Dreaded Tannin Astringency...

I brewed an extract recipe of my own creation, which included about 10 oz of crystal 40 as the steeping grain (it was a 2.5 gallon half batch).

I steeped this in a separate pot with less than a gallon of water but I remembered that I didn't have my strainer with me. I had to get creative and I ended up having to use a slotted pasta strainer.

It did a fairly nice job in catching the grain but it didn't get everything as I saw some pieces floating around in the wort. I didn't think this would be nearly enough to cause tannin extraction but I was wrong - went to bottle the other day and it tasted pretty terrible and super bitter.

I bottled anyway, but I'm assuming my half-a$$ed method caused this? I know sparge water that is too hot can also cause this but I used hot tap water that was probably around 130-140 degrees... does not heating up your sparge water to 170 cause any off flavors in the beer?

I'm just starting to read about pH and beer and it's fascinating but a lot to take in as a new brewer!

If you boiled the wort after steeping, then that's where the tannins came from. You want as little draff (grain bits) in your boil kettle as possible.

PH and temperature also affect tannin extraction, but in this case I'd say it's most likely from boiling the draff. In the future, keep sparge below 170* and sparge pH below 5.8.

I'm gonna bet that what your are tasting is not "dreaded tannin extraction" since I doubt you extracted any tannins...It's not as cut an dried as most folks wanna think.

I bet you you're tasting green beer and it tastes a little grainy, but will smooth out with time...many new brewers diagnose all manner of false flags in their beginning beers, and then when their beer gets to be in the bottles for 5-6 weeks, their beers "suddenly" lost all the the tannins, or autolaysis, or "infection" or whatever else they read about, that they were so sure their beer had.....

give it time...

And read this for info about just how in reality it is difficult to get tannins...I provide links in here; I vote for adding tannins to the boogeyman list

Tag.

I had tannins in my first batch. Just had the LHBS guy taste it for me on Wednesday and that is what he said the off-flavor was. Should age out in 1-2 more months? I couldn't drink all 3 sips of the FG sample and the last one I cracked open after 3 weeks in bottle was undrinkable (not more than 5 sips).

I agree with Revy. My LBHS actually teaches new brewers to steep their grains in boiling water just to make things simple for them. That way they don't need a thermometer to do their first batches.

I did two of their kits that way without any problem. I was using bottled water at the time so pH wasn't an issue.

delvec28 said:

went to bottle the other day and it tasted pretty terrible and super bitter.

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This is the problem, NOT tannins.

You're beers not done....especially not carbed. Corbonation alone goes a long way to lifting the flavors.

So relax, don't worry.... and read this.

Revvy said:

Singljohn hit the nail on the head...The only problem is that you aren't seeing the beer through it's complete process BEFORE calling what is probably just green beer, an off flavor.

It sounds like you are tasting it in the fermenter? If that is the case, do nothing. Because nothing is wrong.

It really is hard to judge a beer until it's been about 6 weeks in the bottle. Just because you taste (or smell) something in primary or secondary DOESN'T mean it will be there when the beer is fully conditioned (that's also the case with kegging too.)

The thing to remember though is that if you are smelling or tasting this during fermentation not to worry. During fermentation all manner of stinky stuff is given off (ask lager brewers about rotten egg/sulphur smells, or Apfelwein makers about "rhino farts,") like we often say, fermentation is often ugly AND stinky and PERFECTLY NORMAL.

It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.

I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.

A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.

If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.

Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.

Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same. Time is your friend.

If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.

Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer:

And the remaining 50% of the last 10% are where these tables and lists come into play. To understand what you did wrong, so you can avoid it in the future.

Long story short....I betcha that smell/flavor will be long gone when the beer is carbed and conditioned.

In other words, relax, your beer will be just fine, like 99.5%.

You can find more info on that in here;

Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

Just remember it will not be the same beer it is now, and you shouldn't stress what you are tasting right now.

Our beer is more resilient then most new brewers realize, and time can be a big healer. Just read the stories in this thread of mine, and see how many times a beer that someone thought was bad, turned out to be fine weeks later.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

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Hope this helps.

I will agree with Revvy, in most cases, most of the time, for most people, tannins are not an issue. But they are a real issue for some people. If you don't agree, I have some very astringent beer for you to drink.

I recently switched from a fine cheesecloth bag to a coarser paint strainer bag for my BIAB. I squeeze the bag like it owes me money, but I keep very good control of my temp and pH.

