Tannins?

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rodwha

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Last night I brewed a hazelnut brown ale. It's been a few months since I last brewed as I turned my attentions to another hobby for a while, so I was a little rusty and made some mistakes. I also haven't done a BIAB quite this large.

While getting set up I lost my mind and was preparing for an oatmeal stout I'll be making, and so I used a little more water than I wanted, maybe a gallon extra for 4 1/2 lbs of grains. I brought the temp up to about 165* before I added my grains, and the temp dropped to about 150* and stayed under 155* for over 1/2 an hour. I added 10 mins to my mash time, and turned the heat up from 4 to 4.5 and checked it every few mins, but just no real temp climb.

I was watching an MMA fight online and got caught up in it allowing maybe 15 mins to go by. When I checked it the temp was just about 180*!!! Yikes!!! I took it off of the heat and added cold tap water to help bring the temp back down. That took maybe 5 mins or more, and I have no idea how long it was above 175*, but I'd guess it's safe to assume I released some tannins.

Would 10-15 mins between 175-180* release enough tannins to make it noticeable? Will adding the hazelnut extract help mask it? Time doesn't help cases such as this either right? Not even a little?

On an aside I had figured my OG would be lower as I used too much water, but I actually got better efficiency than the default 75%. It should have been 1.054 but came out to 1.056 when adjusted +/- 1.
 
Most of what I've read on this suggests it's a combination of high heat and high pH (typically the later runnings with a fly sparge) that leads to excessive tannin extraction.

I wouldn't worry too much, especially since you don't really know how long the grain was at that temperature and there's not much you can do about it now anyway. Just let it finish out and taste it. Even if it's noticeable, I doubt it would be undrinkable.

The hazelnut might help, as I've heard of nutty flavors balancing tannic flavors in wine.
 
Similar thing happened to me - Making big furry dribble chin brown Ale- left the grains simmering @1 70 degrees, walked away to get a cold beer, gone a few minutes and when I came back it was boiling!!! YIKES!!
Well took off heat and let it simmer down, nothing I can do about, just hope is not that noticeable.
Lesson learned- never leave a brew brewing unwatched!!
Keep us informed, I will do the same.
PB
 
If your mash pH was under 6 (it usually is near 5.2 to 5.5) you could boil the grains without tannin extraction. That's what is done in decoction brewing to change the temperature.
 
I have no idea of the pH of my water, nor the particulars of the water other than it's hard.

It certainly was a lesson learned! And I'll report back in 2 months. I'd think it shouldn't be too bad if it is noticeable. But I certainly can't say. I'll be watching this stout on Monday much closer!!!
 
It isn't the pH of your water that matters, it's the pH of the mash. Typically the addition of grains will pull the pH down into the 5.2 to 5.7 range but that does depend on the minerals in your water. My water is quite hard and I find that with the addition of my grains I'm still around pH of 6.0 so I add a bit of acid blend to the mash which brings it down to a decent level. At some point in my brewing I should send a sample to Ward Labs so I can just use a mineral addition to build my water to what it should be but I make good beer as I am so I'm slow to get the sample sent.
 
Now that I'm doing larger scale mini mashes I'm using filtered hard tap water along with a gallon of water from the store. I figure this out to reduce the hardness a bit, and the LME/DME portions helps balance it out in the end. It seems to work well enough, and I just don't care to get more involved with the chemicals and whatnot.
 
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