What does low ph taste like?

[Sadu]

I'm trying to troubleshoot an off-flavour with my last 3 beers. However there have been a few variables in play so I'm trying to figure out which it is.

The taste is a sort of tartness, astringent perhaps, a bit sour. The beer is drinkable but I don't like this flavour in these beers. It has notes of the tannin flavour you might associate with an oaked red wine.

TLDR: Would this flavour be associated with a too-low mash ph level?

The brews are:
5 gallon hefeweizen, fresh WY3638 bavarian wheat yeast, 2% sour malt, 77% efficiency
1 gallon dunkelweizen, harvested WY3638 bavarian wheat yeast, 1.5% sour malt, 77% efficiency
5 gallon Centennial blonde, harvested US-05, 2% sour malt, 84% efficiency

Some other brews made at the same time - 10G ESB, 5G IPA, 1G Pilsner - also use a bit of acid malt but don't have this flavour.

The different batch sizes are made on diferent gear but the process is similar. Mash in a bag with a double batch sparge. The mash/strike volume is calculated as per Beersmith. Mash temperatures have been quite steady.

The hefe batch I mashed way too high and assumed this was responsible for the flavour from tannin extraction in the grain, but the flavour has since appeared in other batches where this didn't happen. The dunkel batch had a few grains spill out of the bag and end up in the boil (tannin extraction?), but this didn't happen with the other 2 batches. The Centennial blonde brewday went like clockwork in every respect yet still has the flavour.

I don't have a water report. The lab wants $150 for a report which I don't have, council doesn't have anything on their website. I also don't have $150 for a good ph meter. I use Gladfield malt which specifically says that their kilning process produces a higher ph and that some acid malt is usually necessary. On this basis I have been trialling a small amount of this in my brews to see if things improved. I understand that I am basically guessing without a water report, if I had the means to get one I would get one.

So I'm thinking that the off flavour is either due to the acid malt - which I'm going to stop using - or something about my sparge process. I'm tempted to go back to full-volume BIAB mashing like I did with my first few batches (which tasted good) and see if that improves things. Maybe my water is within the right range for brewing anyway, and between using less strike water and a bit of acid malt my ph has dropped too low?

So here are my specific questions:
1. Does this tart flavour sound like a mash ph issue?
2. Is removing the acid malt and backing off on the sparge a logical next step?
3. Are those $5 ph meters from Aliexpress worth using at all? I have one of those, but kinda lost interest when it said you have to calibrate with fresh solution each time but they only give you 1 sachet of solution.

Appreciate any advice. I'm hoping it's as simple as removing the acid malt and possibly increasing the mash volume a little.

 

[ViciousFishes]

I'm curious what led you to add acid malt to your recipes? I have a water report and use Bru'n Water for adjusting minerals according to style. I have added acid malt only once to get a Helles into the ph range suggested by Bru'n Water.

 

[Sadu]

I'm curious what led you to add acid malt to your recipes? I have a water report and use Bru'n Water for adjusting minerals according to style. I have added acid malt only once to get a Helles into the ph range suggested by Bru'n Water.

Pretty much it was the malt manufacturer saying that something about the way they kiln their malts leads to a slightly higher ph than normal and that some form of correction is often required for lighter styles. Also I got the feeling from reading forums that ph generally falls on the high side and improvements can be had by some form of correction. On this basis I thought I'd try a small amount of acid malt and see what happened, since I don't have the tools to properly measure.

Everything about this hobby is trial and error, in this case it's taken several brews to realise the mistake since the first brew with the acid malt came out fine.

 

[billl]

I would doubt it's low ph, but guessing about it isn't very helpful. Even a low quality ph meter should be able to last 1 batch, so buy a calibration packet and test the next mash.

If we ARE guessing, I'd guess the opposite direction. Astringent and tannin are high ph symptoms, not low. The malt lists the ph range of their american malt at 5.7-6.0 in distilled water. Their wheat is 5.7-6.2. Obviously that changes based on your actual brewing water. The acid malt at 2% of the grist would only move the ph somewhere in the ballpark of 0.2. It seems much more likely that you are mashing in above 5.5 than below 5.0.

