Bad flavor in last 3 AG beers

[robcj]

Do you have access to a pH meter? You mentioned measuring your mash pH between 5 and 6 with strips but that is a big range. I think it would be worth buying, renting or borrowing a meter. Otherwise your attempts to adjust pH are just shots in the dark.

This may or not be helpful, but my beers suffered from an off-flavour, slight astringency and lack of maltiness and mouthfeel for over a year. I tried adding 0.10 g/l of CaCL because my water is low in chloride but it had little effect. Then, last time I brewed, I made two batches, one IPA and one stout. I added 0.15 g/l of CaCL and used sauermalz for 3% of the grist in both batches. The difference between these brews and previous batches is night and day. I just went from brewing mediocore beer to brewing craft quality product, something I was starting to sadly think wasn't possible at home. Both beers are outstanding. I tell you this because I wish I had taken the initiative to accurately measure my mash pH much earlier. I still haven't measured it yet but so far the lactic acid in 3% of sauermalz seems to do the trick for me.

 

[danio]

jbsg: I had checked my thermometer before but when I checked it again I started noticing anomalies. Its accurate if you only put in the tip (when brewing\checking mash I usually stick it waaaaaaaaaaay in). If you put in even a half inch more it drops radically. For 170F water it drops to 140F. So when I heat to ~170F I could be almost boiling thus making my mash and sparge wayyyy too hot. I wonder if this could be it? Also, right after my last good batch (pliny) I bought my new thermometer....hmmmm. I guess when I calibrated etc. I only stuck in the tip, but when I brew I stick it way in.


robcj: Was the CaCl to adjust pH or something else? I checked with precision strips (4.6>6.0 I think?) and it seemed like I was in the range (around 5.3 room temp). I know those are mostly bogus though. I also haven't tried sauermalz. Would this be preferable to lactic acid? If my thermometer is NOT the culprit, I'm just going to buy a pH meter as you suggest.

Thank you both for your suggestions!

EDIT: Interesting....at lower temps (120F), putting the probe in deeper makes no difference. So that explains why I never noticed it during calibration (32F for this model.) BTW for posterities sake this is a CDN DTQ-450X.

 

[SixFoFalcon]

Get a Thermapen, NOW. :rockin:

P.S.: Yellow is the fastest.

 

[danio]

Is this the one you mean? Or are there other thermapens out there?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GIZZWM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[SixFoFalcon]

That is the one.

More colors here.

 

[danio]

Awesome. After so many bad batches the cost of good equipment seems so.... negligible.

I wish they were sold locally - my next brewday is tomorrow. Oh well my analog thermometers all read really accurately, just kinda slow and not super accurate to the degree. Thats nothing compared to 30-40F tho, hah. If this does solve my problem i'm going to guillotine my bad thermometer for killing so much beer....*ssshhhhttttuuuunnnkkkkk*

 

[Sherpa FE]

Just a shot in the dark, what are you using to chill the beer down after boil? Could it be causing the infection?

 

[danio]

I was wondering that too. I'm using a AHS copper wort chiller. I soak it in star san for 10 min and then put it in my boil for 15 min. Could there still be issues?

 

[SixFoFalcon]

There's no reason to sanitize the wort chiller with Star*San. 15+ minutes sitting in the boiling wort is more than enough to sanitize the chiller.

I can't say that the Star*San + copper reaction (and it is a pretty significant reaction, chemically speaking) is a good thing to be introducing, but I don't think it's necessarily a smoking gun, either.

 

[bgeek]

How are you aerating the wort and at what temperature? I ask because I once got bad cardboard flavors in a porter from aerating at 85F (my tap water is warm). Now I use a bucket of ice water and pump to get it down to ~65F.

 

[danio]

I get a ton of foam when i pour from kettle to carboy. I also then shake it for a long time. All this is (supposedly) below 80F.

I'm also going to stop soaking wort chiller in star san...just found out about that reaction last night.

 

[Sherpa FE]

There's no reason to sanitize the wort chiller with Star*San. 15+ minutes sitting in the boiling wort is more than enough to sanitize the chiller.

