Astringent Taste ??

[bmcmahan]

I’ve been brewing now for just over a year and started AG brewing about 6 months ago. My last couple of brew have had an astringent taste at the end and I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I’ve never worried about pH levels in the water because most of the water I use is bottled spring water. I think one of the problems that I’ve been doing that I now realize is that when I sparge ,I get the sparge water too hot(above 190) to raise the grain bed to 168-170. My next brew is will sparge with water around 180 to raise the temp hopefully in a slower process. I guess my question(s) is do you think this might be the problem?

Should I start to use Five Star pH stabilizer?
Will fining gelatin help with the taste?
I use a plastic bucket for fermenting, should I replace it?

Any advice is greatly appreciated

 

[marmonduke]

I had a similar issue with a batch not too long ago so I've done a bit of reading about it. I think mine was caused by adding fruit additions to my boil but from what I've read there are numerous suspected causes. sparging above 168, pH out of range (above 5.6), boiling grains, not removing hot break foam, boiling grains/fruit additons, and other causes. I'd say start with your sparge temp and go from there. Take this for what it's worth coming from newb..I'm sure there is tons on this just by searching also.

 

[sickbrew]

190 is quit tepid and you're probably extracting tannins from the husks. It's like over-brewed tea or grape skins. Use some software or and online tool to calculate your mash-out and monitor temps all the while. I've also done this and once the tannins are in there, you're basically stuck with them.

cheers

 

[Denny]

Astringency is not a taste...it's a dry mouthfeel. So maybe you need to define the fault you're detecting a little better. I always sparge with water around 190 and get no astringency. It's much more dependent on pH than water temp. And FWIW, I've found the 5.2 "stabilizer" to be worthless.

 

[RosewaterFoundation]

Astringency is not a taste...it's a dry mouthfeel. So maybe you need to define the fault you're detecting a little better. I always sparge with water around 190 and get no astringency. It's much more dependent on pH than water temp. And FWIW, I've found the 5.2 "stabilizer" to be worthless.

I agree here. For me, the key to getting rid of astringency was adjusting my water pH. Now I use RO water that I build up and it works really well.

 

[hollywoodbrew]

If you have hard water with a high pH (7-8), then you should consider using RO water with salt additions. Contrary to popular belief, it's the high pH in the sparge that causes tannin extraction.

 

[bmcmahan]

I got some what of a water report from our CPW, but it just list a few of the items that I need. I'm hoping their Engineer will give me a call back. This is all of the informaiton that I have from the report that they gave me.

Alkalinity mg/l - 14.42
Hardness mg/l - 7.78
Potassium mg/l - .3
pH - 7.14
Phosphate mg/l - .18
Sodium mg/l - 7.2