 

[IslandLizard]

You say the problem lies with your last 3 beers. The previous ones were all fine, not showing the tartness/astringency/whatever you're picking up now? Did you change anything in your ingredients, water, or process brewing those last 3, compared to before?

I'm not familiar with WY3638 but wheat yeasts can leave a slight tartness. Now there should not be any tartness in the US-05.

Is it possible you've picked up an infection somewhere in your equipment or yeast storage? Does the off-flavor get worse with time?

After a few marginal batches, all having a strange common background flavor I didn't like, I started with fresh yeasts again and must say it cured the problem. Overnight! It also cured persistent haziness and low flocculation problems I encountered, even with yeasts that normally drop like a brick (1968). I chalk it up to old yeast, change of its composition, overuse, or possible infection. Not worth the trouble.

Ward Labs here tests water for $21, IIRC. You just send them the sample. If you suspect your water being at fault, use RO water for a few batches. Not sure where you live and how easy and affordable it is to obtain it, it's become pretty common here in the US. Our Walmarts have the machines, fill your own jugs.

Your $5 pH meter can help point in the right direction. Not as precise as a better instrument, but if it's way off, it'll tell you. Those sachets make 250ml of calibration water isn't it? You can put those in a wide mouth glass or plastic (e.g., Nalgene) bottle with a tight fitting cap and reuse for at least a year. The pH10 will deteriorate over a few months, just use the pH7 and pH4, that's the range we're measuring anyway.

Have some other people taste too, and ask.

 

[Sadu]

I would doubt it's low ph, but guessing about it isn't very helpful. Even a low quality ph meter should be able to last 1 batch, so buy a calibration packet and test the next mash.

If we ARE guessing, I'd guess the opposite direction. Astringent and tannin are high ph symptoms, not low. The malt lists the ph range of their american malt at 5.7-6.0 in distilled water. Their wheat is 5.7-6.2. Obviously that changes based on your actual brewing water. The acid malt at 2% of the grist would only move the ph somewhere in the ballpark of 0.2. It seems much more likely that you are mashing in above 5.5 than below 5.0.

Basically I have been more-or-less happy with my beer and I thought I'd try a small amount of acid malt to see if that helped some. I figured if I was slightly high then 2% acid malt would bring be down about 0.2 which would be enough to get me into or closer to the correct range but I didn't expect to overshoot. That was the logic.

The last wheat beer I did, which tasted pretty good (no acid malt), was a full-volume mash - which if anything would have higher ph than my current batch sparge process.

 

[Sadu]

You say the problem lies with your last 3 beers. The previous ones were all fine, not showing the tartness/astringency/whatever you're picking up now? Did you change anything in your ingredients, water, or process brewing those last 3, compared to before?

Yes, lots of things. I'm up to batch 20 now and I'm brewing once a week, mainly 1 gallon now to get more experience and to refine processes and recipes. This flavour has taken 5 weeks to show up and a lot of brewing / small changes have happened in that time.

I'm not familiar with WY3638 but wheat yeasts can leave a slight tartness. Now there should not be any tartness in the US-05.

Is it possible you've picked up an infection somewhere in your equipment or yeast storage? Does the off-flavor get worse with time?After a few marginal batches, all having a strange common background flavor I didn't like, I started with fresh yeasts again and must say it cured the problem. Overnight! It also cured persistent haziness and low flocculation problems I encountered, even with yeasts that normally drop like a brick (1968). I chalk it up to old yeast, change of its composition, overuse, or possible infection. Not worth the trouble.

It's worth looking into since I do typically harvest yeast and store in the fridge. In this case the first batch which showed the problem (hefe) was brewed with a brand new smack-pack and a real-wort starter. So this wouldn't be explained by yeast storage problems or yeast being reused too often. The dunkel was pitched from the hefe slurry. The Centennial blonde was pitched from an IPA which doesn't have the off flavour.

Ward Labs here tests water for $21, IIRC. You just send them the sample. If you suspect your water being at fault, use RO water for a few batches. Not sure where you live and how easy and affordable it is to obtain it, it's become pretty common here in the US. Our Walmarts have the machines, fill your own jugs.

