water are you sparging with? Never sparge until you see clear liquid coming out!
Are you doing a secondary fermentation or one long primary? I'm a big believer of secondary fermentation.
I also agree with the above about brewing software. I can say after my going on 8 years in the oilfeids, not everything engineered on a computer works correctly in the real world. Keep it simple where you can.
Maybe monitor your sparge gravity if you haven't been already. Anytime the gravity of the wort leaving your tun dips below 1.010 or so, you are extracting tannins.
How long are you conditioning your beers? I know you mentioned you keg but you mentioned it had only been in for three days and it has no mouthfeel. That sounds a bit green to me.
I live in TN and we have pretty hard water here, but I get along just fine without needing to add anything to control pH. Maybe you should try bottling a smash brew and letting it properly condition.
Other than that, it may be the beer lines of your keg like someone previously mentioned. I feel like you definitely know your stuff, so I really don't know what could be causing your problems. Hope all goes well. Please let us know what you find out. Cheers!
Thanks for the reply. I didn't actually even use lactic acid in that batch. I used RO water. As far as tannins, that was part of the reason for using acid in my sparge water, was to keep it from getting over a pH of 6. My sparge water is usually 170, by the time it leaves my cooler, it's probably a lot lower than that.
If you're using RO water are you adding salts back in or are you just using acid? That could give you some problems right there. You should treat your water if you're just using RO..
This is good advice in my opinion! I've done this with many things in life. I used to do it a lot with guitar playing when I couldn't get a certain riff down. After a little break I would nail that riff on the first try!
The couple of times I used RO water I added some salts back in, no lactic, as my residual alkalinity was very low with no alkalinity in the water. When I use my filtered tap water, I use a little lactic in the mash and sparge, sometimes adding salts depending on the beer.
urbanmyth said:Sounds to me like you spent a little too much time and effort making a pretty brew house instead of a consistent or efficient one. Not knocking you in any way, but sometimes the ugly junk is what it takes to learn the methods and get the procedures down. I would personally scale back and try to make a simple, time tested recipe (BM's Centennial Blonde and EdWort's Haus Pale come to mind), and instead of monkeying with mash pH and water chemistry, get some simple spring water and focus on the process and making sure fermentation is nice and healthy. Calibrate your tools, leave the brews in the fridge until you pitch your yeast, and have a good time. Hit your numbers. And if you don't, figure out why and how to fix it. I hate to sound preachy, because I am far from an expert, but doing the above has helped me make some of my best beers yet.
Sorry
Off topic.
Hey Mike,
Not suprised you play the guitar and even though I never had the dedication to be able to, my son did. He's pretty good at it but I think he lost hiisconfindence in his ability.
Pardon me for my bd spelling
Anyway. The creativeness is there. I asked my son the other day how the playing of his guitar was going. He said down hill and I asked him why?
Because Dad, I hear myself play and am let down. I told him he should play with ear plugs.. LOL
To much work you guys put into it. Never stop playing... Please.
Do you have problems with all of your beers or just certain styles? For instance, do your lighter colored beers come out better than darker ones or vice versa?
I've always felt like my darker beers have a bitter, almost acrid bite to them. Some worse than others. My light beers are always awesome, though. I've recently decided I'm going to either cold steep my dark/roasted grains in cold water and add that water to the boil, or I'm going to add the dark grains to the mash right before vourloff/sparge. I've read (and been told) that this will give a smoother taste while still maintaining roast flavors and color. Resulting in a less harsh beer....
I actually haven't done any dark beers, I've been sticking to pale ales, IPAs, blondes and a kolsch.
- Friends and family are often poor beer judges. I don't know about yours, but my family would tell me it was the best tasting beer ever, even if I gave them the gnarliest butter bomb ever created.
- Have you tried taking a bottle or two down to your local LHBS and see what they have to say? Maybe they can detect what your tasting and offer advice.
- I've read the whole thread and don't recall you saying what your fermentation temp is. Temp control during fermentation is key.
- What about making a simple extract batch? If it tastes the same, than you know it has nothing to do with mash/sparge/etc. If it tastes better, than at least you'll know where to look.
I've certainly been frustrated before. I've dumped a few batches myself. Is it possible that your beer is actually just fine, and that you're being a little overly critical of yourself that your brew doesn't measure up to a commercial micro? I've been there done that, so that's why I'm asking.
Most of my brews tended to lack maltyness and mouthfeel, which led me to buy a new thermometer, because I suspected I was mashing much lower than I thought I was.
Have you tried to use carbon filtered tap water?
What sanitizer du you use?
How do you store your grains and hops?
Maybe if you walk us through an entire brew with every step detailed, we'd be able to give you some hints.
I hope your brewing gets to you taste soon
I bottled a wheat beer a couple of months ago. ... It wasn't horrible, but had a somewhat plastic aftertaste.
What about chloramines? Do they use chloramines to sanitize your water? If you can't figure out whether or not they do, you could consider trying some potassium metabisulfite treatment of your water....
jbsg02 said:Yes they do, but I filter my water very slowly through a culligan water filter. I have tasted the effects of chlorine/chloramine before, my first two batches were rendered undrinkable because of it. They plastic flavor isn't that strong in that beer.
I don't think filtering is going to remove the chloramine. It took me seven batches before I started using Campden tablets, but they've made a big difference. Even with the first seven batches, the chloramine had more of an effect on some than others. While the chloramine may not be the entire problem, I don't think there's any reason not to toss a quarter to half a Campden tab in your tap water. They're extremely inexpensive.
There are many things that a filter will not remove, like dissolved minerals. Either get the filtered water tested or just buy some bottled water for the next batch. The latter is a really simple way of determining if it's the water or some problem with your process.
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