Over Gravity and Missing Flavor issues

[sail681]

So I've done about 6 BIABs. 60min mash (~162-164 deg) with 2 equal batch sparges of water at 170 where I let the water sit 15 min before flushing. In my mash, if temp drops in my kettle, I fire up the turkey fryer, pull my bag up a little off the bottom to avoid overheating the bottom grains and stir some. I take the bag out of the kettle, drop the bag in a 5 gallon igloo cooler to sparge in there (maintains temp and makes it flow easily out of the spigot).

Typical 1 hour boil and achieve my target volumes, if not being more volume than planned. I have been over gravity EVERY TIME by .06-.1. So I end up adding a quart to 3 quarts of boiled then chilled water.

So I hit my OG and my FG pretty close each time. However my beers (porter, stout, IPA) taste 'thin' or slightly washed out of flavor.

I know, needle in a haystack question with a gagillion variables..... what the hell is going on here?

Have not calculated my efficiency (I'm sure its easy), but based on being over gravity every time, it feels like the efficiency is wicked high and maybe too high?

Is an easy explanation that I'm pulling too much out of the grains and creating some off tastes? Should I just flush the sparge water through the grain without holding it there for 16 min?

For grainbills, they're on brewtoad, I'm sail681 and have done the Pickup IPA 1/2, Greenbush Distorter, Pepper Porter Black IPA All Grain of late.

 

[petrolSpice]

So I've done about 6 BIABs. 60min mash (~162-164 deg) with 2 equal batch sparges of water at 170 where I let the water sit 15 min before flushing. In my mash, if temp drops in my kettle, I fire up the turkey fryer, pull my bag up a little off the bottom to avoid overheating the bottom grains and stir some. I take the bag out of the kettle, drop the bag in a 5 gallon igloo cooler to sparge in there (maintains temp and makes it flow easily out of the spigot).

Typical 1 hour boil and achieve my target volumes, if not being more volume than planned. I have been over gravity EVERY TIME by .06-.1. So I end up adding a quart to 3 quarts of boiled then chilled water.

So I hit my OG and my FG pretty close each time. However my beers (porter, stout, IPA) taste 'thin' or slightly washed out of flavor.

I know, needle in a haystack question with a gagillion variables..... what the hell is going on here?

Have not calculated my efficiency (I'm sure its easy), but based on being over gravity every time, it feels like the efficiency is wicked high and maybe too high?

Is an easy explanation that I'm pulling too much out of the grains and creating some off tastes? Should I just flush the sparge water through the grain without holding it there for 16 min?

For grainbills, they're on brewtoad, I'm sail681 and have done the Pickup IPA 1/2, Greenbush Distorter, Pepper Porter Black IPA All Grain of late.

I'm no expert but isn't your mash temp a little high? I think 146-156F is where you want to be.

 

[pdietert]

Yea, the mash temp is too high. You state "I have been over gravity EVERY TIME by .06-.1", I assume you mean by .006 and .01, still that is pretty high and I think you might be missing something or need a new hydrometer. Are you letting the wort cool before taking your OG or adjusting for temperature in the calculation? If so, do you have another hydrometer (assuming you are using a hydrometer)? It really sounds like something is wrong with your OG and the dilution is causing you to have the "thin" body. If you are in-fact mashing at 162-164 then the dilution could hide the lack of attenuation in your FG (caused by the high mash temps) and give you your FG target.

 

[sail681]

My bad on some details that really threw you off. Yes on .006 - .010 on being over gravity

Screwed up mash Temps too. Here are 'actuals' for last 5 batches:

150-152, 158, 155, 154, 156.

 

[RM-MN]

1. With BIAB, if your grains are milled fine, your efficiency will be higher than the recipes are designed for so you have been diluting your wort to get to the "proper" OG. In reality, you are watering down your beer so of course it seems thin. Instead of increasing the water to get your OG, you need to reduce the amount of base malts, not the rest of the malts, and your OG will come in about where it should and the flavors will be right too.

2. Unless you have serious kettle size issues, you shouldn't need 2 sparges. BIAB was originated to use full volume, no sparge mashing. I can't fit all the water plus the grains into my pot so I use a single sparge step to bring the volume up after I remove the grains. This also gets me a little higher efficiency but isn't needed for that.