This is the real problem. I live in New Zealand and can't send away to Ward labs, I'm sure customs would block the parcel. The water lab in NZ gave me a quote which I can't afford to proceed with, and the council website doesn't have anything useful about water supplies. I emailed a couple of local commercial breweries to see if they would share/sell their water reports or just point me in the right direction on additions, they didn't reply. I haven't come across RO water locally in my town, plus I know that my tap water is capable of making good AG beer, just not recently.

Your $5 pH meter can help point in the right direction. Not as precise as a better instrument, but if it's way off, it'll tell you. Those sachets make 250ml of calibration water isn't it? You can put those in a wide mouth glass or plastic (e.g., Nalgene) bottle with a tight fitting cap and reuse for at least a year. The pH10 will deteriorate over a few months, just use the pH7 and pH4, that's the range we're measuring anyway.

This is I think what I need to do. If I can get a ball-park reading that will help with the diagnosis. I have attached a photo of what I have. I wasn't aware the solution stayed viable that long (since the instructions specifically say not to reuse the solution), thank you for this piece of advice.

So I calibrate the ph meter, test the tap water at 25c, record that as a base.

Maybe I should mash up a pound of Centennial blonde grain now with no sour malt and report back on what the cheap ph meter says?

Would I take the reading at dough in or after 20 mins of mashing? I understand that the sample needs to be cooled to room temperature before testing.

 

[Sadu]

OK, tap water is in the ballpark of 7.6 according to my cheap meter. Calibrated using 6.9 and 4.0 solution mixed from the saches with cooled boiled water (I have no source of deionised water which is what the instructions said to use).

Does that help narrow things down or do I need to get a mash ph to progress the diagnosis?

 

[snowveil]

OK, tap water is in the ballpark of 7.6 according to my cheap meter. Calibrated using 6.9 and 4.0 solution mixed from the saches with cooled boiled water (I have no source of deionised water which is what the instructions said to use).

Does that help narrow things down or do I need to get a mash ph to progress the diagnosis?

Tap water pH really has no major bearing on what your mash well look like. Think of it kind of like a see saw with negative ions on one side and positive ions on the other...you can have soft water with only 30 ppm dissolved solids that balances to a pH of 7 (15 and 15)....or hard water with a total dissolved solids of 500ppm (250 and 250). The soft water will be more easily pushed in one direction by adjustments to your mash...the hard water not as much so. Make sure you're using distilled water for your pH buffer solutions....can't you get it at a grocery store?

So many people make broad guesses as to what their mash pH is but but the reality is, to know where you really are, you need to test it. Water software will give you generalizations but are by no means infallible. Malt is a natural product and has variations from not only band to brand but also batch to batch. Software assuming that "Crystal 40" will affect your mash pH so much has limited information about that malt. It's not the fault of the software, but the nature of working with an agricultural product.

 

[IslandLizard]

I couldn't have said it better than @snowveil ^.

Indeed, you should do a small "test" mash in a small pot or plastic container. Half a pound of your typical grist mix is enough and use your regular water with no other additions. Use the same water/grain ratio you normally mash at. Keep the temp as close to your typical mashing temps as possible. Take a sample of the liquid after 10 or 15 minutes, cool it down quickly down to 25°C by stirring it in a frozen cup or a metal cup in an ice bath. Measure the pH. For the record, you could take another sample at the 30 minute mark.

Now, here's where the better pH meter pays off. If your measured pH is spot on your 5.3 target, for example, there's no way to tell how much of the meter's accuracy/resolution is at play. The actual pH could well be 5.2 or 5.4. Since it only resolves at the 0.1, it could even be an additional 0.05 off in either direction.

Now if it's off by more than 0.1 you could add some acid malt or acid (phosphoric, lactic, etc.) to your water and do another mash and retest. I'm sure you're familiar with Bru'n Water's spreadsheet. From the amount of acid you would need to add, you could calculate your water's buffering capacity, mostly alkalinity, but other minerals also play part.

Note: Beware on such small volumes, the amount of acid you'd add is very small (one or a few drops!) and you need to measure it as precisely as possible (use dilution), since any error gets multiplied when scaling up to your production mash size. Same is true for measuring your grist.

