Astringency and crushing

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Homercidal

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I recently had a couple of beers tasted and several people noted an astringency to them. I have read that one cause of this could be too fine of a crush. I had thought that this might be the case where one used a corona mill, and the husks were torn into fairly small pieces.

However, I am using a roller crusher, and although I believe my crush is fairly fine, I get about 80-85 percent efficiency as best as I have measured so far. I had thought that because I am crushing the grain, the husks would remain somewhat whole, and my beer would be generally immune to astringency from too fine a crush.

So my question is: Have I misled myself by believing that a crusher is mostly impervious to causing astringency?

I am looking at other causes as well, but some experienced advice on the crush would be appreciated.
 
Regarding the comments on your scoresheets re: astringency, was it noted as huskiness/tannin-derived astringency? I noticed that the beers you entered were APAs and IPAs, so some level of hop-derived astringency is almost assured.
 
I have a hard time believing that astringency would come from too fine of a crush. Husks are thin enough where they're going to be saturated in any mash whether or not you even crush the grain. It just doesn't make much intuitive sense.


Now, astringency from too hot a sparge, oversparging, etc, that would make more sense.


How is your boil? Polyphenols (which cause astringency), are supposed to precipitate out in the hot break.
 
I crush my grain so much I can hear it screaming. ;) I don't get astringency.

I have had astringency in the past:

1) Oversparged. It was a partigyle beer, so there ya go.
2) Before I knew about water chemistry. I was sparging with really hard water (back then my water was 430ppm residual alkalinity... we were on well water)
 
I have had astringency in the past:

1) Oversparged. It was a partigyle beer, so there ya go.
2) Before I knew about water chemistry. I was sparging with really hard water (back then my water was 430ppm residual alkalinity... we were on well water)

Yup, I've have problems with #2 before. If your water is hard, the mash pH will be way too high and you'll extract astringency from both the gain and the hops.

What is your water profile?
 
Ok, scratch the crush off the list!

I would bet either the water, or oversparging. I'm looking at water more closely now that I understand the importance of certain factors for certain brews. The oversparge I'll look at my process again, but it was pretty much straight out of beersmith and my own quick and dirty check, so I don't think that was it.
 
I used to think that astringency can be caused by shredded husks and I used to list malt conditioning, which reduces the husk shredding, as a way to reduce astringency.

But I have since backed off from this statement. Mostly because there are brewers who pulverize their grist and then separate wort and spent grain with a mash filter. They don’t seem to have a problem with astringency.

As others noted, pH, especially during sparging, plays a much bigger role.

Kai
 
so does vorlaufing reduce possible astringency or is it just for wort clarity?

I think it is mostly for wort clarity. I cannot imagine that you get enough fine husk material into the kettle to create an excessive amount of tannins.

I believe that at proper boil pH you can even have some husks in the boil w/o extracting too many tannins. Reason for that is that I started with Alton Brown's Ale recipe which required you to boil the specialty grains ;) While this has been a long time ago and certainly not the best beer I have made I do not remenber it to be excessively astringent. I'd like to confirm this with a small batch side by experiment where I make one batch with properly steeped and removed specialty grains and the other one with boiling the grains. I don't expect the latter to be excessively astringent. If you look at decoction mashing, the grains are boiled there as well and we don't get excessively astringent beers although more tannins are extracted compared to infusion mashing.

Kai
 
I think it is mostly for wort clarity. I cannot imagine that you get enough fine husk material into the kettle to create an excessive amount of tannins.

I believe that at proper boil pH you can even have some husks in the boil w/o extracting too many tannins. Reason for that is that I started with Alton Brown's Ale recipe which required you to boil the specialty grains ;) While this has been a long time ago and certainly not the best beer I have made I do not remenber it to be excessively astringent. I'd like to confirm this with a small batch side by experiment where I make one batch with properly steeped and removed specialty grains and the other one with boiling the grains. I don't expect the latter to be excessively astringent. If you look at decoction mashing, the grains are boiled there as well and we don't get excessively astringent beers although more tannins are extracted compared to infusion mashing.

Kai

Thanks Kai, the reason I ask is that I had an IPA that all 3 judges noted had slight astringency. I forgot to vorlauf that batch, but I agree with what you've said, and am chalking it up to too high of a sparge temp
 
Thanks Kai, the reason I ask is that I had an IPA that all 3 judges noted had slight astringency. I forgot to vorlauf that batch, but I agree with what you've said, and am chalking it up to too high of a sparge temp

Was the astringency noted to be huskiness/tannin-derived or hop-derived? IPAs trend toward a touch of astringency from the heavy hopping, especially if the varieties have high levels of cohumulone.
 
