1st AG - Bitter aftertaste.??

After a year of extract brewing, I made the leap to AG recently. I brewed a pale ale (mirror pond clone - see below), bottled it, and has aged for 4 weeks. I find the beer tastes good but after it leaves my pallet, I have an odd bitter aftertaste. It is not a hop bitterness taste but a funky bitter aftertaste. I have brewed a brown ale that's in the fermentor and was going to brew again soon. So, i'd like to figure this out before I brew again.

Here are my thoughts to the source of the aftertaste and appreciate everyone 2 cents:

-It's the water. My water is city water and tastes great. I did not treat it, add pH balance, or anything. I just filled my boil kettle and sparge water heated, mashed, sparged (batch sparge BTW), boiled, cooled to 70F, and pitched yeast.
-It's my equipment. I purchased new boil kettle (9 gal)', turkey fryer, and built MLT out of Coleman cooler, SS braid, copper wire coiled inside braid, brass fittings, and brass ball valve. There was also silicon / rubber washer inside the cooler. I have heard (after the fact) of "pickling" the brass together the lead out.

So, my thoughts is the funky bitter after taste is either my water or not cleaning/pickling the brass fittings.

I hope my brown ale in the fermentor doesn't have the aftertaste too.

I never had this with any of my extract brews.

Help please and Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas.

Chris


Mirror Pond Clone

10 lb. Two Row
1 lb. Cystal 40
1/2 lb. Carapils

Cascade 1 Oz. At 60, 15, 10, 5, and 1 minute.

Yeast - Wyeast 1056

Ps. I mashed at 150 for 70 minutes.

Pre boil OG was 1042.
OG was 1051
FG was 1007.
ABV is 5.6%.

My first experiments in AG yielded a similar off flavor. It is much more pronounced with my dark beers. Would you describe the taste as sharp and tangy?
In addition to pH, I also theorized that when I moved to AG, I also moved to full boils. When I used top-off water with extract batches, the tap water already had good oxygen saturation. After a full boil, there is little oxygen left in the wort.
For the time being, I'm back to extract. I may eventually buy pH test strips or an oxygen kit, but I'm liking the beers I make with extract, and I'm brewing more now that I'm not worried about a persistent off flavor.

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How is your city water treated? Chlorine, chloramine, ozone, or some other method? You may be tasting the chemical used that reacted with your beer.

Id like to hear from OP, but I use potassium metabisulfite to remove chlorine and chloramine from my city water when I AG. I don't worry about it with extract.

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@franc103

How do you add that to your water?

I'd bet money it's the cooler/mashtun. That plastic smells to high heaven at first.

I'd bet money that you have alkaline water. When I first started AG with my water, all of my beers darker than about 8 SRM came out great, but the lighter APAs had this lingering harsh astringency on the back of my tongue. Not bad, really, but not good. I made a kolsch that was even harsher. Once I got my water report, I found that I have a high level of bicarb in my water. I simply now dilute it a bit with RO water from the "water machines" at Wal-mart or the grocery store. It made all the difference!

I'd see if I could get a water report, or send a sample to Ward Lab. For $16.50, you get a full report on everything you need to know for brewing. It will also help you get to where you can dial in your mash pH and sparge water pH. Without knowing that, you'd be just guessing at the mash pH.

Thanks guys. Anyone ever heard of using RV Water Filters ($25) instead of getting RO systems? I read that somewhere.

Hebby, is the plastic in your cooler still stinky?

It's an older 48 qt coleman cooler that I had laying around. I think it smells fine.

Hebby5 said:

@franc103

How do you add that to your water?

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Measure half of 1/8 tsp of Potassium Metabisulfite powder. Add to a single-serve bottle of RO water (Aquafina or the like), shake, then pour into my water and stir.

I follow the same procedure when I'm using tap water for seltzer.

Hebby5 said:

Thanks guys. Anyone ever heard of using RV Water Filters ($25) instead of getting RO systems? I read that somewhere.

Click to expand...

I have an RV filter, but I use it to help get rid of chlorine, it won't do anything to lower your alkalinity. Your best bets for that are dilution or lactic acid in the mash

Maybe you had a low efficiency on the mash process. I'm thinking the sugars are what they are with extract and you may have not converted the sugars to their full potential. If the sugars are even a little low compared to your extract brews that will result in more bitter beer.

I don't think it was his efficiency. Just look at his gravity numbers.
Th OG and FG are right on the money.
My guess is the water.
Can you get a city water analysis report? Most municipalities post their reports on the city website, and just about everywhere they are obliged to provide the report on request. Have a look at the sulphite levels. That may be the answer. Or the chlorine. Did you use filtered water? Did you let your tap water sit for a day to off-gas the chlorine?
The best thing I did was to install an under counter two stage filter with an activated charcoal second stage.

I know you don't get this problem with extract batches but you may be masking the problem with the extracts. I'd definitely stick with all-grain.

Isn't it possible to get astringent bitterness from tannins by draining the sparge water below1.010? could that have happened here?

EDIT: gotta learn to read

It's hard for me to see how the water didn't affect his extract batches (sugars from mashing are sugars from mashing). Seems to me if he had a water issue it would show up in all cases, and be more pronounced in his lighter beers.

I have to learn to read too. Didn't see the gravities.

Thanks for all the feedback and ideas. I sent an email yesterday to my local city water dept for a report. I have a brown ale in the fermentor that i need to bottle. Its my 2nd AG batch and am curious if I get the same aftertaste. I just bought more ingredients to make another AG pale ale but don't want to mash until I get a game plan together for my water. Thanks again.

-Chris

After getting the City of Raleigh's water report, reading loads of articles, and plugging numbers in spread sheets, the bitter after taste has disappeared.

It's been 4 weeks from bottling and the "astringent" flavor has vanished. Mucho happy but would still like to pay more attention to the water from my tap and/or from the store.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

Chris

Hebby5 said:

It's been 4 weeks from bottling and the "astringent" flavor has vanished.

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I'm confused. In your first post you said you "bottled it, and has aged for 4 weeks" but now you've said the taste disappeared after four weeks? When I first read the thread title my assumption was you are tasting it too soon. Most of my beers are a bit too bitter until 3 weeks or so in the bottle. Most are absolutely perfect after 3 weeks and some may take a week more or so. I've always found it intriguing because a beer that tastes too bitter after 2 weeks in the bottle used to have me worried that I need to lower the hops or something the next time around only to find that somehow, some magical occurrence in only one more week, balanced the beer out perfectly.

So, I'm still confused between your first and last posts.


Rev.

@Rev,

Sorry for the confusion.

After bottle conditioning for 1 week (I know it's early but was curious for my 1st AG batch), I chilled one brew and tasted it. It had some good hop tones but a little bitter after taste. After 2 weeks, I chilled one brew and tasted it. The hoppy tones were about the same but the bitterness was much more pronounced. After 3 weeks, I put couple of beers in the fridge and chilled for a day. Again hoppy tones were low and bitterness was even more pronounced to the point of not wanting to finish my glass. I made my HBT posting as my bottled beers were reaching the 4 week "aged" mark.

For grins, I put a beer in the fridge the other night and tried it. With my new found joy, my 4 week aged pale ale had improved hoppy tones and very very little bitter after taste. I made my additional posting at this time and also put six pack in the fridge immediately. Again, sorry for the confusion and hope all this is in the rear view mirror.

Thanks for the feedback. -Chris

looks like it just needed to age!