Off flavored wort

HI all. I've had bad after taste or sensation problem on all my batchs. Got advice and studied up on this forum and tried again.

I just brewed "toad spit stout" a week ago.(recipe from that book by papazian. and I am aware of misprint on the recipe. Which is 1 teaspoon instead of 8 teaspoon of gypsum)

I've studied up on all the mistakes I've made and Brewing went flawlessly. Out of curiosity, I've tried tasting the wort. And there it was. That darn tea bag sucking dry feeling on my throat. Since, its at wort stage, I believe something about wort making is causing it. I'm at my wits end. Only possible suspects I have left are "one step" sanitizer" or my enamel ceramic pot. I've kept good temp, so I can't imagine being husk from grains. (kept at 150 whole time) Never left my wort.

things I've done after studying for this batch.
1. Used spring water.
2. Used only one step and measured out the water in exact portion.
3. Kept thermometer on brew pot whole time and had kept temp constant for steeping(150) and boiling(212).
4. Used alcohol(vodka) for airlock.
5. EVERYTHING got sanitized.
6. Kept good note of detailed steps and materials.

Things I have noticed for all my batch.
1. Non of them have off color, smell, or inital taste.
2. they all had good primary and had plenty of activity.
3. temp of bottle. I have no means of actually controlling it, other then keeping it covered from light and put on blanket if it is cold.

Actual wort making steps I took.
1. got all my sanitizing solutions and equipment ready.
2. While sanitizing all the equipments, got water boiling. 2 1/2 gallon of water.
3. Kept thermometer on the pot and held 155 steady.
4. Steeped for 30 minutes.
5. waited for water to boil. (15 minutes)
6. added malt powder slowly and added bittering hops after. (7 minutes)
7. Waited for hot break and started my 1 hour timer.
8. Kept temp at 212 and added flavoring hops 15mintues before hour was up.
9. Got ice bath ready while waiting for last 15 minutes of boil.
10. Sanitized funnel by dipping in sanit water for good measure.
11. since the water i bought was in 5 gallon capacity added rest of water in carboy. (aware of being bit short on liquid)
12. when boil was done cooled wort in ice bath by stirring with stainless steel spoon. (9 minutes) came down to 110.
13. Added wort to carboy and mixture aerated for 5 minutes.(5 minutes)
14. got some mixture into tube thingy to measure original gravity(measured 1.064 The recipe called for 1.060 O.G) and temp(75)
15. tasted the wort and almost had an heart attack. (Eternity)

Oh my ME Beer Lord! Why hath thou forsaken MEEE!!!!

Well, the first thing that jumped out was you're malt extract addition. Normally, you add malt extract (be it dry or liquid) in the last 15 minutes of the boil (to be sure it is: 1) correctly dissolved and 2) sanitized).
Normally, people recommend adding dry malt extract one pound at a time to avoid it sticking together. Liquid malt extract is a bit different, it is usually easier to add it all at once, but be sure you move the brewpot off of the element (or else you get burnt LME on the bottom of it) or turn it off a bit before the addition.

Other than that, John Palmer in How to Brew lists the astringency (tongue puckering) off flavor as being caused by a too long steep. I would recommend cutting down to 15-20 minutes in the method you're using (the other method being 150 degree water, and let it cool and steep for 20-30 minutes).

At least we may have found the reason(s) behind your problem. I'm not sure you can do anything know to solve it, but someone else will confirm that.

Can't tell a thing from tasting the wort. The flavor of the wort has little relationship to the flavor of your beer. Personally, I think most wort tastes like southern sweet tea with a bitter after bite.

Are you squeezing your grain bag when removing it? If so you may be you are getting some tannins from the grain. Do you get that flavors in your finished beer? I didn't see anything weird with your brewing so maybe you can expand on what you don't like about the wort.

