Covering up bitterness after fermentation?

This is my first post so before I ask my question I just want to say thank you to all of the experience brewers who have been so willing to share their knowledge with new brewers like me. I’ve been scouring these forums and reading the suggested books long in advance of my first batch and it’s been tremendously helpful.

Now, the short version of my question is this: is there any way to cover up a lingering bitter/astringent aftertaste in a beer that is done fermenting?

I’m about 80% sure that the astringent bitterness that I’m tasting in a sample is the result of exceptionally hard water. My first batch, Midwest Supplies’ Autumn Amber Ale extract kit, had this same flavor. On that batch, I chalked it up to inexperience and possibly inadequately filtering the wort going into the fermenter. The flavor isn’t like a hop bitterness that is more rounded, this is an astringency that isn’t there much on the nose but definitely lingers in the aftertaste. On my first batch, the flavor seemed to increase over a few months but it’s probably more likely that as other flavors faded, this one did not.

On my current batch, my second, I put together a pretty simple American Wheat. Last night, 6 days into fermentation, I pulled my sample, measured the gravity, added the dry hops, cleaned everything up, and then tasted the sample. I was pretty bummed out that it had the same bitter off flavor. After doing some reading on these forums, I’ve decided that my next step is to brew an extract batch with RO water and see if I end up with the same off flavor. If I do, I’ll start a new thread to sort that out. For now, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to this batch to make it slightly more pleasant. I should say that this isn’t an overpowering off flavor but after a few sips, it starts to be pretty prevalent. At least it was with the last batch. I was really excited for this batch so I’m hoping that there’s something I can do.

I had four ideas: 1) dry hopping, 2) lactose, 3) fruit, and 4) more or less carbonation.

I had already planned on dry hopping and as I said, started the dry hopping last night. I’m hoping that while this beer is on the young side, this will help some. Perhaps I should dry hop longer to increase the flavor? Maybe this will result in the hop flavor lasting longer so that I can ward off the astringency long enough to drink it all.

Is lactose a bad idea? It’s not to style, which doesn’t really bother me but wheat beer doesn’t really lend itself to the creamy sweetness of lactose. Has anyone ever tried that?

As for fruit, I like fruit in a wheat beer. The main problem is that I don’t have a secondary vessel other than my bottling bucket. That means that I’m either adding fruit to the primary, risking oxidation, or transferring twice at bottling, increasing the risk of an infection. I’m not as keen on adding fruit to this batch unless there’s a fruit that will compliment the hops well.

My only other thought was either increasing or decreasing the amount of carbonation in the final beer. I’m on the fence as to which of those would be beneficial. I was planning to shoot for about 2.5 to 2.75 volumes of CO2 so I probably can’t go much higher without risking bottle bombs.

If it will be useful, the recipe is below. I was looking aiming for something not unlike Boulevard’s 80 Acre, which is an excellent beer. I was going to do something simpler with fewer IBUs but decided I should try dry hopping this batch so that I could learn a new technique.

5 gallon batch
6 lbs Wheat LME
1ish lb honey at flameout (I don’t have a scale yet but it was 1 pint by volume)

Cascade & Amarillo
.25 oz of each at 60, 30, 15 & flameout (about 20 IBUs)
1 oz each for dry hopping

Pitched US-05 at about 70ish degrees F

I don’t have temperature control for my fermentation but I do have a 1940s root cellar that stays in the low to mid 60s year round. It’s probably about 64-65 right now.

I did not measure my OG as I do a partial boil and apparently that leads to inaccurate OG readings. I estimated it to be about 1.050.

I had a blow-off tube attached but never needed it (I thought US-05 was supposed to be violent?). I checked the gravity on day 6 after the krausen had fallen and it was about 1.014. I was hoping that it would finish somewhere between 1.014 and 1.012 but I was worried I might drop under 1.010 with the honey. Dry hops went in after the gravity reading. My plan was to check the gravity again on day 13 or 14 for a couple of days and bottle if I didn’t see any movement. So about 7 days of dry hopping. I could go longer if that might help with the bitterness.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance!

TLDR.

Time cures all.

I'll admit that my post was long but I was trying to provide enough information so that I would receive some useful suggestions. Your response is borderline disrespectful and if it was so long that you didn't read it, I'm not sure how you could give me thoughtful advice.

I'm also not sure exactly what your suggestion is. To do nothing and hope that the astringent flavor goes away? As I explained, in my first batch, the flavor did not go away and if anything it got worse as time went on. With a wheat beer, intended to be drunk young, I can't really do much waiting.

