Bitter aftertaste in first batches

[Mucklefuzzy]

Hi guys! I'm brand new to this and have just tried brewing two beers, both from all-grain. Neither is finished, but both have shown a very bitter aftertaste when tasted at different stages in the process. I know that some of the answer will be to be patient and see how it turns out, but I'm curious if everybody gets these flavors at these stages or if there's something I should alter.

Facts:

• I brewed my first, an english pale ale (recipe/process below), about 2.5 weeks ago - when I tasted it at bottling (after a 2 week fermentation), it tasted good except for an overpowering bitter aftertaste
• Doing some research, it sounded like it may go away over time, but if not it could be due to my water
• It's not easy for me to get a comprehensive water test (non-US & municipal services aren't great here), so I decided that brewing with bottled water for my 2nd brew was the answer
• I brewed a porter for my second (again, recipe/process below) & added baking soda to the bottled water to get the hardness needed
• Before boiling, the wort tasted great, no bitterness and just sweet malty goodness
• After the boil, I tasted again and it had the EXACT SAME bitter aftertaste as my english pale ale
• The porter is now fermenting, but will taste again at bottling

Is it typical to have this very bitter aftertaste after the boil and at bottling? If not, any idea what could be causing it other than the water? I think that my temps & hops are ok, but let me know!

English Ale

Grains:​

Maris Otter - 1.89lb​

2-row pale - 1.89lb​

Crystal 20L - 0.33lb​

Mash: mashed in brewing bag in 6.5L of tap water at 154F for 60m​

Sparge: don't have a sparge arm, so dunked bag in 7L of water at 172F for 15m​

Boil: it took a while to get up to a rolling boil, maybe 20-30m, after which I boiled for 60m, OG 1.046​

Hops:​

7g Northdown (7.4% aa) added for whole 60m​

7g Goldings (4.6% aa) added for whole 60m​

4g Northdown (7.4% aa) added for 20m​

4g Challenger (4.6% aa) added for 5m​

Yeast: 1 packet dry Nottingham ale yeast, pitched dry on top of cooled wort at ~76 degrees​

Fermetnation: 2 weeks in a room at temps ranging from 65-71F, FG 1.008​

Bottling: I had some issues with the auto-siphon and got quite a lot of bubbles into the siphon tube, causing some oxygenation of the beer when racking, so I'm worried that this won't age well, but that's probably beside the point of the bitterness as I tasted the beer prior to the oxygenation.​

​

Porter (150% batch size vs prior)

Grains:​

2-row pale - 5.76lb​

Chocolate - 0.53lb​

Crystal 20L - 0.38lb​

Mash: mashed in brewing bag in 9.75L of bottled water (adding 1/2tsp of baking soda) at 150F for 30m, then 158F for 30m​

Sparge: don't have a sparge arm, so dunked bag in 10.5L of bottled water (no baking soda) at 165F for 15m... I lowered the temp because I had read that ~170F is when tannins come out​

Boil: it took a while to get up to a rolling boil, maybe 20-30m, after which I boiled for 60m, OG 1.036... it seems like I didn't have as efficient of a mash here given the low gravity​

Hops:​

12.1g Northdown (7.4% aa) added for whole 60m​

19.5g Goldings (4.6% aa) added for 30m​

19.5g Goldings (4.6% aa) added for 5m​

Yeast: 1 packet dry SafAle English Ale S-04, primed with 1/2c water & 1/2tsp sugar, pitched at ~72 degrees​

​

 

[Sergei]

Hi!
What batch sizes do you have in both cases (pre and post boil)? Also, why you decided to add baking soda?
If you want to increase water hardness you should add salts (but for first batches and without known water profile
it is better to not play with it). Baking soda increases pH of mash and that helps release of tannins. I would understand
if you try pH-5.2 stabilizer, but soda... Where did you get the recipes and what IBUs are expected for each batch?
And, at last, warm wort/beer will taste more bitter than cooled and carbonated. Just let it mellow and taste, may
be it will be good
Have a good luck.

 

[palmtrees]

Is the taste bitter like hops or more astringent like overbrewed tea? They are very easy to confuse, but it's important to distinguish because they have different causes. Astringency results from tannin extraction from your grains. It could be your ph is off due to the baking soda, or the higher sparge temps could be the problem.

When you're doing BIAB, you don't really need to sparge. You can mash with all the water you need. If you want to sparge, you can, but the water definitely doesn't need to be a higher temperature. People typically use hotter water to shut down the mash enzymes while they lauter from a mash tun (lautering takes a while, so the hot water prevents your mash from continuing that whole time). But there's no need to do that with BIAB because your "lautering" takes about ten seconds and involves lifting the bag out of the water.

Since you're starting out, I would keep it simple. Mash with your full volume of water. When that's done, pull your bag out and let it drain. Feel free to squeeze to get the extra wort out; it's a myth that squeezing extracts tannins. For my process, I put my bag in a colander over a big pot and let it drain for a while, then press it with a metal spoon to get out as much as I can.