3. Sparging is just a way to dissolve more sugars from the grains. You wouldn't wait 15 minutes for sugar to dissolve in your tea, you don't need to wait 15 minutes for sparging either. I add water while stirring the grains, then drain.

4. As you sparge, you tend to increase the pH and if it goes too high you can extract tannins, especially with hot water. It isn't likely with a single sparge unless your water is very high in alkalinity. As you add sparge steps the chance goes up. It isn't likely with 2 sparges but since only 0 to 1 is needed, why chance it?

5. Porters and stouts take more time to mature than a lighter color beer and they can taste thin for quite a while until they mature. You may be noticing that immaturity and calling it "thin" as they do get a thicker mouthfeel when they mature.

 

[sail681]

Thanks. Again, very helpful.

I end up splitting my sparge water into 2 batches based on the size of my 5g cooler. It can fit the 10-14lbs of wet grain plus somewhere under 2g of water.

Next time I will pour water in the grain, give it a stir and just let it run out into my boil kettle. It will still be done in two batches, but back to back. 170 the right temp for that water? or keep it closer to the mash temp?

In the interest of maintaining sanity, I'll go down the path of changing one thing per brew day (quick sparge next time)... If I'm still high on OG, I'll back off on my base malt the next time.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks. Again, very helpful.

I end up splitting my sparge water into 2 batches based on the size of my 5g cooler. It can fit the 10-14lbs of wet grain plus somewhere under 2g of water.

Next time I will pour water in the grain, give it a stir and just let it run out into my boil kettle. It will still be done in two batches, but back to back. 170 the right temp for that water? or keep it closer to the mash temp?

In the interest of maintaining sanity, I'll go down the path of changing one thing per brew day (quick sparge next time)... If I'm still high on OG, I'll back off on my base malt the next time.

Yes, or you could use cold water for at least the last sparge. The bed of grains will be hot enough to warm up the tap water so it will dissolve the sugars. Lots of ways to do this.

Who mills your grains? The milling of the grain can gain or lose you some efficiency. If you don't mill them yourself, the efficiency can change from batch to batch as the quality of the milling can vary.

 

[sail681]

Has been the local home brew shop for grinding grain. I'm doing a group buy to get my own 50# bags and process it myself via a customized Corona mill (spacers, 5 gal bucket, dust containment...etc). yes, another variable! Guess I just need to brew a lot more to test out all the changes

First I've heard of running tap water temp water through the grain. Hmmm... easy and interesting.....

 

[zeptrey]

All good suggestions, what about mash thickness though? My last few batches I've done my beers full volume BIAB which is awesome due to simplicity. However, I've noticed even my lighter APAs are a little thin using same temps from my three vessel system. I would think it would be due to mash thickness. I think it's weird that most articles say thick mashes help you attain more highly fermentable wort but I'm finding the opposite. They are saying beta amylase doesn't encounter substrate as often in a thin mash but really my full volume BIAB beers have come out with a slightly higher gravity and with a lot more fermentable sugars than compared with the beers from my other system.

It's a simple fix to bring body back to the beer but I've read some conflicting reports in mash thickness. I'll either add a little wheat/carapils and/or boost the mash temp in my BIAB mashes.


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[RM-MN]

All good suggestions, what about mash thickness though? My last few batches I've done my beers full volume BIAB which is awesome due to simplicity. However, I've noticed even my lighter APAs are a little thin using same temps from my three vessel system. I would think it would be due to mash thickness. I think it's weird that most articles say thick mashes help you attain more highly fermentable wort but I'm finding the opposite. They are saying beta amylase doesn't encounter substrate as often in a thin mash but really my full volume BIAB beers have come out with a slightly higher gravity and with a lot more fermentable sugars than compared with the beers from my other system.

It's a simple fix to bring body back to the beer but I've read some conflicting reports in mash thickness. I'll either add a little wheat/carapils and/or boost the mash temp in my BIAB mashes.


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I'm hearing from some people that mash temp isn't doing what it should for some malts. They've reported that higher mash temps don't give more body to their beer. Just hearsay at the moment.