Hopefully someone else can tell me if any of my ideas would actually solve the problem.

Don't do a batch where you only use RO water. If you use RO water, maybe do a 50/50 blend with whatever comes out your filter at home. Yeast need those minerals.

Lactose and adjusting carbonation don't strike me as being good ideas, and I'm a big proponent of lactose. I'm sorry to say (I hope I'm wrong and someone else comes along and gives you better advice) but I think you're stuck with some less desirable beer. With my first couple batches when I had something not live up to expectations I drank what I could and I tried to get creative in using up the rest, but I ultimately ended up dumping a significant minority of it. Could this be useful for beer bread or cooked with in another way? Do you have a friend (maybe not a close one) who likes beer so much he doesn't mind if it isn't great?

A 50/50 RO and filtered tap water (or just bottled water that isn't RO or somehow missing important minerals) batch is something worth trying, but if you know some other homebrewers, or if there is a friendly local homebrew club, maybe take a couple bottles there and see if they can help you diagnose the issue.

Keep at it, we all make something we aren't proud of here and there.

Thank you for the information. That is really helpful. I'll see if I can find someone to attempt to diagnose the flavor. I had it narrowed down to my water or my boil kettle which is a gently used canner. I'm also working with an electric stove. Not ideal but it's working alright.

Have you found that using all RO water leads to unhealthy yeast? I thought I heard that with extract, there are sufficient minerals in the extract already. What about using all RO and adding yeast nutrient?

Thanks again for your advice.

Kent88 is basically wrong about his advice to avoid RO water.

Malt Extract contains minerals; they're needed during the mashing process and are not removed by evaporating the water.

You received some questionable advice earlier I would suggest.

If using extract as the base fermentable, RO or distilled water is ideal for eliminating any water mineral related flavor problems.

Welcome to the forum. Your post is very thorough and clearly you are ahead of the problem already having explored pretty much every potential solution good or bad out there. Nice job.

I'm not sure how best to address the current batch's problems. Perhaps fruit juice rather than fruit could be added in the glass at serving time to ameliorate the astringency issue. That seems like the simplest option, can be tweaked with ease to get a flavor you like and could spawn ideas for future brews. Just a thought.

Definitely go the RO route for the next batch. If the issue persists, look at other avenues. based on what you have descibed I think you very well may be barking up the right tree.

The Autumn Amber Ale kit included specialty grains. Steeping these grains over 170°, or even 165° in hard water, will cause astringency from the tannins being extracted. Your second recipe does not include grains, so tannin extraction is ruled out.

As suggested, go with RO, or distilled, water for your next beer.

I would also suggest a thermometer strip on you fermentor to track the temperature of the fermenting wort. Edit: Ideal fermentation temperature for US-05 is 65° to 68°F.

Six days, to me, is early for dry hopping. CO2 coming out of solution and flocculating yeast will remove hop aromas. I dry hop when my SG samples do not show CO2 bubbles. This is usually at about two weeks, sometimes three.

Carbonation; high carbonation can sometimes create a metallic tasting bite to some beers. I would suggest lower carbonation, about 2.4, for this beer.

Hope this one turns out better after a few weeks of bottle conditioning.

The_Bishop, Gavin C, and flars, thank you for the advice. This confirms pretty much everything else I had been reading about RO water and extract brewing.

Gavin C, I like the idea of adding juice to the glass, I hadn't thought of that at all. I was curious to see what type of fruit I prefer with my wheat and this will give me an opportunity to explore that. Too bad we just used up all of this year's crop of raspberries and strawberries but now I'll know ahead of time for next year.

flars, not only was tannins not an issue with this batch but I was very careful to keep the temp of my steeping grains consistent on the first batch. My water never got above 155 and mostly hovered around 150. You may be right about the dry hopping. I was probably rushing when I should have followed the age old advice, RDWHAHB. There was quite a bit of yeast and CO2 in my sample. Hopefully it won't scrub out too much of the hop flavor and aroma. I was planning to leave the hops in for about a week because some people report a resiny flavor if they dry hop too long. Should I try to go for 2 weeks or would that be pushing it? I will also heed your advice about carbonation.

Thanks again to all of you. This was extremely helpful.

I dry hop for a maximum of seven days. Some have said grassy flavors may develop dry hopping for more than five days. This may be dependent on the hops used though. With some hops, no advice on which ones, may develop a grassy flavor at seven days, or will not have an off flavor after fourteen days. My dry hopping has been limited to Cascade.

Stay with your plan of seven days for this batch of beer. Keep good notes on taste after bottle conditioning, from the first beer to the last.