For water, I wouldn't mess with water adjustments in my first few brews. The easiest route to having water that is mostly fine for all-grain brewing is to buy some gallon jugs at the store. To start, try half spring water (which will have a bunch of minerals in it) and half distilled (which will have none). Eventually, you can get a water report for your tap water and do mineral adjustments from there. Or just use distilled water and add back the minerals you need for your particular recipe. But that's definitely not something I would attempt until I had figured out the basics of all grain brewing.

 

[Mucklefuzzy]

Hi!
What batch sizes do you have in both cases (pre and post boil)? Also, why you decided to add baking soda?
If you want to increase water hardness you should add salts (but for first batches and without known water profile
it is better to not play with it). Baking soda increases pH of mash and that helps release of tannins. I would understand
if you try pH-5.2 stabilizer, but soda... Where did you get the recipes and what IBUs are expected for each batch?
And, at last, warm wort/beer will taste more bitter than cooled and carbonated. Just let it mellow and taste, may
be it will be good
Have a good luck.

Thanks for the feedback! I don't have exact pre/post-boil sizes as I don't have markings on my pot. Pre-boil I had used 13.5L of water in the first batch and 21.25L in the second batch. Rough guessing, I'd say that I ended up fermenting ~10L in the first batch and bottling ~8L. Does that seem reasonable? My understanding is that you should be boiling off 10%-20% of the initial wort.

I added baking soda for the porter based on Palmer's "How to Brew" - he has some figures in chapter 15 that go through appropriate hardness for different types of beer. I know my bottled water has a CaCO3 of 13 mg/L (which I think is also 13 ppm). From the figure, I probably want to be ~160ppm HCO3 because the water is also very low in Ca/Mg (<10ppm). From the table later in the chapter, the best way to add HCO3 seems to be baking soda, which also adds Na, but should still be well within regular bounds. I agree, I probably should have added other salts for other minerals, but figured I'd be fine if I got the hardness right for the mash PH. Anybody have feedback on if I'm doing this right?

I did a quick calc on Brewer's Friend and it's showing 30IBU for the porter (lower end of the style norms) and 37IBU for the pale ale (just a twinge over the high end). I don't think that what I'm tasting is hop bitterness, I find hops to be more sour/bitter on the back/sides of the tongue and this is at the very very back of the throat. I got both of the recipes from homebrewanswers.com "Complete Guide to All-Grain Brewing (Little or Equipment or Experience Needed)", and made a couple of tweaks for what was available (half-half Maris Otter & 2-row on the Pale Ale, more chocolate and no roasted barley for the Porter).

Good point on warm beer being more bitter! The pale ale was room temp when tasting and the porter post-boil was definitely still a bit warm. Hopefully a good ride in the bottle/fridge is all they need!

 

[Mucklefuzzy]

Is the taste bitter like hops or more astringent like overbrewed tea? They are very easy to confuse, but it's important to distinguish because they have different causes. Astringency results from tannin extraction from your grains. It could be your ph is off due to the baking soda, or the higher sparge temps could be the problem.

When you're doing BIAB, you don't really need to sparge. You can mash with all the water you need. If you want to sparge, you can, but the water definitely doesn't need to be a higher temperature. People typically use hotter water to shut down the mash enzymes while they lauter from a mash tun (lautering takes a while, so the hot water prevents your mash from continuing that whole time). But there's no need to do that with BIAB because your "lautering" takes about ten seconds and involves lifting the bag out of the water.

Since you're starting out, I would keep it simple. Mash with your full volume of water. When that's done, pull your bag out and let it drain. Feel free to squeeze to get the extra wort out; it's a myth that squeezing extracts tannins. For my process, I put my bag in a colander over a big pot and let it drain for a while, then press it with a metal spoon to get out as much as I can.

For water, I wouldn't mess with water adjustments in my first few brews. The easiest route to having water that is mostly fine for all-grain brewing is to buy some gallon jugs at the store. To start, try half spring water (which will have a bunch of minerals in it) and half distilled (which will have none). Eventually, you can get a water report for your tap water and do mineral adjustments from there. Or just use distilled water and add back the minerals you need for your particular recipe. But that's definitely not something I would attempt until I had figured out the basics of all grain brewing.

Thanks for the thoughts and interesting on the sparge temp...

I definitely think this is a different bitterness than hops - very back of the throat rather than back/sides of the tongue which I find I normally get with hops. Interestingly, it's very different than tannins in a wine, but maybe that's normal. I THINK that the mash ph should be ok based on the math in How To Brew (see prior post), but let me know if you think that's off.

Great point on BIAB not needing to sparge. I do find that I get quite a bit more wort out of the grains when dunking it into fresh water, but hopefully I can get that out by squeezing anyways. I haven't been squeezing the bag for fear of getting tannins, but doing a full-water mash without the sparge sounds like a good way to see if the sparge temp is my problem!