I read part of a scientific paper about how mash thickness affects the fermentability. After the 3rd reading I now think it says that a thicker mash makes the beer more fermentable except for those beers where a thinner mash make the beer more fermentable. It's a good thing I wasn't on the acceptance committee or I would have thrown that paper out and it was from a well known beer researcher.

 

[zeptrey]

I'm hearing from some people that mash temp isn't doing what it should for some malts. They've reported that higher mash temps don't give more body to their beer. Just hearsay at the moment.



I read part of a scientific paper about how mash thickness affects the fermentability. After the 3rd reading I now think it says that a thicker mash makes the beer more fermentable except for those beers where a thinner mash make the beer more fermentable. It's a good thing I wasn't on the acceptance committee or I would have thrown that paper out and it was from a well known beer researcher.

No joke...I'd like to hear or see more work done on that. It probably wasn't an issue for years and years until these one vessel systems that use full volumes started gaining in popularity. I guess one needs to get used to using more wheat or carapils/maltodextrin in your beers.


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[pdietert]

Your numbers look good on your receipes. I might it has something more do do with taste perception than actual body. What kind of water are you using? You are in Chicago correct? If you are using Chicago tap water? Do you have water softener?

Other ideas:

You might also try to reduce your mash times to 20 - 30 minutes instead of using a high mash temperature to increase the amount of complex sugars.

Use a darker base malt. You used 1/2 Maris Otter on the Black IPA, did that one have a fuller body? You can to add in some/more Munich, Vienna and/or Maris Otter to see if that helps.

Did the Goose Island and Fat Tire clones turn out thinner than expected? What about the partial Mash batches?

 

[zeptrey]

Your numbers look good on your receipes. I might it has something more do do with taste perception than actual body. What kind of water are you using? You are in Chicago correct? If you are using Chicago tap water? Do you have water softener?

Other ideas:

You might also try to reduce your mash times to 20 - 30 minutes instead of using a high mash temperature to increase the amount of complex sugars.

Use a darker base malt. You used 1/2 Maris Otter on the Black IPA, did that one have a fuller body? You can to add in some/more Munich, Vienna and/or Maris Otter to see if that helps.

Did the Goose Island and Fat Tire clones turn out thinner than expected? What about the partial Mash batches?

What can be done to test for dextrins? We could setup a little experiment on mash thickness but can't think of a way to do so without detecting "body" purely by taste.

 

[pdietert]

Just an idea (don't know how well it would work or even if it will) but you can try a iodine test in 5 minute intervals, and kind of judge by how quickly it turns color to see the conversion. I do not really think this is the problem, it would just be a band-aid to try to get fuller body.

To comment on your earlier question, zeptrey, about thick mashes and conversion. From what I understand, this is more applicable in stepped mashing. Thicker mashes are more effective for lower temp. steps, like acid and protein rests but thinner are more effective for scarification. When I have done infusion mashing, I generally have better results than with a single rest, even with highly modified malts.

 

[sail681]

I like your thinking here..... You have the same high gravities w thin flavor.
Help me close the loop and get to something I can test based on what you are saying

Lol, which of the following should I do:
-lower mash temp
-raise mash temp by 2-3 degrees
- raise tamp by 5-7 degrees
-go thicker mash like 1 qt per pound of grain
-go thinner mash to 1 1/2 qt water per pound of grain

 

[RM-MN]

I like your thinking here..... You have the same high gravities w thin flavor.
Help me close the loop and get to something I can test based on what you are saying

Lol, which of the following should I do:
-lower mash temp
-raise mash temp by 2-3 degrees
- raise tamp by 5-7 degrees
-go thicker mash like 1 qt per pound of grain
-go thinner mash to 1 1/2 qt water per pound of grain

Raise the mash temperature by 2-3 degrees and go with a thinner mash, like 2.3 qt water per pound. Do a single sparge to get your preboil volume. Do it as a dunk sparge or a pour over sparge so it is over in a couple minutes.

What may be happening is that the enzyme "beta amylase" may still be working during your sparges so you are allowing it to continue to create short chain, fermentable sugars.

 

[pdietert]

I guess the first thing I would do if I had this problem is eliminate the water addition to hit your OG, let it be a little higher. Then I would use bottled spring water (not distilled).