The technique looks fine- I'd just tweak a few minor things. One is to bring your wort to a boil and hot break and then add your 60 minute hops and set the timer. No need to add them until after you start timing. This is NOT causing the aftertaste, but you'll notice that the hot break will be less likely to boil over without the hops in it. This is really more important for PM and AG (since you get way more hot break) but a technique to follow.

Have you used the same brand of water in each batch? I wonder if it's ph issues. Maybe try steeping in less water, remove the grains, and then add more water and bring to a boil. Astringency can be also caused by ph issues. Otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with what you're doing.

I use one-step all the time, almost exclusively, and don't notice a taste from it.

Thax for suggestions Mrfocus, nurmey, yooper.

mrfocus said:

Other than that, John Palmer in How to Brew lists the astringency (tongue puckering) off flavor as being caused by a too long steep. I would recommend cutting down to 15-20 minutes in the method you're using (the other method being 150 degree water, and let it cool and steep for 20-30 minutes).

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is that adequate heat and time to get enough things out of the grain?

nurmey said:

Are you squeezing your grain bag when removing it? If so you may be you are getting some tannins from the grain. Do you get that flavors in your finished beer? I didn't see anything weird with your brewing so maybe you can expand on what you don't like about the wort.

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I am squeezing my grain bag when removing it. maybe that is one possibility. All my brews so far have one common problem. Looks, taste, and smells good. But, after taking drink of it, you get something like sucking on tea bag feeling on your throat. Your throat will get so dry will have hard time swollowing. your throat will feel like its rubbing against each other for hours.

YooperBrew said:

The technique looks fine- I'd just tweak a few minor things. One is to bring your wort to a boil and hot break and then add your 60 minute hops and set the timer. No need to add them until after you start timing. This is NOT causing the aftertaste, but you'll notice that the hot break will be less likely to boil over without the hops in it. This is really more important for PM and AG (since you get way more hot break) but a technique to follow.

Have you used the same brand of water in each batch? I wonder if it's ph issues. Maybe try steeping in less water, remove the grains, and then add more water and bring to a boil. Astringency can be also caused by ph issues. Otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with what you're doing.

I use one-step all the time, almost exclusively, and don't notice a taste from it.

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I used those 5 gallon bottled water for this particular batch, to start eliminating possibilities. I was using tap before. I even got candy thermometer to keep eye on the temp this time also. (calibrated before using) I was using reg food thermometer and taking periodic temps. Got stainless steel spoon for stirr. I started my hour timer at hot break. But added bittering hops before the hot break.


Advice from last time was along the line of tanning getting into my wort, so I tried to take much precaution as possible.

3 steeping process I have tried as followes.
2nd brew
1) heat water to 185 and cut the heat. Add grain bag and let it soak for half hour. (was adviced that high temp would bring out tannis flavor)
3rd brew
2) heat water to 155 with 2 gallon water and leave the bag for 20 minutes. (was adviced that its too long to be left alone in the brew)
4th brew
3) heat water to 155 and steep for half hour. (maybe squeezing the grain bag was not such a hot idea.)

My 1st batch was extract brew. Which is puzzling me. With last 3 batch using grains I could understand. But, how can brew in a can have same problem?
For 1st batch I boiled water, added cans and boiled for one hour. did 1/1/2 for primary/secondary/bottling. Aged the beer few weeks on top of 1/1/2. Had same off flavor I am having right now. Onlything that changed is degree of how badly my throat feels. I had other people tried them and they had same comment.

Good side is that my brews are coming out with good color,clearer, and smells good.

anyways. Lez review and let me get more kinks out of the way before I try again.

1) What determines or contribute greatly to O.G. The Malt or the grain?
2) I was thinking of trying 155 cut the heat. Steep for 20 minutes as suggested. (kinda warry that it might not be adequate enough to get enough things out of the grain.)
3) Call everyone I ever known and just say "sorry for what ever I did. Stop putting hex on my brew pretty plz?"

barniclebob12 said:

My 1st batch was extract brew. Which is puzzling me. With last 3 batch using grains I could understand. But, how can brew in a can have same problem?
For 1st batch I boiled water, added cans and boiled for one hour. did 1/1/2 for primary/secondary/bottling. Aged the beer few weeks on top of 1/1/2. Had same off flavor I am having right now. Onlything that changed is degree of how badly my throat feels. I had other people tried them and they had same comment.

