mjmcconn
New Member
Howdy all. I've been brewing for years and have had what I think is the same issue on and off and it's driving me so crazy I'm about ready to quit. The issue is I almost always get a bitey bitterness, back of the tongue and a bit sour and dry, that ruins a perfectly good beer with a gnarly aftertaste. It doesn't taste like any kind of bitterness I've had from a commercial beer that I can remember, though a few craft brews might have had a bit of it, just not nearly so noticeable. Most recently I've been making SMASH recipes to try and isolate the variables at play. I've made three: Vienna Hallertau Blanc, Pilsen Mandarina Bavaria, and Munich II Falconer's Flight. All fermented with Voss Kveik in a 2.5 gallon unitank keg with a little conical and yeast catchment at the bottom. Every one has fermented full out within a week and after a week or a bit sooner I have CO2 purged after check the gravity and installing the dip tube and then crash cooled, removed the catchment, and carbonated to serve. And every single one had the same flavor. I think it's hop burn but I took a lot of steps to prevent it with this last batch (the Munich II Falconer's) and the off-flavor is still there, just less prominently. Here's some details on that Munich II recipe. Hoping someone has some idea what this is and how to deal with it. I'm so frustrated I'm considering doing a recipe with ZERO hops to see if the flavor is still there.
Water: Distilled bottled. Adjusted pH to 6 going into mash and it came out low (5.05) after the mash.
Boil: 90 minute, all falconer's flight, all added into a stainless steel mesh hop tube: .25 oz @ 45, .25 oz @ 15, .5 @ 10 (with whirfloc), .5 @ 5, .5 @ flameout.
Cool: Used wort chiller to bring it down to 90-95 degrees in about 15 minutes. Transferred to keg through mesh strainer, which picked up almost no particulate. OG was 1.055 (I was expecting 1.059).
Ferment: Pitch 6 tbsp of yeast nutrient and kveik starter with 3/4 tsp of yeast (I think this was about 1/3rd of the packet) that had been fermenting some of the wort for 30-60 min, which was about right to get it going. I opened the pressure release on the keg almost all the way for the first 24 hours because it's Kveik and probably would have exploded otherwise. Then as the fermentation slowed I gradually tightened that pressure release down to around 15 PSI, making sure to never let all the pressure off so there was always CO2 inside and no oxygen.
Carbonating: After a week I closed the butterfly valve to the yeast catchment, popped the lid of and got an FG reading of 1.012 (though come to think of it I'm not sure I adjusted this for temp, in which case it might have been more like 1.014). I attached the dip tube and put the lid back on and purged the head space with CO2. I opened the valve again and stuck the keg in the back of my beer fridge on the second to coldest setting for 48 hours to drop out all the sediment. It looked good in the catchment so I closed the valve, turned the fridge back to the 4 instead of 5 (i.e. warmed it up a bit), and carbonated it at 20 PSI for 48 hours before dropping the PSI down to 11 (I actually let some pressure off before turning it down because it seemed over-carbed off the tap).
It's been about 12 hours now since that last step and, yup, the off flavor is still there, just not as prominent as the two beers that came before (so it seems some of my moves to lower the hop bitterness did help, just didn't solve the problem). This one is looking hazy at the moment, but the other two before it came out clear though and had the same flaw, so I dunno if that's actually hop matter in suspension of yeast or chill haze etc. etc. ...
One more weird thing: Each of these beers has had a white grape smell and a less noticeable but present white grape flavor. I've run Voss Kveik in a cider and there was none of that, so I assume it's the hops but I've never heard of this flavor coming from the 7 c's in Falconer's Flight (I can imagine it being a flavor in Hallertau Blanc and Mandarina Bavaria, though it isn't listed on the flavor profile for those hops). The hop profile also seems to be low on the flavor/aroma side and higher on the resinous/spicey/earthy side with every one of these recipes.
Matt
Water: Distilled bottled. Adjusted pH to 6 going into mash and it came out low (5.05) after the mash.
Boil: 90 minute, all falconer's flight, all added into a stainless steel mesh hop tube: .25 oz @ 45, .25 oz @ 15, .5 @ 10 (with whirfloc), .5 @ 5, .5 @ flameout.
Cool: Used wort chiller to bring it down to 90-95 degrees in about 15 minutes. Transferred to keg through mesh strainer, which picked up almost no particulate. OG was 1.055 (I was expecting 1.059).
Ferment: Pitch 6 tbsp of yeast nutrient and kveik starter with 3/4 tsp of yeast (I think this was about 1/3rd of the packet) that had been fermenting some of the wort for 30-60 min, which was about right to get it going. I opened the pressure release on the keg almost all the way for the first 24 hours because it's Kveik and probably would have exploded otherwise. Then as the fermentation slowed I gradually tightened that pressure release down to around 15 PSI, making sure to never let all the pressure off so there was always CO2 inside and no oxygen.
Carbonating: After a week I closed the butterfly valve to the yeast catchment, popped the lid of and got an FG reading of 1.012 (though come to think of it I'm not sure I adjusted this for temp, in which case it might have been more like 1.014). I attached the dip tube and put the lid back on and purged the head space with CO2. I opened the valve again and stuck the keg in the back of my beer fridge on the second to coldest setting for 48 hours to drop out all the sediment. It looked good in the catchment so I closed the valve, turned the fridge back to the 4 instead of 5 (i.e. warmed it up a bit), and carbonated it at 20 PSI for 48 hours before dropping the PSI down to 11 (I actually let some pressure off before turning it down because it seemed over-carbed off the tap).
It's been about 12 hours now since that last step and, yup, the off flavor is still there, just not as prominent as the two beers that came before (so it seems some of my moves to lower the hop bitterness did help, just didn't solve the problem). This one is looking hazy at the moment, but the other two before it came out clear though and had the same flaw, so I dunno if that's actually hop matter in suspension of yeast or chill haze etc. etc. ...
One more weird thing: Each of these beers has had a white grape smell and a less noticeable but present white grape flavor. I've run Voss Kveik in a cider and there was none of that, so I assume it's the hops but I've never heard of this flavor coming from the 7 c's in Falconer's Flight (I can imagine it being a flavor in Hallertau Blanc and Mandarina Bavaria, though it isn't listed on the flavor profile for those hops). The hop profile also seems to be low on the flavor/aroma side and higher on the resinous/spicey/earthy side with every one of these recipes.
Matt