Thanks for the advice. I'll start checking the gravity after this batch has been dry hopping for about 5 days so that I can bottle on day 7. I'll make sure to take notes on the flavor as it ages. I didn't do that for my last batch so I'm mostly going off of memory. Thanks again.

How about adding some calcium chloride?

You've already gotten some good advice. I'll just chime in with a couple additions.
1) Nothing is going to cover up that astringency. Sorry. Even if you mask it with fruit, it will still linger in the finish, long after the beer and fruit have faded.
2) I've read that fining agents can help, but can't comment on this from personal experience.
3) Give it time. It might taste vastly different after it has carbed up and aged a bit.

My 2c

Adding Calcium and Chloride ions to the mash is a good idea if

1: You are mashing
2: You know the Ca and Cl content of the water you are mashing with
3: The levels are insufficient

Otherwise I would forgoe any and all random mineral additions

I just posted about an overly-bitter beer yesterday, too, and much of the responses seemed to indicate water issues, possibly to high of a pH. Last night on a lark I dropped a bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice (about a tsp) into a pint of the IPA and it cut the bitter flavor significantly, though it also took a lot away from the hop flavor. That may help if you want to drink the beer (like I do) rather than admit defeat and dump it. Good luck!

Gavin C said:

My 2c

Adding Calcium and Chloride ions to the mash is a good idea if

1: You are mashing
2: You know the Ca and Cl content of the water you are mashing with
3: The levels are insufficient

Otherwise I would forgoe any and all random mineral additions

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But you don't need to add it to the mash? If you add CaCl to a finished beer you'll notice something happens.

Smellyglove said:

But you don't need to add it to the mash? If you add CaCl to a finished beer you'll notice something happens.

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I suppose it's worth trying, but this isn't going to magically eliminate the polyphenols that were extracted due to the hard water. It might slightly reduce the perception of astringency, though.

Smellyglove said:

But you don't need to add it to the mash? If you add CaCl to a finished beer you'll notice something happens.

Click to expand...

I suppose you could. I don't see how that will affect things for the better if the cause of the problem is excessivly high mineral levels in the brewing water. (Granted that is only the working assumption behind the advice to use RO water)

Certainly could do it though.

I would question the validity of the approach, especially if using extract. It contains all the desired minerals.

• Minerals in the extract
• Minerals in the brewing water in unknown amounts
• Added Ca and Cl ions in uncertain amounts unless adding from a prepepared solution of known concentration.

Nothing to lost by trying it though. i suppose its a similar idea as adding juice in the glass. Try something, see if it's better. If not scratch the idea or use a different amount.

Hmm. To the best of my knowledge (which is imperfect at best), the only source of astringency in beer is polyphenols. I've never heard of minerals causing astringency, but rather exacerbating the problem by causing more polyphenols to be extracted from the grain. If you're quite confident that the "astringency" you're experiencing is not from steeping specialty grains in too hot of water, then there aren't many other sources for it. This might be a stupid question, but are you QUITE certain that what you're experiencing is astringency, and not bitter or minerally?

I wouldn't describe the flavor as minerally. I think astringent is the most descriptive term I could use. Its almost like an antiseptic cleaner sensation. Its the first thing you taste and then it fades a little but lingers long in the aftertaste. I sanitize with Star San but there shouldn't be enough residue in the fermenter to create this flavor. There were no grains in this batch, only wheat LME and honey so it isn't tannins. I had this same flavor in a batch that did have steeping grains.

My water is exceptionally hard with quite a bit of residual alkalinity. I'll post the mineral content numbers later tonight. I've read other threads with people experiencing an astringent flavor with hard water so that seemed a likely culprit.

Your original post said astringent and you have now suggested antiseptic. I did some google fu and got the following:

Off Flavour: Chlorophenol

Chemical Name: 2,6-dichlorophenol

How to Identify: This one smells like mouthwash, band-aid, antiseptic, disinfectant, and has a medicinal or hospital characteristic.

What it is: It is imparted to beer by the external contamination of either brewing raw materials or packaging materials with chlorophenols – for example, where chlorinated water has been used to brew or rinse equipment that has come into contact with beer.

How it is caused: It can be caused by poor rinsing processes within the brewery during the cleaning phase meaning that raw materials of beer become introduced to chlorophenols. It can also occur in beer delivery lines if they haven’t been rinsed correctly.

1 campden tablet will treat 20 gallons of water removing chloramines. 1/3 tab in every brew's strik water (7-8 gallons)

One thing to think about. Again using RO water solves this issue too.

