Tannins - What do they taste like?

So,

I'm on my fourth batch, and my first one was awful. The last two have tasted amazing, and this fourth one should also be pretty good. Just trying to hone in on a recipe I created.

Anywho, that first batch had a super super salty finish to the taste. It was like a very salty bitterness. Is this what tannins taste like? Has anyone ever had this issue? I don't think I squeezed the grain bag or anything, I may have left the grains in too long.

Since that first batch, I've been trying to figure out what may have caused that terrible finish. I just had the realization that it may have been tannins. Is the taste added by tannins enough to cause a beer to become undrinkable (as that batch was)?

Could be a newbie question, but that has been eating at me.

Thanks guys.

Suck on a freshly brewed teabag, that'll get you close.

i think of tannins as being bitter, like sucking on a piece of strong smelling oak wood.

post the recipe for that batch, and maybe someone will notice something.

To me tannins are more like a feeling not really a taste. It's hard to describe but i wouldn't describe it as salty by any means. Like the above poster stated suck on a teabag. Red wine can be pretty tannic as well.

wyzazz said:

Suck on a freshly brewed teabag, that'll get you close.

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More like: "suck on a teabag that has been in 180+ F water for 15 minutes"

That'll get you closer to what tannins taste like.

So, dry, puckering?

tannins are not a taste, they are a sensation/feeling. the cottonmouth sensation from a black teabag is accurate. unripe persimmon fruit is super tannic. walnut or red peanut skins are mildly tannic. a big cabernet sauvignon from california is usually tannic.

tannin is not bitter, although often confused as such. tannin is not puckering/acidic, although often interpreted that way.

tannin is never salty. and i think it would be difficult to get tannins into beer without some unconventional techniques, adjuncts or aging in new wood barrels.

Eat 24 walnuts to the point the skin on the top of your mouth feels like it is peeling off, that is from tannin. They are not salty, they are drying. Another way to describe tannin in wine or beer is that when you drink it, your mouth feels drier.

Using softened water can lead to an overabundance of sodium in a beer. Not sure why one batch and not the others. Did you add salt by accident instead of sugar? Bakers do that all the time.

Chew on some red grape skin or a red grape seed. Those are high in tannins and demonstrate the mouth drying / puckering sensation people talk about.

HollowMen_Todd said:

So,

I'm on my fourth batch, and my first one was awful. The last two have tasted amazing, and this fourth one should also be pretty good. Just trying to hone in on a recipe I created.

Anywho, that first batch had a super super salty finish to the taste. It was like a very salty bitterness. Is this what tannins taste like? Has anyone ever had this issue? I don't think I squeezed the grain bag or anything, I may have left the grains in too long.

Since that first batch, I've been trying to figure out what may have caused that terrible finish. I just had the realization that it may have been tannins. Is the taste added by tannins enough to cause a beer to become undrinkable (as that batch was)?

Could be a newbie question, but that has been eating at me.

Thanks guys.

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Tannins are the biggest bogeyman in homebrewing, followed quickly by hot side aeration.

Did you do any mineral additions in the "salty" beer? Do you have a water softener? Does your wife/girlfriend/other secretly hate your brewing and want you to give up after making a few unexplainable bad beers? I remember there was one dude whos wife dropped a cup of salt in a wit.

dwarven_stout said:

Tannins are the biggest bogeyman in homebrewing, followed quickly by hot side aeration.

Did you do any mineral additions in the "salty" beer? Do you have a water softener? Does your wife/girlfriend/other secretly hate your brewing and want you to give up after making a few unexplainable bad beers? I remember there was one dude whos wife dropped a cup of salt in a wit.

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The bogeyman will visit you at some point with a freshly killed crow.


A teabag is a good analogy, but its more like oversteeped tea than sucking on a fresh teabag. However, your tastebuds may vary.
I had a couple beers with a very dry, stick to the roof of your mouth sensation. I paid proper attention to sparge volumes and temperature and have not had that problem since.

dwarven_stout said:

Tannins are the biggest bogeyman in homebrewing, followed quickly by hot side aeration.

