I have been have an issue with astrigency/harsh bitter flavor in several of my beers and I can't figure out what the issue is! They all have been English ales with some portion of dark grain in them (porter, stout, brown ale, and even Irish red). I recently did a brown ale with victory, crystal 60, and .25lb of pale chocolate (300 SRM) that still had this off flavor.
This taste isnt just a minor flaw, it overpowers the beer and makes it almost undrinkable. I don't have this issues in any of my light beers, just ones that have any portion of dark malt. Ive tried switching yeast strains, thinking that might be it, but Ive used about every white labs english ale yeast, temp controlled at 68, proper pitching rates, and it wont go away.
Ive narrowed it down to a few different things:
1. Crush- Maybe the dark malts are being crushed too fine and im getting the astringency from the husk? I have my mill set at .032 and get an 87% efficiency with good lauter speed. I'm not sure that its this as I crush the same for every beer/grain bill
2. Oversparging- I mash with a 1.5 qt/lb grist and then sparge with 4.5-5 gallons of water for a pre-boil volume of 7 gallons. These numbers are what Beersmith recommends and my runnings still taste sweet near the end.
2. Mash pH- My tap water has a pH of 7.9. I use FiveStar 5.2 stabilizer in my mash, but am wondering if by the end of the sparge, the pH creeps up close to the 7.9. I would suspect that if this were the issue, it would affect all of my beers, but I also wonder that since the dark grains already have a higher degree of roasty flavor/astringency, the high pH could pull more astringency from the grains.
I don't want to use more 5.2 stabilizer in the sparge water, so I was just planning on adding some acid to the sparge water, if pH is the issue.
Thanks for any help/advice!
This taste isnt just a minor flaw, it overpowers the beer and makes it almost undrinkable. I don't have this issues in any of my light beers, just ones that have any portion of dark malt. Ive tried switching yeast strains, thinking that might be it, but Ive used about every white labs english ale yeast, temp controlled at 68, proper pitching rates, and it wont go away.
Ive narrowed it down to a few different things:
1. Crush- Maybe the dark malts are being crushed too fine and im getting the astringency from the husk? I have my mill set at .032 and get an 87% efficiency with good lauter speed. I'm not sure that its this as I crush the same for every beer/grain bill
2. Oversparging- I mash with a 1.5 qt/lb grist and then sparge with 4.5-5 gallons of water for a pre-boil volume of 7 gallons. These numbers are what Beersmith recommends and my runnings still taste sweet near the end.
2. Mash pH- My tap water has a pH of 7.9. I use FiveStar 5.2 stabilizer in my mash, but am wondering if by the end of the sparge, the pH creeps up close to the 7.9. I would suspect that if this were the issue, it would affect all of my beers, but I also wonder that since the dark grains already have a higher degree of roasty flavor/astringency, the high pH could pull more astringency from the grains.
I don't want to use more 5.2 stabilizer in the sparge water, so I was just planning on adding some acid to the sparge water, if pH is the issue.
Thanks for any help/advice!