I recently had 6 batches of beer with the same flaw. It was a dry-grainy, puckering bitterness, dry and powdery, like a red wine. Tannins are pretty distinctive, and I'm pretty confident that what was happening.

On lower gravity beers it wasn't very noticeable, but I did a few beers in the 1.090-ish range, and one that was 1.120. The higher the gravity, the more astringent they became. The higher the gravity, the more grain I used, and the more draff that I got into my boil kettle, the more astringent the beer. On the bottom of the fermenter of the 1.120 beer, I had a good 5 inches thick of draff below the yeast cake/trub. I was boiling quite a bit of grain, and that is why brewers vorlauf.

According to Noonan: "A lot of draff carried into the kettle is a recipe for astringent beer, but a small amount may improve trub coagulation. The majority of brewers recycle until the runoff is no longer heavily clouded; this is generally accomplished in less than ten minutes. Excessive recycling may lead to greater lipid levels in the wort and ought to be avoided."

Nateo said:

I squeeze the bag like it owes me money

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We need to do some sort of "Quote of the Month" competition. Nothing like a loud snortle in a quiet office to make me look over my shoulder. Well done!

Nateo said:

I will agree with Revvy, in most cases, most of the time, for most people, tannins are not an issue. But they are a real issue for some people. If you don't agree, I have some very astringent beer for you to drink.

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Yeah, maybe for your beer that is no longer green...but the clue to the OP's main issue was right inside his initial post...He was tasting this and diagnosing this at bottling time....Many many many of my beers taste like "iced tea" in primary, secondary, or at bottling time....but are perfect when the beer is carbed and no longer green....

And as happens DAILY on here, an new brewer is tasting his beer to soon, the running to one of those off flavor charts and diagnosing their beer as having this or that issue.....and a bunch of other folks, since he's calling the spade the spade, jump in a feed the fear more talking about it.....and not noticing the biggest clue in the room, the same clue we see 20-30 posts a day, some deriviation of impatience and diagnosing before the beer is actually finished.

But like I say over and over.....go by what you have read about "off flavors" After the process has been completed, and the beer has been in the bottle at least 6 weeks.

Because a lot of those same descriptors can be used for the normal nasty a$$ed crap of regular HEALTHY fermentation, when the beer is green.

As good as those off flavor chart info is, taken out of its proper context (meaning fully matured, carbed and conditioned beers) these threads/lists often produce the new brewer's version of hypochondria.

The only difference is after all the various stages of the journey are complete, the flavors aren't there.

If the flavors are there and it's been 6 weeks in the bottle, take out that handy dandy chart and learn what you did wrong for next time. But also unless it truly is bacterial, stick the beers away for 6 months, and come back...because as the stories in the "never dump your beer thread" attest to, you'd really be surprised what can happen in the back of your closet.

But if the beer is not carbed and complete, just because the OP THINKS he has tannins, (because he's read about them in palmer) doesn't necessarily MEAN he really has tannins, just that he THINKS he does.

I've seen folks claim they had autloysis, but use the wrong off flavor descriptors for that, they got it mixed up when reading, but they just KNEW their three day old beer had it. :rolleys:

It's called being new at something, I joke and call it noobitus, the tendency to think their beer is fragile and easily ruined, because the new brewer has too much info available and not enough common sense about this new and scary thing called fermentation....And when I'm answering something I tried to look for all the subtle clues to what we're really dealing with, (which is usually new brewer parnaoia, more than anything else....And I look to provide the true info about whatever the person thinks his beer has, as well as pointing out what is probably the true thing, that he's nervous and tasting the beer young. And I try to refrain from feeding his fear, and jumping on the bandwagon...

Back when I got here, when a new brewer came in 100% positive his beer was infected, everyone who had their own fear issues, would just jump in and trying to help, it would seem just feed the fear more...they wouldn't even ask for more details, or even better ask for a pic of the supposed pic, (which now we know 99% of the time is a yeast raft or even a big scary never seen before krausen.)

But just like how when we mention a dentist everyone comes in like a shark on chum and starts telling dental horror stories, many brewers swoop into these kinda threads and instead of helping make it worse.....by telling THEIR stories.

I wrote this years ago The "I" word...and other brewing words I'm tired of...(a Rant) and you know, it has shifted subtly away from feeding the fear to realizing that most of these threads are not what they seem.

You MAY have had a tanniny beer.......but that doesn't mean the op does, does it?

I just wanted to chime in here and state that I am 100% certain that I had a batch with tannins and after 3-4 months in the bottle it very slightly subsided but did not go away.

