Undrinkable - very astringent taste

[Paolo]

Hi there,
I have finally gotten hands on brewing, after years of hesitating.
Well, after two moderately satisfactorily batches, I already messed up, my third batch is undrinkable. So I wanted to see if anyone has a clue what I did wrong.
It's an IPA, fermentables and hops amounts are quite normal, but I gotten:
* an extremely bitter taste,
* an even astringent taste, like used tea bag?
* very grass-like aroma
* absolutely no sweetness to balance out
* almost no carbonation at all
* color is dark amber amost veering to the green
Did it get infected? Poor cleaning/contamination?

I got really depressed. At the same time, it adds some challenge to the whole thing
I'll wait to know if you experienced anything similar!

 

[freisste]

Hi there,
I have finally gotten hands on brewing, after years of hesitating.
Well, after two moderately satisfactorily batches, I already messed up, my third batch is undrinkable. So I wanted to see if anyone has a clue what I did wrong.
It's an IPA, fermentables and hops amounts are quite normal, but I gotten:
* an extremely bitter taste,
* an even astringent taste, like used tea bag?
* very grass-like aroma
* absolutely no sweetness to balance out
* almost no carbonation at all
* color is dark amber amost veering to the green
Did it get infected? Poor cleaning/contamination?

I got really depressed. At the same time, it adds some challenge to the whole thing
I'll wait to know if you experienced anything similar!

Couple things:
-The very bitter and the no balanced sweetness are kind of what you get with an IPA. So let's ignore those "issues" for now. The bitterness will fade a little anyway.
-Grassy aroma is common with certain hop varieties. Cascade comes to mind, but there are others. If this was dry hopped for too long, it seems to get worse, although I have never experienced that.

Regarding carbonation, how did you prime and how long did you leave the bottles to carbonate. Sounds like they may just need more time.

-Color and astringency - color is often darker than usual with extract beers as the extract tends to carmelize. However, astringency is less normal in extract batches because mash pH doesn't come into play.

Maybe the beer is just drier than you expected which is accentuating that feeling and increasing hop bitterness? What yeast did you use?

Was this extract or all grain?

 

[flars]

Like above, was this extract or all grain?
Give us the full name of the kit if it was an extract kit. With this information we can look up the ingredients.
What yeast did you use? What was the fermentation temperature for the first three days of active fermentation?
Post the details of your brew day, bottling, and conditioning time and temperature.

 

[tacks]

What kind of beer, recipe? I had one batch that was ruined because I used fake vanilla extract instead of ponying up the extra buck or two for the real stuff (3rd batch ever, learned my lesson). It had an off flavor reminiscent of the smell of cleaning products. Also, what temperature did you ferment at? Higher temperatures of fermentation can cause off flavors as well, depending on what yeast you used and what temperature you fermented at would possibly explain part of the problem.

 

[SDCraftBeer]

What was your OG and FG?

Do you have a grain bill and hop schedule you would be able to share?

 

[Redhook]

I'm guessing you rushed it from fermentation to bottle. You need to allow the yeast time to cleanup and the beer time to condition. Give it time and it will likely get much better.

 

[Smellyglove]

When did you taste this? Lack of carbonation, astringent and grassy taste sounds like a to early taste of a medium to properly dryhopped beer.

 

[Redhook]

And don't forget to cold condition the bottles for at least 3 days before you open them. The beer has to cool to allow the CO2 to absorb.

 

[Paolo]

Thanks to all for the very fast replies!
I should have posted the recipe before, here it is:

9 liters
2300 g pale ale malt
150 g cara crystal malt
100 g flaked barley
Mashing for 1 h at about 150 F
15 g nugget at boil (60 min tot)
10 g fuggles at 15 min (45 tot)
10 g fuggles at 30 min (30 tot)
10 g fuggles at 45 min (15 tot)
10 g fuggles at 55 min (5 tot)
Safbrew S-04 dry ale yeast: about 4.5 g

5 liters I dry hopped with 10 g fuggles (after 3 days fermenting, for 12 more days)
Note that dry hopped and non-dry hopped beers have undistinguishable features!

Unfortunately I am not measuring OG and FG yet, I'll start asap!
Also: bitterness was beyond any agreeable bitterness from IPAs, and I love bitter beasts...
Any chance my procedure's been wrong? Thanks again!

 

[cobrem]

What were your first two batches? If they were darker, and came out fine, you may have a water chemistry issue. Lighter beers need lower residual alkalinity than, say, stouts and porters. If too alkaline (mash ph higher than 5.8 ish), you could extract tannins from the mash and end up with a husky/astringent beer.

I recommend either using brewing software, or running through Palmer's "how to brew" (chapter 15) to get a sense of any needed adjustments.