I'd say do your test mash and report back. Let's see what's up.
Test and/or recalibrate that meter right before you start the test mash. You can test it in the 4.01 buffer solution. Your meter should read 4.0 and not drift!

The Brew Science forum is dedicated to solving water issues, and I'm sure if you post your test mash results there AJ or Martin will chime in with suggestions.

 

[IslandLizard]

Yes, lots of things. I'm up to batch 20 now and I'm brewing once a week, mainly 1 gallon now to get more experience and to refine processes and recipes. This flavour has taken 5 weeks to show up and a lot of brewing / small changes have happened in that time.

Brewing often and many styles is a great way to learn and perfect your methods.

You're saying the off flavor shows up after 5 weeks. 5 weeks after bottling? You didn't notice this in brews you made before? That's an important detail. Oxidation gets more pronounced with time. So do infections.

Do you treat your water with Campden/meta to remove chlorine/chloramines? Most municipal water has that added as to keep the drinking water sanitized. If it's in there it is essential to remove it from all your brewing water.

It's worth looking into since I do typically harvest yeast and store in the fridge. In this case the first batch which showed the problem (hefe) was brewed with a brand new smack-pack and a real-wort starter. So this wouldn't be explained by yeast storage problems or yeast being reused too often. The dunkel was pitched from the hefe slurry. The Centennial blonde was pitched from an IPA which doesn't have the off flavour.

If your sanitation is impeccable there should be little concern of fresh yeast ans starters getting infected, but infections in the wort/beer can carry over into harvested yeast.
For 1 gallon batches, how much yeast do you pitch?

I'm mostly a WYeast guy, good local selection and high cell count. White Labs newer Perfect Pitch packaging allows now for a similar cell count (100 billion, with a SD of 10 billion, IIRC) as WYeast.

This is the real problem. I live in New Zealand and can't send away to Ward labs, I'm sure customs would block the parcel. The water lab in NZ gave me a quote which I can't afford to proceed with, and the council website doesn't have anything useful about water supplies. I emailed a couple of local commercial breweries to see if they would share/sell their water reports or just point me in the right direction on additions, they didn't reply. I haven't come across RO water locally in my town, plus I know that my tap water is capable of making good AG beer, just not recently.

$150 (!) for testing 10-12 common water ions sounds ridiculous. I guess they're not set up for that, like Ward Labs is. I'm sure there's a way a small box with a concealed small bottle wrapped in paper towels and a Ziplock bag can be mailed somehow. You won't believe how many "yeast samples" are sent around this country that prohibits mailing liquids.

Just realize a water sample is just that, a snapshot. If your water composition changes a lot, be it by season or otherwise, that sample becomes useless. There are companies that sell brewer's water testing kits. I think the "titration systems" are around $125. Those with "meters" a lot more. More people here buy small RO systems (~$150-250) to take the guessing game out of brewing and drinking water.

This is I think what I need to do. If I can get a ball-park reading that will help with the diagnosis. I have attached a photo of what I have. I wasn't aware the solution stayed viable that long (since the instructions specifically say not to reuse the solution), thank you for this piece of advice.

I think you can use any common pH calibration solution, not just theirs and their crazy ranges. The 4 and 7 are most common. You just turn the screw until it hits that number, then on to the next. The ones that do automatic calibrations are to watch out for, especially if they expect expensive one-off non-standard pH buffers, like that 6.86 etc.

There is a better version of that cheap pH meter, for around $10-15.
It is supposed to read with an accuracy of 0.02 and has a readout in .01.
Many people use those and consider it a disposable item when it gives up the ghost. Another 10 bucks gets them a new one. I'm sure the Hach Pro+ is a more refined instrument with a better junction than el cheapo, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're also made in China... and marketing raises it to an "acceptable price point" worthy of selling under the Hach name.

Again more info on pH meters and related items on the Brew Science Forum.

 

[mabrungard]

OK, tap water is in the ballpark of 7.6 according to my cheap meter. Calibrated using 6.9 and 4.0 solution mixed from the saches with cooled boiled water (I have no source of deionised water which is what the instructions said to use).

