Please help me find cause of off flavour

[Brewshna]

Hi everyone,

i really need help with a beer i will have to throw out. I’m in search of what caused the problem, so I never reapeat it.
I brewed an IPA, actually that treehouse recipe flying around, with some tweaks.
The beer tasted a little strange before going into the fermenter, overly bitter of what im used to.
Then tasted before dry hopping, just after ferm had finished, still weird and off.
I thought give it time and just added 300g of hops.
Now its 40 days in and carbonated, the smell is great but the taste is very muted.
The aftertaste is astringent, chemicaly bitter and dries out the mouth. Leaves something akin to a caustic feeling.
I used a mix of distilled and tap water, my tap water is fantastic quality just quite hard, and added CaCl, MgSo, NaCl and for the first time 2g accorbic acid.
Sparge temp was good, 77C.
Fermentationtemp was good 19-21C. I used co fermentation Lallbrew Verdant and London yeast.

What could cause something like this? I thoroughly cleaned the fermenter and soaked in Starsan.

Please help me find the cause, it’s driving me nuts.

 

[Jag75]

Sounds like it could be a water issue . Your adding tap water to distilled water . Then you added salts and acids . Do you know what your tap water profile is ?

Could be from husks of malt, stems from hops ect... give you dry mouth , astringent polyphenol.

 

[Jag75]

Here you go

https://www.google.com/amp/s/beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/amp/YjykYQ9Exj

 

[Brewshna]

Yes I know my tap water, I've mixed distilled and tap many times. Only the ascorbic acid is new.
I've used the malts before and the problem was there before the dry hopping

 

[Brewshna]

I read that to hot sparge kann bring some of those off flavours, but I'm quite sure it wasn't too hot. Thanks for the answer

 

[doug293cz]

I read that to hot sparge kann bring some of those off flavours, but I'm quite sure it wasn't too hot. Thanks for the answer

Did you acidify your sparge water?

Brew on

 

[tracer bullet]

Others more familiar should say but I know when I've used AA it's more like 0.2 grams, not 2.0 grams.

You could consider taking a glass of water and mixing in some AA to taste-test? Get the ratios the same of course to represent your beer.

 

[Brewshna]

Did you acidify your sparge water?

Brew on

Nope

 

[Brewshna]

Others more familiar should say but I know when I've used AA it's more like 0.2 grams, not 2.0 grams.

You could consider taking a glass of water and mixing in some AA to taste-test? Get the ratios the same of course to represent your beer.

That's something I've been thinking. Did add about 2g ist think

 

[Brewshna]

And it foamed as I added the AA to the rest of the salts in water. I was badly hung over and didn't think twice. Could be a reaction that wen bonkers

 

[doug293cz]

Nope

You said your tap water was quite hard, which often means it also has high alkalinity. Too much alkalinity in the sparge water can raise the pH of the sparged mash above ~6, which is when you can start extracting tannins, which are astringent. Your sparge water temp was on the border of where tannin extraction can become problematic, if the pH gets too high.

You should probably start adding acid to your sparge water to bring its pH down to about 5.6, which will get rid of most of the alkalinity, and prevent the sparge from raising the pH to problematic levels.

Brew on

 

[Brewshna]

That sounds reasonable. The only thing that's strange, would be that I've done this at least 20 times, in different comcentrions. I've never had anything like this. I'll measure the length pH of the beerrepublic.eu tomorrow, before it's goes down the drain. Such a shame, breaks my heart.
Would any type of infection or residue in my electric system causes that type of problem?

 

[day_trippr]

The beer tasted a little strange before going into the fermenter, overly bitter of what im used to.

Would any type of infection or residue in my electric system causes that type of problem?

You noticed a problem before you pitched your yeast, so it's unlikely the root cause was an infection.
I agree with @doug293cz that you likely sparged up enough tannins to exceed your taste threshold...

Cheers!

 

[Brewshna]

That could really be so strong that the beers undrinkable? And it really heavily muted the dry hop flavour. Very strange mouthfeel and taste.

 

[barry.hastings]

That could really be so strong that the beers undrinkable? And it really heavily muted the dry hop flavour. Very strange mouthfeel and taste.

Hi Brewshna , the pH of your sparge water is almost certainly the culprit . It needs to be around the 5.5-6 mark to stop tannin extraction from the husks . With hard alkaline water you need to acidify it down from the pH you started with which could have been 9 or more

 

[Brewshna]

Hi, my tap water has a PH of 7.3. But why have I never had his happen before? I've brewed many a beer, and very very good ones, with the same method and mix of water. Would testing the bad beers ph show anything?

 

[barry.hastings]

Hi, my tap water has a PH of 7.3. But why have I never had his happen before? I've brewed many a beer, and very very good ones, with the same method and mix of water. Would testing the bad beers ph show anything?

Hi , your tap water might be typically 7.3

Hi, my tap water has a PH of 7.3. But why have I never had his happen before? I've brewed many a beer, and very very good ones, with the same method and mix of water. Would testing the bad beers ph show anything?

hi , your tap water might be typically 7.3 but what was it on brewday ? Also , your water authority may have given the water a chlorine shock on that day and what you then might have is chlorophenols which are bitt

Hi, my tap water has a PH of 7.3. But why have I never had his happen before? I've brewed many a beer, and very very good ones, with the same method and mix of water. Would testing the bad beers ph show anything?

OK , but what was its pH on brewday ? It may be typically 7.3 but not on the day . Another possibility is that your authority may have given the water a chlorine shock on that day resulting in chlorophenols in your beer which are detectable on ppb ..

 

[Brewshna]

There's no chlorine in the water, im very fortunate to have fantastic drinking water near Munich. Only down side is it's very hard.

 

[Brewshna]

But I didn't measure the tap waters pH. I'm still looking at the AA. That's the new thing, but didn't think that could have such an impact

 

[barry.hastings]

But I didn't measure the tap waters pH. I'm still looking at the AA. That's the new thing, but didn't think that could have such an impact

pH has an enormous impact . My tap water has varied from 7 -9 depending on the day . I always have to adjust the sparge water pH . Remember that one point of pH means a factor of 10 so that a pH of 5 has 10 times more Hydrogen ions than a pH of 6

 

[doug293cz]

Hi, my tap water has a PH of 7.3. But why have I never had his happen before? I've brewed many a beer, and very very good ones, with the same method and mix of water. Would testing the bad beers ph show anything?

The starting water pH is irrelevant. What matters is the alkalinity, which determines how much acid must be added to change the pH. You could have for example two different water samples, both with pH 8.0. One might be low alkalinity and only require 1 ml of 88% lactic acid to change the pH to 5.6. The other might be high alkalinity, and require 5 ml of 88% lactic acid to drop the pH to 5.6. The low alkalinity water might be ok to sparge with, because it does not have enough alkalinity to raise the pH of the sparged mash above ~6, but the high alkalinity water might change the sparged mash to pH > 6, which would be a problem. Acidifying the sparge water to a pH of about 5.6 gets rid of most of the alkalinity, so that it cannot raise the pH of the sparged mash significantly.

Brew on

 

[Brewshna]

Thanks, I love learning stuff. What I don't get is, why have I never had a problem like this.
My water needs a lot of nudging today lower PH