Super astringent stout needs a fixin

[thekingofspain]

Made 10G of of an oatmeal stout. Made a few mistakes.

Crush might have been a little fine.

Sparge water was on higher end at 185 for fly sparging, but two extra gallons of sparge raised the bed probably more than it should have been.

Net result is I think is 10G of currently very non drinkable beer in the primary. Never had this before, third AG batch, and I believe its astringent over infected in taste.

One fermentor is ready for secondary and/or bottling and the other will be finished in a few days.

Besides time, what is the best way to fix this?

Should I leave it on the primary longer or should I rack to secondary when ready?

Attempt to cold crash the beer, leave at 70F, or bring up to upper 70s?

Unless a miracle happens I plan on using gelatin after a year is it still undrinkable.

Also is the yeast cake salvageable for yeast washing or will the astringent flavors carry one.

 

[dstar26t]

Is it astringent or sour/tart? What is your mill gap and did you measure the grain bed or runnings temp during sparging? It could have been a low mash pH from using dark grains which could give you a sour/tart flavor. Do you know your water?

 

[thekingofspain]

Is it astringent or sour/tart? What is your mill gap and did you measure the grain bed or runnings temp during sparging? It could have been a low mash pH from using dark grains which could give you a sour/tart flavor. Do you know your water?

Not sure how to answer the taste question. Its not sour like sour milk or lemons. More toward tart like cheeries or cran apples, but more astringent like if you were going to drink stridex or something. Never had a beer like this before.

Not sure the gap size, it was adjusted by the size of the grain at the time. The first pound of base grain was floury. Also the milling probably had some heat as mill was run a higher speed than I usually run it at.

Mash temp was 154, did not record the bed temp during sparging. The 185 sparge temp came from the hybrid batch sparge sticky. I accidnetly ran about 2 extra gallons of sparge water before I turned off the running.

Not sure the PH, here is my water report. I did make an extract RIS that was quite good. The water also goes through whole house purifier.

 

[bja]

You can't tell what it's going to taste like before it's even done fermenting.

Carb it up, then tell us what it tastes like.

 

[HokieBrewer]

Can you post up the recipe? I'm not sold it's going to be overly astringent either...

 

[thekingofspain]

This is the 5G recipe which I doubled:

9.4# 2 row
1.0# flaked oats
0.75# 350L chocolate malt
0.75# victory malt
0.50# crystal 80L
0.50# black roasted barley 500L
2 oz kent golding @ 60 minutes
mash at 154 and for 90 minute

I roasted 1/2 of the flaked oats and left 1/2 raw.

One fermentor is ready for secondary and the other is there now or in a few days.
I have sampled both, the ready one is very astringent, the almost ready is similar but less
I was actually waiting for a response if should keep in primary longer or move to secondary when fermentation is complete. My thinking is the more yeast the more tannin consumption.

 

[bja]

IMO, that's too much black barley. I would never use more than 1/4#. This could be what you're tasting.

 

[thekingofspain]

Racked both fermentors to secondaries tonight. 1.009 and 1.010. Tasted a little better (less pucker?) but maybe had a slight new medicine taste as well. Both fermentors had really wafer thin yeast cakes that was mostly grey. Boiled water to yeast wash but will probably punt on using the yeast. I might wash just to see what falls out.

Made a starter for the next batch from same washed yeast used in this batch. Tasted the clear liquid and it had a slight taste of the intense taste in the stout. After dumping the clear liquid I tried removing most of the grey top layer of yeast to get to the yellow yeast. We will see/smell what the starter looks like. This my first batch of yeast washing, its been in the fridge for 6 months or so.

 

[mrk305]

I made an oatmeal stout a couple years ago that also had a mouth puckering astringent taste to it. It is still in the closet. Two cases of 22's that have been sitting about two years.

 

[thekingofspain]

Washed the yest this morning from both fermentors. About 2.5 gallons of water. Let it settle for an hour in a bottle bucket, then used the bottling bucket spigot to draw off a quart of washed yeast. Its been sitting about an hour and I am really surprised of the trubish layer on the bottom, much more than I would have thought. Over all yeast seems a little dark still.

 

[shelly_belly]

I used gelatin to remove excessive astringency with my muscadine wine. I used it twice and it made a huge difference. I used 1/4g Knox per gallon each time.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Here, this might help. Add it to your Favorites:

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/off-flavors.html

 

[mrk305]

good idea... link aded to favorites

 

[thekingofspain]

I used gelatin to remove excessive astringency with my muscadine wine. I used it twice and it made a huge difference. I used 1/4g Knox per gallon each time.

Any thoughts on when to use gelatin? Do in now or wait now n months? For a second running how long should you wait in between?

The yeast washing looks and smells pretty good. I think there was too much fine husk particles in the milling. The initial wash trub was fine dark particles, now covered with yeast. The liquid layer has a astringent smell but now where where the beer was.

 

[shelly_belly]

With the wine I did it about 4 months apart but was racking the wine anyway. I did it twice because I was worried about stripping body from the wine using a larger amount of gelatin. With beer though, I wouldn't worry about losing body and would do it once with 1/2g gelatin per gallon of beer. I would wait until your next transfer to bottling bucket or keg, whichever you do, as each time you rack you will add a little oxygen to your beer.

 

[BA_from_GA]

i brewed a stout in January that came out way astringent because i used too high a % of dark grains (my first AG brew). It's still not so good on its own, but is pretty good mixed with a bottle of brown ale.... i'm wanting to brew a vienna lager soon to maybe do some black and tans so i can use up the last case of the stout i have left.... other than that it's been great for beef stew and cooking brats.

 

[thekingofspain]

My neighbor who says everything tastes like guiness, said this batch tastes like ashes.