Help with IPA/PA weird taste

[brewitbrewit]

Hello, I need some expert help. My pale ales and IPA's are not turning out. Funny thing is, my cream ales, blond ales, and all of the other light beers are great. That tells me my process is good. The hoppy beers have a soapy, all of the tongue slick type of feel. I don't believe I have the artistic tastes that some people have, so it is hard to describe. I like the process more than the artistic side of brewing. It might be buttery? I have read all of the beer trouble shooting info I can find, so I know about the common off tastes, I just am not sure I can taste it. The hops do not stand out like they should. I love all of the Stone beers, and I get them in Louisiana in a store that does not refrigerate them, and they are still great. My taste are not high end, I have liked just about any IPA that I have tasted, so my beer does not have to match Stone's. My Sierra Nevada Pale ale has the same weird taste. I thought it was my water, so I began to use distilled water and added minerals. I changed to Artesian water from Kentwood Springs, sent it to Ward Labs to get analyzed (it is pretty much RO if anybody else uses it), then added salts.

This taste might not be a bad one, I just know I can make something close to a Stone, Pliny, or Sierra, and I have never tasted this in a commercial beer. People that tasted it don't mind it, but I think they are just kissing my ass. Most of them work for me.

I all grain brew. I have a HERMS. My mashes are within 2 degrees usually. My HLT is 5 deg hotter than my mash tun (50' copper coil in HLT). My fermentation is a Love TSS2 that I plug a fridge into. It holds to 1/2 of a degree F (5 min short cycle protection). I am glued to the brewing network pod casts, so I have pretty much taken all of Jamil's and John Palmer's advice. I read all of the this forum I can. I used Kentwood Springs Artesian water and treat it like so for a IPA:

Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate

144 21 4 78 318



The Magnesium is Magnesium Hydrate. I have always wondered about that.

13lbs 2row. 1 lb Munich. 1lb Crystal 40

1 oz Magnum 60 min. 1 oz Chinook 30 min. 1 oz Centennial 10 min. 1 oz Centennial 1 min. 1 oz Centennial 12 days dry. 1 oz Centennial 3 days dry. All Hops < 1 year old

2 packs So5 yeast. O2 for a min or so before fermentation.

1.5 quart water to 1 lb Grain. This is a 6.8 gallon batch. 4 weeks total time fermentation until kegged.

1.062 OG. 1.012 FG. 149 deg mash. 65 deg fermentation

PBW to clean, Starsan to sanitize.

Where or who can I send this to for an opinion? I think maybe I need to enter some competions to get an opinion. What do you-all think? Even though my beer ain't what I want, I am drinking it so pardon me for the rambling, bad grammer, bad spelling, etc.

 

[swackattack]

Sounds like you are screwing around eith your water a ton. Maybe try the kiss method.

 

[mabrungard]

I suggest that the chloride level is kind of high and the sulfate level might be a little high. I suggest reducing chloride to about 50 ppm or less and the sulfate to under 300 ppm.

 

[kylevester]

In general you want low chlorides and higher sulfates for bitter beers. I agree that you're too high in both categories and that it's best to KISS.

I've made great IPA and PA with Lafayette, IN city water (sulfates ~60-70 ppm) and store bought drinking water (unknown sulfates). Honestly, it's best to just either buy drinking water (or RO water) from the store, or filter your tap water and do no chemical additions. Monkeying with water chemistry will screw up your beer faster than anything else.

Do you use pH 5.2 stabilizer? That may help.

From my experiences here's possible problems:
1. water chemistry
2. unexpectedly high efficiency from the mash tun
3. rinsing of cleanser

#1: Discussed above.

#2: I had a brew that was supposed to be 7.5% or so that ended up at 8.5% after higher efficiency and attenuation. The resulting brew was overall the flavor I was aiming for, but was off in a soapy kind of way. Since I didn't check my gravity at the boil, my IBUs were way off.

#3: Doubtful for you, but you never know.

 

[tagz]

On a recent Brewsmith podcast with Gordon Strong, he mentioned that higher mash pH can cause soapy flavors and a general dullness when you are using a lot of hops. Sounds like that matches the description you provided. He said it occurs even before the 6.0 mark. So perhaps you want to look into taking some pH readings on your next mash and using phosphoric acid to adjust. You could also run your water profile and grain bill through brun water to see what the predicted pH is if you haven't already.

 

[tennesseean_87]

Maybe see the Water Chemistry Primer. Give that a shot for a batch and see if you still get the same thing.

 

[Pezedorado]

If it is infact buttery, perhaps the stronger pale ales and ipas would benefit from a diacteyl rest. They might be stressing your yeast just a little more than the lighter ones. Some are worse than others. I dont have extensive experience with S05.