Gavin C said:

1 campden tablet will treat 20 gallons of water removing chloramines. 1/3 tab in every brew's strik water (7-8 gallons)

One thing to think about. Again using RO water solves this issue too.

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What he said. While boiling will eliminate chlorine, it will NOT eliminate chloramine.

I boiled the water that went into both batches but I guess I hadn't read up on chloramine.

FWIW, here is my water report:

pH: 7.6
TDS Est ppm: 443
Electrical Conductivity: 0.72
Cations / Anions, me/L: 7.7 / 8.1

The following are in ppm (Parts per million)
Sodium, Na: 17
Potassium, K: 2
Calcium, Ca: 86
Magnesium, Mg: 32
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 348 (20.3gpg aka very hard water)
Nitrate, NO3-N: 1.4(SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 9
Chloride, Cl: 49
Carbonate, CO3: 368
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 303
Fluoride, F: 0.90
Iron, Fe: < 0.01

Thanks to Dexter0380 for posting this in the water report thread.

I'll use RO water for my next batch either way but should I be worried about chloramine residue on things I wash in tap water, even if I also sanitize? That would only be a miniscule amount of that is the source of the off flavor.

RO water works fine just add yeast food. I been using 100% RO since I moved 8 years ago (I miss the midwest water) Never had an issue. Time will mellow any astringent flavor (unless it is an infection)

The Chloromine will wash of with clean water don't sweat it.

That sure is hard water. I

No don't worry about tiny amounts of untreated tap water on things.

jensond said:

I boiled the water that went into both batches but I guess I hadn't read up on chloramine.

FWIW, here is my water report:

pH: 7.6
TDS Est ppm: 443
Electrical Conductivity: 0.72
Cations / Anions, me/L: 7.7 / 8.1

The following are in ppm (Parts per million)
Sodium, Na: 17
Potassium, K: 2
Calcium, Ca: 86
Magnesium, Mg: 32
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 348 (20.3gpg aka very hard water)
Nitrate, NO3-N: 1.4(SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 9
Chloride, Cl: 49
Carbonate, CO3: 368
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 303
Fluoride, F: 0.90
Iron, Fe: < 0.01

Thanks to Dexter0380 for posting this in the water report thread.

I'll use RO water for my next batch either way but should I be worried about chloramine residue on things I wash in tap water, even if I also sanitize? That would only be a miniscule amount of that is the source of the off flavor.

Click to expand...

Somethings not right with this report it would seem. What's not right. I don't know but Bru'n water tells me this when I crunch the numbers you gave.

Some very large numbers there. RO water is the answer I reckon. This and the chloramine pretty much confirm everything you have described.

Brun'Water Sumary of the water report

I pulled the information from here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6888214&postcount=67

Dexter0380 sent a sample to Ward Labs of the tap water from the city we both live in. I'm going off of the information that was posted so I can't vouch for the authenticity. I can however confirm, based on my own experience, that the water is exceptionally hard.

I think I'll go with RO/Distilled for my future extract batches and when I finally make it to all grain, I'll figure out if there's a way to salvage my tap water or start with RO water and calculate the mineral additions based on the style.

Thanks again to everyone for all of the help. There's always so much more to learn. I hadn't thought much about water at all before this batch. This is definitely a hobby that will take years to master, if it can ever actually be mastered.

jensond said:

I boiled the water that went into both batches but I guess I hadn't read up on chloramine.

FWIW, here is my water report:

pH: 7.6
TDS Est ppm: 443
Electrical Conductivity: 0.72
Cations / Anions, me/L: 7.7 / 8.1

The following are in ppm (Parts per million)
Sodium, Na: 17
Potassium, K: 2
Calcium, Ca: 86
Magnesium, Mg: 32
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 348 (20.3gpg aka very hard water)
Nitrate, NO3-N: 1.4(SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 9
Chloride, Cl: 49
Carbonate, CO3: 368
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 303
Fluoride, F: 0.90
Iron, Fe: < 0.01

Thanks to Dexter0380 for posting this in the water report thread.

I'll use RO water for my next batch either way but should I be worried about chloramine residue on things I wash in tap water, even if I also sanitize? That would only be a miniscule amount of that is the source of the off flavor.

Click to expand...

If that report is accurate, your water probably uses chlorine, not chloramine. They keep the water pH higher in chloraminated water, to reduce the odor and improve stability.

I guess I'll stick to RO/Distilled water for my next batch and try to learn a lot more about water before I move to all grain.

Thanks again to everyone for the information.