I can't say that the Star*San + copper reaction (and it is a pretty significant reaction, chemically speaking) is a good thing to be introducing, but I don't think it's necessarily a smoking gun, either.

I was thinking more along the lines of a counter flow chiller, either homemade or off the shelf.
Had pretty much the same thing happen to about 4 batches of my beer, because even though I flushed and oven cooked my CF chiller, there was still gunk in there giving off flavors. Flushing with PBW, revealed how important it is to properly clean those things. No more bad flavored beer.

 

[danio]

I found a thread last night on cf chillers having that problem. I've been thinking...you could almost make a giant visual workflow chart of all the problems you run into with brewing. Like...'cardboard flavor' > 'oxygenation' or 'infection' or 'chloramine' etc. Kind of an 'if not this, then proceed to this.' You could have arrows directing you and a list of symptoms etc. You could even include weird anomalies like that CF idea or even check your thermometer.

Anyway, those are the thoughts one has after spending months trying to solve one stupid problem and making a ton of bad beer.

 

[SixFoFalcon]

I've always found Palmer's page on common off-flavors to be a pretty straightforward "cheat sheet". Is my beer ruined?

 

[danio]

Yeah and I used that a bit lately and its really nice. But I'm thinking you could even include over\under attenuation, carbonation, etc. all in a graphical, flowchart format. It could even be built into a java applet or a flash webpage. Or just a giant poster like those hop charts. Maybe it wouldn't be that useful but anyway, one of those thoughts rattling around in my head for a while.

 

[FRS]

Are you still splashing hot wort from the MLT to your boil kettle? Hot side aeration can lead to stale/carboardy flavors, even before the boil...

http://byo.com/stories/wizard/artic...66-hot-side-aeration-a-storing-hops-mr-wizard

 

[danio]

No I thought that was it early on but I added a tube and got no improvement :-/

 

[Junkster]

Maybe I missed it, but what opinion did you get from your local brewery? Perhaps you could get enough water from THEIR source / supply for a batch and try brewing with it after you've eliminated temperature errors..... Good luck!! It must be very frustrating.

 

[danio]

The local brewer and his helper just thought it was 'off' and had kind of a chemical taste. I think certain people are sensitive to the differences. The one he tasted was the one with tap water. I've got my fingers crossed that it's the temperature. Also I've tried tap water, RO, and spring water and theres no major difference.

I'm curious what mashing at 160-180 results in. I mean assuming my thermometer is 30F low, I'm heating mash water to 200 instead of 170 and hitting way too high a range. Also I'm sparging super hot too if this is all true.

Gonna brew tomorrow with plain old tap water and campden tablets *crosses fingers*

 

[dragonlor20]

The local brewer and his helper just thought it was 'off' and had kind of a chemical taste. I think certain people are sensitive to the differences. The one he tasted was the one with tap water. I've got my fingers crossed that it's the temperature. Also I've tried tap water, RO, and spring water and theres no major difference.

I'm curious what mashing at 160-180 results in. I mean assuming my thermometer is 30F low, I'm heating mash water to 200 instead of 170 and hitting way too high a range. Also I'm sparging super hot too if this is all true.

Gonna brew tomorrow with plain old tap water and campden tablets *crosses fingers*

It sounds like your thermometer. Making starters made my beer go from home few to beer and it will clear up a lot, but it doesn't sound like the root cause. Your water isn't good, but using ro water should have corrected that. It doesn't sound like an infection to me, and in my experience, 6 beers in a row with infection that causes a flavor usually associated with extraction issues seems unlikely. I think you are coming in way too hot.

I had this problem for a while and got fixated on my tubing not being able to take the heat as the culprit. I still to this day don't know what the issue was, but i know the flavor you are describing and it is not good. When I moved, the issue was resolved, but my situation changed all of my brewing habits.

I feel for you, just make sure you know your temps, mash out a little cooler in general, and ensure your tubing is correct on the hot side of your process.