Does that help narrow things down or do I need to get a mash ph to progress the diagnosis?

Sorry, you have to use distilled water to create the calibration solutions. You just wasted your time with tap water, boiled or not.

I realize that you don't have an easy source of a water report. One option that will get you most of the way to what you need is to obtain aquarium test kits for alkalinity, total hardness, and calcium hardness. With the results they provide, you will have a decent idea of what your water's calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate content are. Those are the components that drive mashing pH and the resulting beer pH. If you get your mashing pH in the right range and also reduce the alkalinity of your sparging water to proper level, then you are most of the way to decent beer.

The remaining thing missing will be the level of flavor ions like sodium, chloride, and sulfate, but those are things you can play with by adding minerals with those ions to your glass and assessing the result...was it better or worse...if it was worse, don't add it...if it was better, try a little more.

 

[Sadu]

Thanks again for the detailed reply.

You're saying the off flavor shows up after 5 weeks. 5 weeks after bottling? You didn't notice this in brews you made before? That's an important detail. Oxidation gets more pronounced with time. So do infections.

I started adding sour malt 5 weeks ago. First batch with the addition (7% ESB) does not have any off flavours so I didn't have any concerns about the acid malt at this point. Next batch (hefe, brewed 4 weeks ago) had the strong off-flavour at the first gravity sample. I was concerned, but the second gravity sample the flavour was not as strong so I thought it might go away with time. 2 weeks after bottling it's still there.
Next batch, APA, didn't have the off-flavour in the gravity samples.
Next batch, IPA brewed 3 weeks ago, doesn't have the flavour.
Next batches all have it in the gravity samples (Dunkelweizen, Centennial blonde). Pilsner batch also has mild traces of it.

The acid malt is the only thing I can think of that is common to all these brews. Maybe the flavour is there in the APA and IPA but is being masked by the hops?

Do you treat your water with Campden/meta to remove chlorine/chloramines? Most municipal water has that added as to keep the drinking water sanitized. If it's in there it is essential to remove it from all your brewing water.

I haven't been doing this to date. Definitely something to try.

If your sanitation is impeccable there should be little concern of fresh yeast ans starters getting infected, but infections in the wort/beer can carry over into harvested yeast.
For 1 gallon batches, how much yeast do you pitch?

I'm pretty sure my yeast handling is solid. I keep clean yeast in boiled jars in the fridge. When I brew, I take that jar and overbuild a starter for a 1G batch, put the rest in the fridge. When the 1G batch completes I do a 5G batch with the slurry. When the 5G batch completes I'll do one more batch if I feel like it then throw out the yeast. I try to overpitch unless it's a hefe. For the dunkelweizen I pitched 30ml of thick hefeweizen slurry. For lagers I pitch closer to 90ml.

There is a better version of that cheap pH meter, for around $10-15.
It is supposed to read with an accuracy of 0.02 and has a readout in .01.
Many people use those and consider it a disposable item when it gives up the ghost. Another 10 bucks gets them a new one. I'm sure the Hach Pro+ is a more refined instrument with a better junction than el cheapo, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're also made in China... and marketing raises it to an "acceptable price point" worthy of selling under the Hach name.

This could be worth looking into. I just can't justify spending up large on water tests / lab gear which would be the equivalent of several months worth of ingredients.

Also I made 6 really nice AG batches + several nice extract batches before I started dicking with the water ph. Three of those batches were full volume mash which I understand increases ph. So my theory was that by using normal amounts of mash water + acid malt the ph has dropped too far - however as stated above the tannin / tart flavours are normally associated with high ph rather than low. Hence my confusion.

 

[Sadu]

Sorry, you have to use distilled water to create the calibration solutions. You just wasted your time with tap water, boiled or not.

I realize that you don't have an easy source of a water report. One option that will get you most of the way to what you need is to obtain aquarium test kits for alkalinity, total hardness, and calcium hardness. With the results they provide, you will have a decent idea of what your water's calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate content are. Those are the components that drive mashing pH and the resulting beer pH. If you get your mashing pH in the right range and also reduce the alkalinity of your sparging water to proper level, then you are most of the way to decent beer.