Good side is that my brews are coming out with good color,clearer, and smells good.

anyways. Lez review and let me get more kinks out of the way before I try again.

1) What determines or contribute greatly to O.G. The Malt or the grain?
2) I was thinking of trying 155 cut the heat. Steep for 20 minutes as suggested. (kinda warry that it might not be adequate enough to get enough things out of the grain.)
3) Call everyone I ever known and just say "sorry for what ever I did. Stop putting hex on my brew pretty plz?"

Click to expand...

Well, you absolutely should not have tannin extraction without grains. That makes me think there is a water issue.

Here's an article from BYO regarding this:

Dear Mr. Wizard,

In using specialty grains with extract homebrewing, what is the best method to get the most flavor and color out of the grains but still reduce tannins? Some recipes say to steep grains until water comes to a boil and remove, while others say to bring water to 150° F and steep for 30 minutes. I just made a Belgium ale in which I steeped the grains in 170° F water for 30 minutes and then sparged with 170° F water. Was this temperature too high for the steep and did it release unwanted tannins?

C. Zurich
Baltimore

Mr. Wizard replies: The two most influential factors affecting the extraction of tannins from malt into wort are pH and temperature. All-grain brewers are very careful not to allow wort pH to reach more than about pH 6 during sparging because tannin extraction increases with pH. In all-grain brewing wort pH typically rises during the last stages of wort collection and is one of the factors letting the brewer know that wort collection should be stopped.

When a relatively small weight of specialty grains is steeped in a large volume of water, the result is a very thin mixture. The pH is only slightly affected by the malt (pale malts tend to lower the mash pH during all-grain mashing to about 5.4 pH). This means the pH of the solution during steeping will be higher than the pH of a normal mash, which has an oatmeal-like consistency.

To combat this problem the pH of the steep can be adjusted to around 5.4. Although all-grain brewers typically use calcium sulfate (gypsum) or calcium chloride to lower mash pH, these salts lower pH by reacting with phosphates from the malt. Steeping mixtures don’t contain much malt and lowering the pH with water salts can be difficult. Food-grade lactic or phosphoric acid are alternatives to water salts; both of these acids are sold in homebrew stores.

The key to adding acids is to add them slowly with continual stirring and monitoring with a pH meter or pH paper. I recommend adding a small amount while stirring the pot, checking the pH, and continuing until the pH is around 5.4.

Temperature also affects tannin extraction. This relationship is pretty simple. If you don’t want to run the risk of getting too much tannin in your wort, keep the temperature just below 170° F.

This is where the answer to your last question begins. You ask whether steeping and sparging released "unwanted tannins" in your beer. For starters, all beer contains tannins. Some tannins are implicated in haze and some lend astringent flavors to beer.

The type most homebrewers are concerned about are those affecting flavor. In any case, it is up to the brewer to decide if the level of tannins in their beer is too high. The (in)famous decoction mash is frequently recommended when a brewer is in search of more malt flavor. Decoction mashes boil malt and — among analytical brewers who are not afraid of rocking the boat with unpopular ideas — are known to increase the astringent character associated with tannins. In general I wouldn’t consider 170° F dangerously high with respect to tannin extraction. However, if you believe your beers may suffer because of too much astringency, consider adjusting your steep pH and lowering the temperature a few degrees.

I wouldn't really worry about the salts right now, but might consider trying yet one more water source- distilled water or bottled spring water. And when you do steep grains, use less water as I mentioned earlier.

For steeping grains, you get color and flavor from them, but no real fermentable sugars. The contribute nothing/very little to the OG. Steeping at 155 for 15 minutes is adequate to get the goodness out of them.