After reading Revvy's posts and other here I attribute this to allowing the wort to get above 170 in too dilute (4 gallons) of alkaline steep water (8.1 pH). Had I used a smaller quantity of water or a water with a lower pH I would likely have been fine because the grains naturally lower the pH of the water if the ratio is correct. Or that's what I believe I've learned.

sudsmcgee said:

I just wanted to chime in here and state that I am 100% certain that I had a batch with tannins and after 3-4 months in the bottle it very slightly subsided but did not go away.

After reading Revvy's posts and other here I attribute this to allowing the wort to get above 170 in too dilute (4 gallons) of alkaline steep water (8.1 pH). Had I used a smaller quantity of water or a water with a lower pH I would likely have been fine because the grains naturally lower the pH of the water if the ratio is correct. Or that's what I believe I've learned.

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Revvy said:

But just like how when we mention a dentist everyone comes in like a shark on chum and starts telling dental horror stories, many brewers swoop into these kinda threads and instead of helping make it worse.....by telling THEIR stories.

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I'm just sayin.......

Hey guys, thanks for the responses!

Revvy, you have subsided my fears for the time being... I was never going to dump this batch but I'm keeping my expectations low so I'm not disappointed - if it clears up and tastes great, that will be icing on the cake. I'm really not too concerned since it was my second time brewing a partial extract, and it was only a half batch. The only reason I thought tannins could be a problem was because of the way I strained and sparged the grains - one of the first things I've read is that you don't want to squeeze the grains or expose them to high heat and I definitely did the latter if there was grain pieces/husks floating in the boil. But I've also heard of decoction mashes, from which i understand you do boil the grain, so who knows.

I will taste the beer in 2-3 weeks and if it still tastes bitter or astringent I'll give it another couple of weeks before making my final determination.

It's funny you posted that long entry about bad smells during fermentation because I helped my friend brew a Schwarzbier (Black Lager), and we got that distinct sulphur smell but the beer itself tasted pretty darn good if you pinched your nose as you took a swig. The first batch I brewed smelled EXACTLY the same, mainly because I blindly added a bag of apricots to my Mr. Beer (I used a hopped pale ale extract for this batch), to which I later found out they were sulphured! Difference was mine was an ale and that smell/taste lingered after 3-4 months in the bottle. While I'm still a noob in terms of experience, my knowledge of beer brewing is much greater than when I brewed that batch because I knew nothing about adding fruit to beer, haha. Live and learn.

Another question though, what are the disadvantages to sparging with water that is under 170 degrees? Say anywhere from 70-150... does that do anything negative, affect the pH, or is it not as efficient in rinsing the grains as 170 degree water?

I don't know how much it helps but the recipe I went for was supposed to be similar to an amber ale, just a notch below a pale ale in terms of hoppiness. I created the recipe using hopville's brewing calculus app and according to that it was a perfect balance of bitterness and sweetness... so I was really looking forward to a great tasting beer, hopefully it turns out that way.

Here it is:

2.5 Gallon Batch

2 lbs Light DME
1 lb Amber DME
8 oz Crystal 60

0.25 oz Willamette &
0.5 oz Liberty @ 60 min
0.5 oz Cascade @ 30 min
0.5 oz Cascade @ 5 min

Nottingham Dry Yeast

My "horror story" was a cautionary tale. I read a bunch of threads about how tannins are a "bogeyman," and how people said "you only THINK you have tannins, but you don't really have tannins."

The message I took away was "tannins are never an issue." This was apparently the wrong message. I had a few batches that turned out pretty badly because I thought tannins weren't ever an issue.

I'm gonna laugh if it's really tannins......

Sorry OP

This is no laughing matter, sir

Here's my update - I tasted the beer after two weeks in the bottle and it tasted very good. I was shocked at how much the taste balanced out over 14 days... damn green beer!!

And to celebrate me and my friend brewed a vanilla porter that same day. I have that fermenting in a glass carboy for the first time and I'm going to add more vanilla to the secondary, can't wait to try that out!

sudsmcgee said:

I'm gonna laugh if it's really tannins......

Sorry OP

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delvec28 said:

This is no laughing matter, sir

Here's my update - I tasted the beer after two weeks in the bottle and it tasted very good. I was shocked at how much the taste balanced out over 14 days... damn green beer!!

And to celebrate me and my friend brewed a vanilla porter that same day. I have that fermenting in a glass carboy for the first time and I'm going to add more vanilla to the secondary, can't wait to try that out!

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Told ya it prolly wasn't tannins....