The remaining thing missing will be the level of flavor ions like sodium, chloride, and sulfate, but those are things you can play with by adding minerals with those ions to your glass and assessing the result...was it better or worse...if it was worse, don't add it...if it was better, try a little more.

Ouch. OK thanks for letting me know.

I think I need to start by brewing a small batch of something without the acid malt. This may be all that is needed and I can get an answer on this within a few days, quicker than I can get access to deionised water or a water test kit.

So I'll give this a go and report back.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[MaryB]

My water has sulfate off the charts really limiting what I can brew. So I went to distilled water and building my own water by adding salts and minerals as needed. Soon as I can afford and RO system I am putting on in just for brewing.

 

[IslandLizard]

Ouch. OK thanks for letting me know.

I think I need to start by brewing a small batch of something without the acid malt. This may be all that is needed and I can get an answer on this within a few days, quicker than I can get access to deionised water or a water test kit.

So I'll give this a go and report back.

Thanks for the help everyone.

I'm glad @mabrungard stopped by. He's one of THE experts here on (brewing) water. If your water is soft, having low mineral content, the pH buffers may be able to buffer it out, but since we don't know any of that, and can't measure it, reference solutions should be prepared with distilled water, not sure if deionized water is even acceptable. That's how they're designed.

Those aquarium testing kits are very suitable to get some idea on your water composition, and won't break the bank (as much).

Maybe it is the sheer taste of the Sauermaltz that's off putting. Some people have a very low taste threshold for lactic acid. I use Phosphoric acid which is much more neutral. A little goes a long way. Only if proven you need to bring your mash pH down, I would stay away from any acid additions.

Good idea to brew a "clean" batch. And keep an eye out for infections or other contaminations.

For example after 7 years brewing my beers suddenly started to taste not so good, having a common off flavor. So I even more meticulously cleaned all the equipment, valves, tubing, recirculated a boiling, strong PBW solution through my hoses, pump and plate chiller for 6 hours, the works. Together with using fresh bought yeast I think the problem got resolved. I'm looking at getting a strong acid and use that from time to time in the cleaning regimen. The pros do that.

BTW, what kind of sanitizer do you use?

 

[Sadu]

I use sodium percarbonate for cleaning and starsan for sanitising, use a syringe to make sure the dosage is as per the instructions.

The small batches ferment in half gallon clear glass growlers. These are super easy to clean (immersed in sodium percarb 20 mins then scrubbed with bottle brush, rinsed, then starsan) so I cant see a dirty fermenter being the issue. The tartness appears at the first hydrometer sample after a few days so its not a sanitation issue with bottling wands or racking canes or opening the lid on the fermenter too often. I use a sanitised plastic jug to transfer from kettle to growlers but not with the 5g brews. The OG sample goes back into the fermenter since volume is precious on small brews. There is not much else that touches the wort post boil.

Yeast lives in sterilised boiled jars in the fridge. I buy a pack of yeast then overbuild a small starter. Part of that starter makes a 1 gallon batch, rest goes in the fridge topped up with cooled boiled water. The yeast from the 1 gallon brew gets reused for a 5 gallon brew and maybe 1 more after that, tben discarded. Next time I need that yeast again the original yeast from the fridge goes on the stirplate for refreshing, the process repeats.

I'm hoping this is simply the sour malt causing the issue. If this next brew is tainted I will try a side by side of 0% sourmalt and 5% to see what the difference tastes like. Will also experiment with mash thickness or going back to full volume mashing.

The tainted hefe actually tastes ok with a spoon of sugar added to the glass. Since I have 11 gallons of tart beer now I might try a sweet lemon cordial or something to mask the flavour a bit.

 

[Sadu]

I'm glad @mabrungard stopped by. He's one of THE experts here on (brewing) water.

All feedback is appreciated, especially so when from the experts.

I have learned a heap of good stuff from HBT, it's cool that people will take the time to help someone out. It seems homebrewers share a similar attitude to open source coders, where people are also happy to help out with advice and code snippets etc.