 

[danio]

dragonlor: thanks for the feedback. Yeah I haven't even started to worry about my tubing since in the beginning I wasn't even using it (just wort free falling from tun to kettle). No change once I added tubing.

I've been fiddling for hours with my thermometer. Suddenly its reading 100% accurately so that's a little disconcerting (to say the least). Regardless, it wasn't accurate last night, it was reading 30F cool. I have two more thermometers I consider to be very simple but reliable and I'm going to use them and just hope for the best.

 

[golfer]

get a thermapen, i have a collection of thermometers, digital and analog, they all callibrate fine at 32, and 212. they all read different at 154. i have three cdn proaccurate digitals that all read at least 4 degrees low at 154. i found out that only the thermapen, and my glass lab thermometer were accurate in the 150-160 range. i was having the same problem as you are for a few batches out of the blue, and figured my thermometer problem. bought the thermapen, and mashed the next batch at 154. checked it with my old thermometer, and it read 146-148. so the funky batches had been getting mashed at 160+.

 

[danio]

Yeah I'm definitely getting a thermapen. I got my morning coffee up to mash temp (154) and my analog and my new digital called it 154 but my CDN called it 134-144 depending on the depth etc. I was careful not to touch the mug etc. with any of them.

Side note...people really stare at you when you have three thermometers in your cup of morning joe.

 

[FRS]

A man with one watch always knows the time, a man with two watches has no idea what time it is...

Hopefully you're onto something with your thermometer being so miscalibrated at mash temps... I'll be checking mine against a lab thermometer tonight!!

 

[danio]

Hehe nice quote I'll keep you all updated about how it goes with different thermometers.

I noticed on the CDN webpage it says 'for testing thin peaces of meat.' I wonder if this is a creative marketing technique of listing a defect as a feature. Sigh.

 

[spearko520]

hey - i'm a little late jumping in on this, but just curious- did the three all grain batches that turned out great have darker grains in them (i think i'm hovering at ph)? - i'm just wondering what it was that made them so different... have you tried making the exact same beer (with the same temps, techniques etc) as one of the good ones? That might help narrow it down some.
i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure, as has been pointed out, that pre-boil hot side aeration is not the culprit here (possibly not anywhere)...

 

[danio]

Spearko - I was convinced that it was pH but then I did the same exact batch (granted with slightly different water) but no luck. I even tried a batch where I added 1tsp lactic to the strike and 1 tsp to the sparge. That didn't really give me any noticeable change.

I'm gonna brew tonight, so it'll be the moment of truth (or it will be in a week hehe) but the only thing that changed from good to bad brews was my new thermometer. I really, really, really hope it's it. I'm about ready to go back to extract *tears hair*

Thanks again for the advice everyone! If this solves it, I've learned a ton of useful stuff aside from my problem during this whole process.

 

[julson]

There's two things i can suggest to you; I never heat my sparge water over 170 degrees as that can generate some off flavors. But... the last time I had a problem like this, it was because I had an accumulation of old wort that was deep in my drain valve on my boil kettle. I removed the drain valve and boiled it before i started brewing...and problem solved.

 

[danio]

julson: I took your advice and added sparge water at 170F. Also if this doesn't fix it I'll disassemble the ball valve on my tun. I don't have one on my kettle. Maybe there is gunk in there.

I'm mid-brew now. Everything seems about the same so we'll see.

 

[danio]

Well for the sake of anyone finding this thread later I thought I'd post my findings. It's been a couple months and I've discovered that:

- My main problem was my thermometer reading 30F too low.
- My water wasn't ideal so starting with RO water helps 'clean up' the flavor as well
- My pH was out of whack on many beers when I used tap water, even stouts!
- After 5 months of troubleshooting I find it hard to just enjoy the beers I brew, hehe.

So now I use EZWater and 100% RO to get predictable pH results. The flavor has been a lot better too. My dad and my brother both have the same thermometer as me and both of them give an error when you submerge them more than 1". So watch out for CDN 'thin meat' thermometers

Anyway, thanks again for all the help everyone! Just thought I'd wrap this thread up.