what the hell am i doing wrong?!?!

[ekjohns]

I brewed a standard wheat 3 weeks ago which was:
5 lbs white wheat malt
4 lbs 2-row
1 lb oats
0.5 oz corriander
1 oz Mt Hood 60 min (IBU 20)
2 oranges zested (only the outter most orange part)
US-05 yeast
mash 1 hr 152 F
boil 90 min
OG 1.052
FG 1.008

I used 10% Tap water (Hard) and 90% RO water to give me soft munich water. I also used pH5.2 during mash. Boil was 90 min with lid off. Cooled quickly down to 120 in 15 min. The Ferm was held at 66-68F for 2 weeks in primary then kegged and force carbed. I have replaced all my old equipment with new parts and everything was cleaned very well with Star-Sans. After 2 weeks in the keg the beer has kind of a bitter off taste to it. I have had this on my past 2 attempts at a wheat and have no idea where it is coming from! Im starting to get really fustrated. Does anyone see anything wrong with what i am doing? I know star-sans is suppose to not produce any off flavor so i dont sweat clumps of bubbles in my carboy or the little bit that is on the thermometer and stir paddle post boil, but is it possible that it really does produce a bitter off taste?

 

[KAMMEE]

Sometimes when I use the natural zest from citrus I get some of that flavor but it goes away completely after a month in the bottle. Maybe that's what you're tasting? Otherwise I'm not sure what it would be.

 

[jpc]

Sounds like your water chemistry may be off. You have to watch the chloride to sulfate ratio; too much sulfate will make it bitter.

 

[goose1873]

I think it's from the orange peel. I try to get zest only (no white pith) but still sometimes get the bitter nasty taste of the pith...it will settle down in time

 

[ekjohns]

i will give it another month in the keg and hope it settles out. As far as water chemisty i added some CaCl2 (forgot to mention it) and accoring to the ezwaterchemistry chart i was in the malty range. I am 99% possitive i got none of the white pit as i used a very fine zester and was very carefull during zesting (but i cannot rule that out for sure). Thanks everyone for the suggestions

 

[Dynachrome]

+1 on too much hops - I did the same thing. It has settled down after a couple weeks. mine is citrussy from just the cascade hops and WB-06 yeast. I worry about the chemistry from adding acids and oils from fruit.

Can you be more specific about "off flavor" please.

I did not do the coreander either. Mine reminds me of Hacker Schorr... which I was trying for Widmer, oh well.

Wait and see if it smooths out. Mine improved over a couple weeks.

 

[ekjohns]

its kind of an off bitter almost like yeast bite but not. It is also close to the taste of an asprin. I will taste it again with a clean palate and see if i can describe it better. The beer is only 4 weeks post brew (i was under the assumption wheats are ready after 2 weeks) but i will let it mellow and hope for the best

 

[curlyfat]

Cooled quickly down to 120 in 15min.

How warm was it when you pitched the yeast? 120f isn't very cool, and way to warm to pitch. Even if you pitch at 80f, it'll do most of it's fermenting before it ever gets down to the room temp...causing a funky almost yeasty off flavor. (I made this mistake my first several brews).

 

[944play]

How much 5.2 did you use? I'd start by eliminating that.

 

[Paul_Aris]

I go 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 weeks bottle conditioning, or keg. After that my wheats tastes really good. before aging at least 2 weeks in the bottle they are bitter and not very good.

 

[user 38649]

I vote too much pith on the orange peel. I ruined a batch of limoncello by leaving not-a-whole-helluva-lot of pith on there. Pith off.


Jason

 

[ekjohns]

I pitched at 74F and it was down to 66F within 8 hrs

I used 1 TBS of pH 5.2 in the mash (no addition was added for the sparge)

 

[Ricand]

I use 5.2 in pretty much everything without any noticeable taste changes and you can eliminate the Starsan it has no flavor at way high concentrations.

Could it be tannins? Did you hit your mash temperature first try, what was it? Do you do a mash out? Batch sparge or fly? What temp was the sparge water?

 

[heywolfie1015]

Here's another thought. Maybe it is the combination of a coriander addition and a clean yeast like US-05. The only time I add coriander is when I'm making a beer with a hearty yeast flavor, usually wits. With the clean US-05 (lack of) flavor, it could be the coriander is coming through too strongly.

 

[ekjohns]

Ricand: the mash temp was 152 F and was hit on first try. I mashed out with a small amount of boiling water which raised the temp to only 160 F. Batch sparged at 168 F (final temp due to low grain temp at mash out was only 166 F).

 

[Ricand]

Ricand: the mash temp was 152 F and was hit on first try. I mashed out with a small amount of boiling water which raised the temp to only 160 F. Batch sparged at 168 F (final temp due to low grain temp at mash out was only 166 F).

Hmm.. that could be the issue. IMO, you shouldn't hit it with anything over 170 for sparging. I know it brings the entire bed up, but for a period of time you still have some grain in 212 degree water until it mixes. That can leach tannins from the grain. Just something to try next time to see if it helps. Don't even do a mashout, many don't with good results. Do your first runnings, then put one half the sparge water at 170 and mix, wait 5-10 minutes, vorlouf and repeat with the second half. When I was batch sparging I got consistently in the upper 70s for efficiency using that technique.

I did one brew where I used boiling water to bring the grain bed temp up and it definitely gave me an astringent after taste that I attributed to tannins. It was the third time I did the recipe and it was my only variance. The other two times I didn't get that after taste. YMMV