Was the astringency noted to be huskiness/tannin-derived or hop-derived? IPAs trend toward a touch of astringency from the heavy hopping, especially if the varieties have high levels of cohumulone.

they didn't say specifically but I would assume tannin derived as 2 of the 3 judges said to pay more attention to sparge temps
 
they didn't say specifically but I would assume tannin derived as 2 of the 3 judges said to pay more attention to sparge temps

they are taking a blind guess since they don't know your process. And you don't know how well the judge is able to tie the astringency he is percieving to your sparging.

Kai
 
Thanks Kai, the reason I ask is that I had an IPA that all 3 judges noted had slight astringency. I forgot to vorlauf that batch, but I agree with what you've said, and am chalking it up to too high of a sparge temp

What about your pH? I've found that tannins are much more related to pH than sparge temp.
 
ya know Denny, it's about time I start looking at pH - I've some low conversion efficiency issues and Kai's got me convinced to check my mash pH. Might as well get a meter or some strips and check the mash and sparge run-off pH.

thx for all the advice.

p.s. I was using store bought water so I don't think hardness should be an issue, and I just check my notes and saw that the grain bed got to 161*F, so I'm leaning more towards pH issues now...
 
Can someone explain over-sparging (besides the obvious self-explanitory definition)? Too much sparge water? Too hoot or cold sparge water? Stirring the grains too much once the sparge water has been added? I basically do what BeerTools tells me to.
 
I'm leaning towards PH myself, although I used bottled water for at least one of the beers that had astringency remarked. On the other hand, the bottled water comes from about 20 minutes away. It might be very close to the water I have at home.

But I just brewed a Belgian Wit and the instructions say to sparge with 196 water. I think that is hotter than the 180 I had used before.

I also did not let the sparge sit for more than 10 minutes this last time, especially the second sparge.

I doubt it's oversparging too, because I have limited kettle space and always go by the beersmith recommendations for sparge volume. Just cut in half and do 2 sparges instead of 1.
 
What about your pH? I've found that tannins are much more related to pH than sparge temp.

+ 1

No one bats an eye at the idea of doing a decoction (boiling the darn grains), but heaven forbid one go over 170F during a sparge.

One of these days I'm going to do a full decoction, boiling everything and then drain and chill right into the fermentor. In other words, the sparge will be post boil.
 
p.s. I was using store bought water so I don't think hardness should be an issue, and I just check my notes and saw that the grain bed got to 161*F, so I'm leaning more towards pH issues now...

Plenty of store bought "spring" water is hard.
 
What are you going to do with respect to the starch that is released during boiling, or will you not worry about this?

Kai


Yep, not worry about it. What I'm planning is not really a true decoction. My plan is to mash as normal and then boil it all, lock, stock, and barrel, right in the mash tun. A twist I guess on the typical no sparge brewing. Probably do some kind or beer that's amber or darker. I'm hoping most of the starch will be converted before boiling. I figure as long as my pH is good, there should be no harm to boiling everything. I'd also add some hops when mashing in. Plus I'd probably boil no longer than 30 min. I've done a 20 min. boil on an AG ale, and it was not half bad. Things were learned. A side project I'm slowly experimenting with is the goal of a 2 hr All Grain brew procedure - that makes a great beer.
 
Yep, not worry about it.

I suggest you to do an iodine test. Not b/c you have to react on it but for the scientific purpose of having more data. My experiences with decoction are that even if you think you converted all the starch, boiling will be able to release some more. Interesting concept though.

Kai
 
One of these days I'm going to do a full decoction, boiling everything and then drain and chill right into the fermentor. In other words, the sparge will be post boil.

Well that day would have been Sept. 5th. I did it. Boiled all 8.5 lbs of grain after mashing and adding more water. To add another wrinkle, I only boiled for 20 min. and used pellet hops that I fried in 6 Tbsp of canola oil, all of which went into the mash tun along with the grains.

I started another thread with all of the details here AG, sauteed hop pale ale - 20 min. boil, no sparge

The post boil sample had no detectable astrigency, and had a nice bitterness to it. I look forward to the final product.

Kai, I pulled samples to do an iodine test but haven't gotten around to it. I took one after diluting, prior to boiling, and one post boil. However even just visually I can see starches were released during the boil. The post boil sample after settling is still cloudy, while the post mash/preboil sample is much clearer.
 
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