Agree on water adjustments - I'd rather not be making them unless I know it's a problem! So you would use half & half spring/distilled with no adjustments regardless of type of beer? Or would you only brew mid-range beers with that (like the pale ale)? The reason I went down the adjusted-distilled route for the second batch is that I was worried my ph may have caused the bitter aftertaste in the first batch. Do you think I could rule out water as the cause if I just went with the half-half method?

 

[GoodTruble]

Just wait. The bitterness may go away as it mellows/conditions. There may be no actual problem to solve.

 

[Sergei]

Thanks for the feedback! I don't have exact pre/post-boil sizes as I don't have markings on my pot. Pre-boil I had used 13.5L of water in the first batch and 21.25L in the second batch. Rough guessing, I'd say that I ended up fermenting ~10L in the first batch and bottling ~8L. Does that seem reasonable? My understanding is that you should be boiling off 10%-20% of the initial wort.

I asked about batch sizes to estimate IBUs. Since you did not provide batch sizes just amount of hops, there was a chance that strong bitterness is normal.

I added baking soda for the porter based on Palmer's "How to Brew" - he has some figures in chapter 15 that go through appropriate hardness for different types of beer. I know my bottled water has a CaCO3 of 13 mg/L (which I think is also 13 ppm). From the figure, I probably want to be ~160ppm HCO3 because the water is also very low in Ca/Mg (<10ppm). From the table later in the chapter, the best way to add HCO3 seems to be baking soda, which also adds Na, but should still be well within regular bounds. I agree, I probably should have added other salts for other minerals, but figured I'd be fine if I got the hardness right for the mash PH. Anybody have feedback on if I'm doing this right?

Well, distilled water has pH of 7, the optimal pH for mash is 5.2–5.6, baking soda has pH of 8 (it is alkaline). That is why I was surprised by your choice of the salt. It should affect your mash and tannin extraction. But anyway, let it mellow and then taste it.

 

[palmtrees]

Thanks for the thoughts and interesting on the sparge temp...

I definitely think this is a different bitterness than hops - very back of the throat rather than back/sides of the tongue which I find I normally get with hops. Interestingly, it's very different than tannins in a wine, but maybe that's normal. I THINK that the mash ph should be ok based on the math in How To Brew (see prior post), but let me know if you think that's off.

Great point on BIAB not needing to sparge. I do find that I get quite a bit more wort out of the grains when dunking it into fresh water, but hopefully I can get that out by squeezing anyways. I haven't been squeezing the bag for fear of getting tannins, but doing a full-water mash without the sparge sounds like a good way to see if the sparge temp is my problem!

Agree on water adjustments - I'd rather not be making them unless I know it's a problem! So you would use half & half spring/distilled with no adjustments regardless of type of beer? Or would you only brew mid-range beers with that (like the pale ale)? The reason I went down the adjusted-distilled route for the second batch is that I was worried my ph may have caused the bitter aftertaste in the first batch. Do you think I could rule out water as the cause if I just went with the half-half method?

I am not sure you could necessarily rule out water entirely with this method of half spring/half distilled. It's still an indeterminate water profile. Even though it might not be perfect, it's definitely not going to cause any major astringency issues like you're having now. So if it's still there when you use that water, I would bet it's something else.

On the hotter sparge water, for reference I accidentally left the stove on while heating my mash during my last brew. I didn't realize it until I came back a half hour later. By then, the temp had risen to 175. That beer is veeeery astringent. The flavor started as a weird bitter aaftertaste in the sample I took when I moved it into the keg. After a few weeks in the keg, it now tastes almost exactly like black tea. So those sparge temps could be doing something. As you say, best to just eliminate that next time. You can always go back to sparging later if you figure out this taste issue.

 

[Sergei]

On the hotter sparge water, for reference I accidentally left the stove on while heating my mash during my last brew. I didn't realize it until I came back a half hour later. By then, the temp had risen to 175. That beer is veeeery astringent. The flavor started as a weird bitter aaftertaste in the sample I took when I moved it into the keg. After a few weeks in the keg, it now tastes almost exactly like black tea. So those sparge temps could be doing something. As you say, best to just eliminate that next time. You can always go back to sparging later if you figure out this taste issue.

Sure, you are right, but pH has no less important role in astringency. I made a couple of recipes with decoction -- grist was boiled 15 or 30 minutes (depending on recipe) and I did not noticed any astringency. The mash had pH about 5.2. When you sparge, water has much higher pH. With added baking soda -- even more higher.

 

[Mucklefuzzy]

Well... it would appear that the conventional wisdom of "wait and it might get better" was true!

After just one week of bottle conditioning, the pale ale has gotten remarkably better. No hint of the astringent aftertaste that it had before. This may be have something to do with being cold & carbonated vs room temp & flat.

I'm still going to follow the suggestion above of doing no sparge, or at least just doing a room temp sparge with a couple liters of water to rinse the wort out of the mash. But, based on these results, it seems like my tap water isn't causing this issues so I'll try that again for the next batch.

For anybody who finds this in the future - aftertastes in your post-boil wort are not necessarily indicative of issues in the final beer!