"Grainy" Aftertaste

I just finished up a split batch of a pale ale, a pretty close variation to Ed Ws Haus Ale. Both beers taste good, but i notice a somewhat sweet grainy aftertaste. I brewed a blonde ale several months ago and i noticed the same flavor. At the local homebrew meeting one brewer thought i had extracted too much tannin in the mash. Is that the characteristic you would expect from that? I have recently (within the last 6-8 batches) switched to doing batch sparging, i am pretty sure my temperatures have been on par (168F sprage water) with mash temps in the 150s. Besides that i cant think of anything else i changed in my process, and like i said the majority of what I made has not had this in the aftertaste. Any suggestions on what i can look into to eliminate this on future brews?

Thanks in Advance,
Jason

I agree that you may have extracted tannins. Its hard to tell though if you didn't record your mash temp. In the 150's is too vague to narrow things down. For future brewing, always monitor your mash temps...

I did monitor temps. I mashed my Blonde at 154F for 60m, and the Pale at 152F for 60m.

It does sound like tannins. Your temperatures sound fine. How long did you mash? Did you check the pH of your mash and sparge? How fine is your crush?


TL

Maybe you can try adding the 5.2 PH stabalizer to your mash. Either that or you can look into the wonderful world of water chemistry.

Also did you vorlauf to ensure the wort was clear before each draining. This is the step that bit me a couple times. Ph is another possible problem if you are not monitoring it, especially during the last sparge.
Craig

I did not check PH at any stage. My mash time was 60m on both batches, and i am not sure about the crush. My LHBS does that. I did brew a wit right after (same day) as the pale ale with crushed grain from the same mill, crushed minutes after the crush for the pale's grain bill.

I'm no water expert, but I am wondering if you're only getting this grainy aftertaste with the lighter colored beers, and not with darker beers. TexLaw asking about your PH put my train of thought on your water.

Isn't it true that the "lighter" beers will exhibit a grainy taste if your water is too alkaline, more so than the darker beers like stouts? So, if you mashed at those temperatures, the only thing I can think of is mash ph being a factor.

From Howtobrew.com:
The term "hardness" refers to the amount of calcium and magnesium ions in the water. Hard water commonly causes scale on pipes. Water hardness is balanced to a large degree by water alkalinity. Alkaline water is high in bicarbonates. Water that has high alkalinity causes the mash pH to be higher than it would be normally. Using dark roasted malts in the mash can balance alkaline water to achieve the proper mash pH, and this concept will be explored later in this chapter
Also, here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-2.html

YooperBrew said:

Isn't it true that the "lighter" beers will exhibit a grainy taste if your water is too alkaline, more so than the darker beers like stouts? So, if you mashed at those temperatures, the only thing I can think of is mash ph being a factor.

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It could be sparge pH, as well. I actually expect that it is sparge pH. Often, brewers who go through great lengths to treat their mash water neglect to treat their sparge water in the same way and end up raising the pH to problem levels while sparging.

Yes, darker beers have less problems with grainy aftertastes, as the darker grains do more to lower your mash pH and help keep it down while sparging.


TL

I would go with the water being alkaline. I have had similar problems. I now use distilled water for my light colored beers, and this take care of most of the problem, the rest as I found out was DMS.

TexLaw said:

It could be sparge pH, as well. I actually expect that it is sparge pH. Often, brewers who go through great lengths to treat their mash water neglect to treat their sparge water in the same way and end up raising the pH to problem levels while sparging.

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So for light colored beers, do you add 5.2 stabalizer to your sparge water too?
Thanks,
Mike

Yes, I do.


TL

TexLaw said:

Yes, I do.
TL

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Cool. Thanks. I'm attempting to do a Blond Ale for my second AG and our water here is pretty well suited for Ambers.

I think at some point, I might play around with water chemistry. Right now, it is probably better to focus on getting the AG steps down.

For lighter brews, use Pilsner malt instead of pale.

Make sure to boil for 90 minutes to avoid DMS.

While it is very well possible you could have extraced some undesirable tannins. One should also consider the malt you used. There are some domestic (North American) malts that impart a certain grainy phenol.
So what kind of malt did you use?

Tannins (polyphenols) are found in all barley malt and are contained mainly in the husk. These compounds are more insoluble in acidic solutions and more soluble in basic (alkaline) solutions. I agree you should check your pH or if you do not have a way to do this, assume your pH is too alkaline and add some pH stabilizer.

Dr Malt

I am def going to pay attention to PH in future brews. I think i will try the 5.2 PH buffer. I do have a feeling that my water is hard(even though the only water report the local water authority could provide for me just told me there was no poison in the water, which i guess is assuring). Can you guys think of any reason why the PH would not have had an effect on the Belgian wit? From reading over the PH section of "How to Brew" it seems like the wit would be even more susceptible than the PA as it is lighter. Thank you all for the great info so far and in advance!

Going in a different direction here but how was your attenuation? Did you use a starter? In the past when I haven't used a starter and underpitched, my beer would not attenuate as well as it should have. It left a sweet taste.

Just my $0.02

Attenuation seemed good. I ended at 1.009 and 1.011. I did not use a starter as i used dry yeast for both.

I'm going in another direction altogether because I know, as brewers, many of us are a bit nerdy and revel in the minutia of pH, mineral compounds etc.

A friend of mine had a similar problem with a Hefeweizen. I finally cracked the mystery by accident one day. It was suspended sediment in his beer.

Though the crush may be alright, there is no doubt some small amount of grain flour/dust that make it through unless you have filtered your beer. Cold conditioning tends to cure this ill after the fact so long as you don't shake the bottle or keg . A good crush, a solid vorlauf, and a well set and undisturbed grain bed (fly sparging) are good ways to avoid particulate suspension.

I solved my friend's problem with his Hefeweizen by accidentally not swirling the sediment in the bottom of the bottle and adding it to the glass. What should have only been yeast actually had some fine grain particulate in it and was resulting in an off-taste.

Unless your local water is way off normal you can usually get away with fairly standard brewing procedures. Granted, light beers such as PAs, Blondes and Lagers are much better when brewed with altered water, but they can be done without water alteration. I know this is not ideal, and as a nerd I'll still alter my water. I mention this only because I believe pH to be a less likely culprit than particulate.

Start simple and work towards the more complicated. The poster with the suggestion regarding malt type and it having a grainy taste offers a very good starting point as well.

Nostrildamus said:

Start simple and work towards the more complicated. The poster with the suggestion regarding malt type and it having a grainy taste offers a very good starting point as well.

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I often agree with that statement, and I am glad you brought up a possible explanation that none of us thought of. However, there is something to be said for starting with the most common cause of a problem, rather than just the most simple, and going from there.


TL