Atringent taste, 1st and 2nd batch

[ohpspe]

Ok, I know that this question has been asked before, or at least similar to it, but here I go.
My first batch of beer that I brewed was an amber beer (recipe below). It initially tasted awesome, people couldn't get enough of it. After about 2 weeks after initial tasting, it started to have an astringent taste to it. This was beer that had been in the fridge for about 2 weeks. Beer that had been at room temp for 6 weeks then put into the fridge for 2 days also tasted like astringent.

Now, my second batch, a Belgian lager, is tasting like astringent after 4 days in the fridge (initial tasting after 2 days of refrigeration was awesome). I sanitized this stuff with a non-rinse sanitizer.

Here are the recipes:

1st beer
1 lb Pilsen grain
1 lb Dextra Pils grain
1 lb Amber kiln grain
steep at 160 for 45 minutes
add 5.5 lbs of amber LME
Boil
Add 0.75 oz of Mt Hood pellets for 60 min
Add 0.25 oz of Mt Hood pellets for 15 minutes
Wyeast 1275
Primary for 2 weeks @ 63 degrees
Secondary for 2 weeks @ 70 degrees
Bottle condition for 2 weeks @ 70 degrees

2nd beer
1 lb Belgian Pilsner grain
1 lb German Pilsner grain
1 lb Dextrine malt
steep at 160 for 45 minutes
add 5.5 lbs of light LME
Boil
Add UK First Gold Pellets 1 oz at 60 min
Add UK First Gold Pellets 0.6 oz at 30 min
Add UK First Gold Pellets 0.2 oz at 15 min
Wyeast 2035
Primary for 8 days @ 55 degrees
Secondary for 2 weeks @ 45 degrees
Lager for 2 weeks @ 35, add Mt Hood Dried hops, 1 oz and orange zest

I thought I learned a lesson about sanitizing after the first batch. The second batch I bottled but didn't rinse the cleaner (B-brite) before sanitizing, which I am thinking may have caused the astringent issues.

I also have 47 bottles of a California common conditioning right now and am planning on doing the 1st batch again this weekend. Any help is appreciated!!!!

 

[unionrdr]

Ditch the B-Brite. Never trusted any of those beyond the first use. I now use Starsan sanitizer & PBW cleaner,both by Five Star Chemical. Starsan is a True,no rinse wet santizer that won't impart off flavors in the correct dilution of 3/8oz per gallon of water. That is to say,3/4's of the way up to the 1/4oz mark on the lil measure on top of the bottle of concentrate.
I also see that you steeped pilsen malts & the like. They should be mashed for an hour at more like 148-152F. They used to say mash/steep water temp to high made astringency. Now they say it's PH & due to excess water volume. Maybe some combination of both is closer to the truth. I don't honestly think they know for sure either.
At any rate,it could also be a PH related issue. Combined with b-brite residue it could be creating your problem.

 

[grem135]

I had the same thing happen on my first batch and to a lesser extent my second batch. Both were fermented to warm though. I got rid of the b-bright and used a swamp cooler for the 3rd batch and it was better but not great. Thats when I found out they use Chloramine in my tap water instead of chlorine so I treated my brew water with campden for my 4th batch and it was awesome and is almost gone
Get a water report from your water company, they usually have it available online. It might not be the problem but then campden is cheap and all my beers have improved big time since I started using it.

Edit: found this post

 

[MagicSmoker]

My first 3 batches (extract + steeped specialty grains) have all tasted somewhat astringent, too, and leaving them in the bottle longer did not change the taste one whit. If a beer is just as undrinkable at week 6 as it was at week 1 please don't bother arguing it will somehow magically get better after even more time... Maybe it will, but I'm not going to bother finding out.

So my first beer was an ESB using a recipe from the LHBS. In retrospect, I know that I steeped the grains at too hot a temperature, (75C or 167F), which is often the cause of astringency, or so I've read. FWIW, I used bottled "spring water" rather than tap water.

The second batch was a clone of Bells Two-Hearted Ale (recipe from here) and it tasted much better. There was still a slight amount of astringency in the middle of the mouth, but the front of mouth had a nice almost cotton candy like sweetness that I could also detect in the authentic Bell's I sampled at the same time. One interesting variation to the process in this recipe was splitting the extract additions in half, adding half at the beginning of the boil and half when there was 10 minutes left. I also steeped the specialty grains at the recommended 150F this time, but still used bottled spring water.

Given the success of the Bell's clone, I next brewed a Terrapin Rye Pale Ale clone, but this was a pre-assembled extract + specialty grains kit from another LHBS in my area. This beer turned out terrible and, in fact, tasted a lot like the first beer: some astringency, no malt character (despite there being nearly 3# of steeping grains in the kit), no hops character. It tasted exactly the same at week 5 as it did at week 1 so I poured all but one 6-pack down the drain. That last one I'm keeping in the interest of Science.

Given my poor track record thus far it's probably no surprise that I am starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't take up a different hobby... I hate to give up unless I've really been beaten to a bloody pulp and kicked a few times while I am down for good measure, though, so I decide to do one more brew, and this time I'm going all-grain. Well, mostly-grain, with only enough extract to hit my projected O.G. Given that I've never done a mash before, and didn't really have the right equipment (it started off as a full boil BIAB, but the bag part didn't work out - long story, that), I wasn't holding out much hope. I ended up having to add 2# of Briess Golden Light DME to hit my O.G. of 1.050, but I was projecting needing 1#, at most, so that was a bummer. I also forgot to buy spring water this time, but at least I had remembered to change the carbon filtration cartridge in the whole house filter a week earlier. Anyway, after two weeks in the fermenter and just 6 days in the bottle I sampled one of batch #4 - with much trepidation, as this was make or break time - and it was DAMN GOOD. Plenty of malt character and an appropriate amount of sweetness for an ESB. The hops character was a bit too muted for my tastes, but the total lack of astringency was what I breathed a sigh of relief over.