 

[Sadu]

I just brewed a 1 gallon 1.039 Centennial blonde same recipe as before but no acid malt.
Paying extra care to post boil sanitation. Efficiency came to 84%, exactly the same as the last tart Centennial blonde. This means that the grain got a very similar amount of squeezing and washing as before.

I did have to use a different yeast, since I didn't have a starter of us-05 ready to go and didn't want to risk using slurry from a non-clean batch. I ended up using Wyeast 1450 Denny's favourite, last used on a clean batch, rebuilt with a stepped starter. If this experiment comes out clean then I can't completely rule out the yeast being the problem, I will have to test that on the next batch. I still think yeast is unlikely to be the problem since one of the tart batches used a fresh smack-pack.

pH reported 5.2 after 30 mins mashing, however since I didn't use the proper water for calibration this is probably meaningless.

Tasted the wort as it went into the fermenter - no traces of the tartness, tastes quite sweet. However I never usually taste the wort at this point in the process so I have nothing to reference against.

My notes say that the tart off-flavour was present on day 3 of fermentation so I should find out pretty soon if this batch has improved things.

 

[IslandLizard]

If you want a quick assessment of what lactic acid or your sourmaltz tastes like in beer, add some to a glass of beer. That's better than screwing around with mash pH, unless you want to taste the results of what that does.

Beer that's in the early stages of fermentation (1-3 days) tastes weird, and usually nothing like the end result. Some off flavors may persist, and others develop. It's a complicated process with many unknowns.

Fresh wort alway reminds me of lukewarm sugared tea. The bitterness and sweetness together are interesting, again, nothing like the finished beer. During fermentation the pH starts to drop significantly, which adds to our flavor perception.

 

[mabrungard]

Wait a second. What are you doing to neutralize the alkalinity of your sparging water? You do need to bring sparging water alkalinity to somewhere around 25 ppm as CaCO3 in order to reduce tannin extraction. Acid malt does not fix that problem.

 

[Sadu]

If you want a quick assessment of what lactic acid or your sourmaltz tastes like in beer, add some to a glass of beer. That's better than screwing around with mash pH, unless you want to taste the results of what that does.

Cool, good idea. So if the sourmalz is the cause of the tart flavour then that same flavour might appear in a glass with a few crushed grains in it. Worth a try, after work though

Beer that's in the early stages of fermentation (1-3 days) tastes weird, and usually nothing like the end result. Some off flavors may persist, and others develop. It's a complicated process with many unknowns.

Yeah that's my experience too and I wouldn't normally taste this early. In this one brew I knew I had mashed too high and thought it would be good to take extra notes about how it progressed. Cool huh?

Fresh wort alway reminds me of lukewarm sugared tea. The bitterness and sweetness together are interesting, again, nothing like the finished beer. During fermentation the pH starts to drop significantly, which adds to our flavor perception.

I tasted the wort on my first few batches but don't bother anymore since the flavour, as you say, has very little relevance to the finished product. But this could be a habit worth getting back into since it is another place to diagnose problems.

 

[Sadu]

Wait a second. What are you doing to neutralize the alkalinity of your sparging water? You do need to bring sparging water alkalinity to somewhere around 25 ppm as CaCO3 in order to reduce tannin extraction. Acid malt does not fix that problem.

To date I have not been treating the sparge water.

Ignoring extract brews, my first 3 batches were BIAB no sparge, they came out very good.

Next 3 batches were BIAB with batch sparge, also very good.

Next 6 batches were BIAB with batch sparge and acid malt. The IPA and APA taste fine, if not excellent - hefeweizen / dunkelweizen / Centennial blonde are very tart, helles and pilsner are slightly tart.

Latest brew yesterday is BIAB with batch sparge and no acid malt. If this comes out tart as well I'm going to try a no-sparge version and aim for ~70% efficiency instead of ~85%.

I will order one of those aquarium test kits as suggested, and/or some proper buffering solution as advised. That way we can cut back on the guesswork a little.

 

[Sadu]

Ok I'm pretty sure now the problem is the sourmalt.

The test batch is down from 1.039 to 1.015 after 2 days fermenting and no off flavours. The tainted hefe batch was tart as all hell after 3 days fermenting and this is not like that at all.