 

[Braufessor]

I agree on the water additions - I think that you should try a batch with half the Calcium and sulfate, and half to a third of the chloride. I think trying to recreate "burton" levels of sulfate is a mistake and does your beer a disservice. When I do Pale Ales/IPA's I generally go with something in the range of 5 grams CaSO4 and 1.25 grams of CaCl and maybe a gram or a bit less of epsom salt. I use about 75% RO water and 25% of my tap water which is rather hard and high bicarbonate. I think you are on the right track with your water, but maybe overshooting it too much. Try less and see if that helps.

 

[mjohnson]

Maybe see the Water Chemistry Primer. Give that a shot for a batch and see if you still get the same thing.

I second this. Use all RO and add the small amounts called for in the primer. If that doesn't work, then its something else. If it gets rid of the taste, but isn't perfect, you can start adding a bit more gypsum, etc to get the results you want.

 

[brewitbrewit]

Thank you all for your help. I am going to try going back to the basics with the water. This is my report from Ward laboratories on the bottled water I am using:

Calcium
5
Magnesium
1
Sodium
2
Chloride
0
Sulfate
0
Bicarbonate
13

I searched for how can I make a pale ale with basically RO water and all the advice is to add something. I Added a total of 5 Grams of Gypsum just to keep it pretty basic. This recipe is pretty much like the last. It is a hoppy APA. The hops are Cascade, not Centennial, but I have had this taste in the hoppy beers regardless of the hops. I have read the Sticky in the Science section and may have the "more is always better" out of my head. This will be kind of a Gypsum experiment.

 

[Braufessor]

I think that is a good idea. That should be a reasonable level of minerals, and if the water is the problem, this should allow you to single it out. If you get the exact same flavor as in the past, it is likely you will have to look somewhere else in the process. Let us know how it turns out and if it makes a difference.

 

[mjohnson]

Sounds great. Let us know how it turns out. I bet it will be tasty!

 

[EvilBrewer]

Maybe see the Water Chemistry Primer. Give that a shot for a batch and see if you still get the same thing.

This is the best advice in my opinion. Use distilled or RO water with the baseline additions in the *first* entry in the Water Chemistry Primer thread--I think its the one for British beers (can't remember exactly what ajdelange calls it). It's 1tsp CaCl2 and 1 tsp gypsum per five gallons, I believe. On my system with those variables, my mash pH is right at 5.2-5.3 (about 5.5-ish at room temp when measured with my calibrated pH meter). Which is right at the ideal range.

My advice is to do yourself a favor and ignore all the other brewing salts and additions for now. Start at the very basics; that's the intention of a primer. You can adjust those other factors later of course, if you want. But I doubt you'll feel the need.

I had a problem brewing pale ales and IPAs like you mentioned. They just didn't taste right, while other beers turned out fine. And those are my favorite beers so I was really bummed out.

So, I used the water primer advice and just gradually increased the amount of gypsum with each batch until it was right where I wanted it. Using this methodology, last fall my pale ale placed first in its category at the county fair, out of about 75 entries. Not the NHC by any means but my point is to provide somewhat objective proof to you that the water primer could help you out too--instead of simply telling you "my beer tastes awesome now!!!" Though, it kind of does

I will also add that from the very first batch (even before reaching ideal gypsum level for my taste), my pale ale problem was solved...hands down. And my other beers (which were reasonably good to start) improved.

Distilled water can get expensive and that's not what the pros do...the main point of starting there is to gain a practical understanding of water chemistry and pH, which are arguably among the most important aspects of brewing great beer. Sounds like you've got the other important factors pretty tuned in on your system (mash temps, fermentation temps, etc).

I was the same way, and water chemistry and pH together were the keystone in getting my beers into the range of what I'd ultimately hoped they could be.

 

[brewitbrewit]

"Sounds like you are screwing around with your water a ton. Maybe try the kiss method."

Best Advice in the world. Pissed me off at first....made sense in the end. Spring water, (Basically RO) and a bit of gypsum, and my latest hoppy APA was thin tasting and hoppy. This is a good thing because along with screwed up water, I have been mashing at 150 for everything thinking this would make them not so soapy tasting. Basically now I have a beer that reflects how I made it. It is still green, but the soapy taste is gone.
I couldn't be happier,

The next is a Helles Belles. I think I will follow Yooper's advice. I have never had a problem with this type of beer, but I think I can even make it better by KISS. I will put in a bit of Ca Cl and call it good.

This forum rocks!!!

 

[mabrungard]

That simple water approach should work well.

Boosting the mashing temp a few degrees with help increase the mouthfeel and body. 150F is OK, but I typically mash in the 152 to 154F range for most of my brews now. I used to mash even higher, but found that the underattenuation made the beers too cloying.