So, I proceeded with batch #5 (an even more mostly grain) and it is now fermenting away...

So, was it the spring water? Was it the Briess malt extract? I don't know for sure yet. I really ought to get a proper pH meter because I have read that alkaline water can cause astringency, and the city of Tampa flat out states that they adjust the pH of their water to between 7.5 and 8.0 to prevent pipe corrosion. Also, the spring water here is almost certainly from a limestone aquifer, so it will almost certainly be alkaline, too.

But I don't trust that malt extract one bit, and until proven otherwise I'm only going to use it to make up any deficiency in gravity.

 

[unionrdr]

At 7.5 to 8,the PH is to high. It should be lower,like 5 or so. Spring water here in Ohio has worked out very well from AE to PM for me. Check it,& read in the water chemistry forum for more about what to do about it.

 

[Clonefan94]

Can't add much here, but I will ask what kind of water are you using, straight tap water? If your tap water has any chlorine in it, it will give the beer a bad off flavor.

 

[ohpspe]

I am using straight tap water and called the water company this morning. They obtain their water from 3 wells and pump it to a tank above our house. The ph on the wells was 7.98, 7.83, and 7.95. The do not at cholrine but the water has naturally occurring chloride. Hardness is 188, 214, and 204 from the wells.

They are going to send me a full water report on all 3 wells and I can post more when I receive it.

I am not willing to give up on my new hobby yet, but want to produce something that will last longer than 3 days after bottling. I am thinking that for my next batch, the bottles will go into the dishwasher on a rinse and heated drying cycle the day before bottling and then into my no rinse sanitizer on bottling day.

Thoughts???

 

[Tiedye]

I struggled with an astringent/bitter taste in my first several batches. I worked through water profile and chlorine, fermentation temps, pitching rates, and the problem persisted.

The flavor ended up being oxidation. I believe the culprit was air leaking in through the connection between the hose and my auto-siphon when racking and infusing my new beer with O2.

I've addressed that, and take extreme care when moving the beer between vessels an packaging. So far so good!

Drink half of a nice commercial beer and put the rest in the fridge overnight. Taste it the next day and you'll have a great example of oxidation to compare against your brews. I did this with both an IPA and a Porter. Both developed that nasty astringent taste very quickly.

Good luck!

 

[unionrdr]

Astringency doesn't come from oxidation. Oxidation is sherry like or wet cardboard. Astringent is sucking on a tea bag. Here's a link from draft magazine; http://draftmag.com/offflavors/

 

[Yooper]

It sounds like your water chemistry may be a big part of this- if the "hardness" is any indication of the alkalinity of the water.

When you get your water report, let us know what it says and we can give you more specifics.

 

[ohpspe]

I am torn between water chemistry and cleanser not being rinsed well enough. I will post the water info when I get it.

The thing is, the first day in the beer tastes really good. In the case of the first batch it was 2 weeks of liquid gold. After those 2 weeks, astringent. The second batch after 3 days of delishousness, astringent. Why would it take so long for it to show up?

I am going to try a warm one tonight to see if it tastes different than the chilled ones.

 

[helibrewer]

I'm with Yooper, those water numbers have me curious. Some salts can be astringent and that water is pretty hard.

I would brew a batch with RO water in the mean time and see how you like it.

 

[ohpspe]

So I tasted a warm one tonight and it definitely had the astringent flavor to it.

Thank you for the comments everyone. I will post my water information when I have it.

At this point I am a little discouraged as I have a full case that is probably bad and 2 cases of a California Common that I fear may also suffer this fate.

 

[ohpspe]

Here are my well log information. 3 wells serve water to our house, pump up to a tank and gravity feed down to the house.

Well

#1 #2 #3​

Aluminum mg/L

ND ND ND​

Hardness mg/L

188 214 204​

Nitrate + Nitirite mg/L

0.69 0.87 0.48​

Potassium mg/L

3 3 3​

Zinc mg/L

ND ND ND​

Alkalinity mg/L

177 197 194​

Calcium mg/L

42 47 43​

Chloride mg/L

5.0 6.4 4.2​

Conductivity umhos/cm

365 398 395​

Iron mg/L

ND ND 0.04​

Magnesium mg/L

20 23 23​

Manganese mg/L

ND ND ND​

pH

7.98 7.83 7.95​

Sodium mg/L

4.9 4.5 5.1​

Sulfate mg/L

11.3 13.5 13.1​

That's all the info I have.

I was talking to the owner of one of the breweries here and he stated that it may be the yeast. I have been using Wyeast smack packs, he suggested using a starter yeast the day before brewing.

 

[ohpspe]

Dropped off 2 bottles of my beer at the brewery today. I can't wait to hear their thoughts on it.

Talked to the guys at the home brew shop and they said when steeping the grain, I should get the water up to 160, turn off the heat, put the grain in, and cover for 45 minutes. Will try that tomorrow.

Picked up brewing supplies and 7 gallons of RO water from WalMart. Brew day tomorrow.

 

[breweRN]

the correct dilution of 3/8oz per gallon of water. That is to say,3/4's of the way up to the 1/4oz mark on the lil measure on top of the bottle of concentrate.

Word I be right to say that 3/8 oz. is 3/4 of the way up to the 1/2 oz. mark and not the 1/4 oz. mark?

 

[HarkinBanks]

If your beer is changing over time and becoming astringent, I would place a very large wager on the water being the problem. Use RO water and build your profile or get a watts filter to filter your tap water. It is the chlorine or chloramine that is the culprit.