I did also find a couple of interesting things on the maltster's website...

Gladfield’s Sour Grapes Malt is designed to be used to adjust pH in the brew house mash. Sour Grapes Malt is produced by encouraging lactic growth during germination from naturally present bacteria on the grain, and then washing the malt in a lactic bath using the same Lactobacillus strain, before kilning.
As a guide, 1% of this milled malt will drop mash pH by 0.1. It can also add a mild lactic sourness to the brewed beer.
We recommended between 1% and 5% of our Sour Grapes Malt is used to achieve target mash pH.

I wonder if I'm picking up on that "mild lactic sourness" they mention as the off flavour. Just speculating here, but maybe this is nothing to do with ph and maybe this malt imparts it's own (in my view negative) flavour as well as ph adjustment.

Next interesting thing is this...
http://www.gladfieldmalt.co.nz/home-brewer/brewing-recipes/

Note the 2% sourmalz in the APA and the IPA recipe, but not anywhere else.

Out of all the beers I have brewed with sourmalt (IPA / APA / Helles / Pilsner / Hefe / Dunkelweizen / Centennial blonde), all of them have the tartness except the IPA and APA, which taste pretty great. I find it curious that the maltster specifically suggests using sourmalt in their IPA / APA recipes and these are the 2 beers that came out decent for me with sourmalt added, where the rest didn't. My recipes weren't exactly the same as these, but are all based on Gladfield malts. So that is very interesting.

This would suggest that I should cease all use of sourmalt, except with American IPA / APA recipes where 2% either improves the beer or at least does not cause off-flavours. I'm ok with that.

 

[Sadu]

OK, I managed to get a water report.

pH 7.27
Residual Alkalinity* 23 ppm as CaCO3
Total Alkalinity 30 ppm as CaCO3
Total Hardness 30 ppm as CaCO3
Calcium Hardness 20 ppm as CaCO3
Magnesium Hardness* 10 ppm as CaCO3
Calcium* 8 ppm
Magnesium* 2 ppm
Chloride 10 ppm
Sulphate 0 ppm
Bicarbonate* 36 ppm
Sodium* 7 ppm

* means the value is calculated.

This just came in tonight and I haven't made any sense of it yet - got a bit of a learning curve ahead of me I suspect. Won't be doing any more brewing until I figure out what this all means and my new thermometer arrives (I think my cheap one has been giving me bad mash temps to compound issues).

Does any of this jump out as being a problem or does this look like ok water to brew with?

 

[mabrungard]

Looks like a decent starting point.

 

[VladOfTrub]

The water is good. The alkalinity and bicarbonate are acceptable. Boil the water and rack it off. At least oxygen will boil away, lessening the chance of aeration during the mashing cycle.
During the mashing cycle acidification of mash caused by the inherent pH of the malt being used becomes sluggish when alkalinity and bicarbonate are above 50 PPM. When water is over moderately alkaline the amount of acid required to offset alkalinity will cause sour taste characteristics.

There is no such thing as target pH. Mash pH is adjusted to be in the optimum range of the enzyme being activated which is based on activation temperature. Mash is doughed in cold which gives the malt time for inherent pH to acidify the mash before enzymes become active. When pH is stable, mash pH is then adjusted by adding sauer malz according to the pH of the enzyme being activated.
The optimum pH of Beta is higher (5.5) than Alpha (5.2) and beta glucanase is (6.0) and for those reasons pH is adjusted before activation. It holds true for the other enzymes, as well.
The pH of sauer malz varies, pH can be anywhere from 3 to 3.5. To assume that 2% is the target may not be best because of variance.

Test wort pH throughout fermentation, if pH falls below the pH of what the yeast is supposed to create there is an infection. If pH becomes lower than it should be during first fermentation it is due to Gram P bacteria. If pH is lower than it should be during second fermentation it is due to Gram N bacteria. The pH of the beer will be lower when Ale yeast is used compared to Lager yeast and there is a pH window for both types of yeast.

 

[mabrungard]

All pre-boiling is going to do, is reduce the oxygen content. The Ca and HCO3 are near the limits of what boiling might reduce those ions to, so you won't see any significant reduction.