Did you do any mineral additions in the "salty" beer? Do you have a water softener? Does your wife/girlfriend/other secretly hate your brewing and want you to give up after making a few unexplainable bad beers? I remember there was one dude whos wife dropped a cup of salt in a wit.

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Hahaha i was just talking about that the other day.

At least he could use it for cooking!

wyzazz said:

Suck on a freshly brewed teabag, that'll get you close.

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Now that's just plain wrong!

Some of you guys have spent too much time sucking on teabags...

If you have ever been swiming in the Suwanne River or the Okefenokee Swamp and got a mouthfull of water you would know what tannins taste like.

Do tannins make the beer undrinkable or just uncomfortable to drink?

Depends on what is undrinkable to you. I'll very rarely pour a beer out or throw away food, even if I don't like it.

Is there any recipe/process similarities in the bad beers? In the good beers?

Tannins are only an issue if you boil grains or mash at a high pH.

beerkrump said:

Tannins are only an issue if you boil grains or mash at a high pH.

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I think you'd have to boil for an awfully long time to extract tannins from grain, otherwise Decoction Mashing would create a really tannic beer.

wyzazz said:

I think you'd have to boil for an awfully long time to extract tannins from grain, otherwise Decoction Mashing would create a really tannic beer.

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Its not a concern if done at the correct mash PH and have full conversion in the grains before boiling. If the OP boiled his steeping grains, or even got them too hot, he could have extracted tannins.

wyzazz said:

I think you'd have to boil for an awfully long time to extract tannins from grain, otherwise Decoction Mashing would create a really tannic beer.

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Agreed. Proper decoction involves boiling part of the mash for a period of time. Full conversion is not necessary first. I think tannin extraction is more of a function of mash ph than temperature.

All beers have tannins. It is not like you magically get them all if the temperature is 170 and the pH 6 or something.

The question is, are there enough tannins to sense them? In a lot of well made dark beers, there are. The other question is, are the tannins high enough to make the beer unpleasant? Some of the time, yeah. It is far less common as a flaw in homebrewed beers than diacetyl and oxidation though. A lot of people call everything harsh or bitter tannic, that is incorrect. It is the sensation of the surface of the tongue tightening. Go eat a persimmon this fall when they hit the stores which will be more pleasant than tea bag sucking and will get the point across.

Back to the OP's issue of salty beer...

What cleanser/sanitizer are you using? Often the dry powder type cleaners can leave behind some residual salty tastes.

eat an acorn

Hi guys, i am also having some problems with my batches that i thing could be tannins. I don't know, it is like a bitterness a little off, harsh, that keeps lingering at the back of your mouth. The IBU is low, so i don't know why i feel this. I will post the recipe and all i did to see if it helps.

I just used Pale Ale Malt and Bravo Hops for bittering and flavor. Used the BIAB mashing at around 65ºC for 60 minutes, did the mash-out at 75ºC, and a little sparge with water at around 75ºC. Squeezed a little the grainbag and then proceed to boiling, which was not a full strong boil. It was only 8 liters of beer, so i used 2g of Bravo at 60min, 3g at 30min, 5g at 10min and 10g at 5min. Cooled in around 20 minutes and pitched the yeast at 18ºC. Stayed at the fermenter with the yeast for 2 weeks at 17º where it reached the FG of 1.010 (OG was 1.042) then bottled with 50g of table sugar and matured for another 10 days. Maybe i'm still getting the hops wrong, and adding too much. By John Palmer calculations it is around 29 IBU, but in some softwares it gives more than 40 IBU.

neudson said:

Hi guys, i am also having some problems with my batches that i thing could be tannins. I don't know, it is like a bitterness a little off, harsh, that keeps lingering at the back of your mouth. The IBU is low, so i don't know why i feel this. I will post the recipe and all i did to see if it helps.

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Same problem here. Have you found an answer?