Woe is me....

[Champurrado]

I've been all grain brewing for a few years now - time flies. And although my aspirations are high, my results, at least to me, don't meet my standards. I have many fans who expertly blow warm air where the sun don't shine for a bottle or two of my brew. I doubt their sincerity or their taste or both.

Here's my dilemma - i can't seem to shake the sharp after-taste I get in all but one of my batches. One time, a friend gave me a recipe for a porter that I fermented at 62 degrees. Taste great - foams all over creation when you open the bottles.

Oh, my technique: Grind my own grain in a barley crusher, batch sparge in a ten gallon igloo with a false bottom. Generally do a 60 minute boil. Immersion chill to 70 degrees. Use fresh yeast that's been accelerated with a two litre starter.

I've tried longer fermentation per the Rev. Short Fermentation per somebody else. Racking with CO2 to cut down on oxidation. More hops, less hops. Waving a chicken bone over the boil for three minutes.

I'm out of ideas. My ideal beer is sixpoint sweet action. Sierra Nevada Harvest Fresh hops, Capt. Lawrence Pale Ale. All great, all clean.

I'm looking for that clean, kiss of Hops taste that these fine brewers produce without the sharp aftertaste that I seem to be getting.

I have all the stuff to make beer - I can make beer. Now I want to bump it up and make something really great.

As always - very appreciative of the Forum and its generous members.

Cheers.

 

[Yooper]

The very first thing that jumps out at me is to question your water chemistry.

With my tap water straight, I can make a kick-ass stout. Anything lighter, though, and I can get a harsh astringent taste. A kolsch I made a few years ago was just not very good. Not bad, but the hops were harsh even though I used low AAU hops and not much of them. My friends and family didn't really mind it, or even taste it, so they said. But I definitely picked up on a flavor that I don't get in good commercial beers.

Then I learned a bit more about water, and got a water test from Ward Labs. I now mix my water with RO for each brew (except for the aforementioned stout!) and that off-taste is gone.

What kind of water are you using?

 

[Pappers_]

One time, a friend gave me a recipe for a porter that I fermented at 62 degrees. Taste great - foams all over creation when you open the bottles.

Its unlikely that these two things have anything to do with each other. If you want clean, ferment low 60 -62 for many ale yeasts will be good. The excess carbonation in your beer that tasted great had nothing to do with your fermentation temps. Go with the great taste and adjust your carbonation issue.

 

[Champurrado]

Mr. Yooper:

I do think about water chemistry but all my brooklyn brothers don't seem to treat their water before brewing. I'm told Brooklyn has perfect water for the Ales I want to brew. Sixpoint brewery doesn't treat their water.

I also think about Ph and whether I should be monitoring the batch sparge output.

Not sure.

Open to debate.

 

[Selfsufficient]

Why do you always have to be a MR. Hehehehe

 

[Champurrado]

Jim:

So you suspect as I do that lowering the fermentation temp and fermenting longer will get me there. If yeast package says 68 degrees am I loosing something by fermenting lower?

 

[Champurrado]

Mr. Selfsufficient:

I dunno....

I've always done that.

That's what my mom said I should do when addressing smarter people than me.

 

[Pappers_]

Jim:

So you suspect as I do that lowering the fermentation temp and fermenting longer will get me there. If yeast package says 68 degrees am I loosing something by fermenting lower?

What yeast do you like to use? Many ale yeasts will ferment more "cleanly" closer to 60 than 70 F.

Yooper is a woman . . . . she's dainty, like a flower

 

[Champurrado]

Jim:

My favorite yeast is the one I was graciously given by the guys at sixpoint brewery. I've managed to keep it going by washing yeast after the first brew. It's a derivative of Wyeast 007 ESB.

My sincerest apologies to Ms. Yooper.

Please forgive the apparent slur.

All the same I'm more interested in how you brew than what side your buttone are on.

I think I'm heading for a lower fermentation temp.

 

[Yooper]

Jim:

My favorite yeast is the one I was graciously given by the guys at sixpoint brewery. I've managed to keep it going by washing yeast after the first brew. It's a derivative of Wyeast 007 ESB.

My sincerest apologies to Ms. Yooper.

Please forgive the apparent slur.

All the same I'm more interested in how you brew than what side your buttone are on.

I think I'm heading for a lower fermentation temp.

I wasn't the least bit offended- I agree with your sentiment that we're brewers here and my gender really doesn't affect my ability to brew. Much. (It does affect my ability to lift heavy things.........)

Anyway, I'm not sure of the water in your area but it might be something to still consider. Just to rule it out, you could try one batch with store-bought RO water and add some calcium chloride to it.

 

[Champurrado]

Ms. Yooper:

I have a water report from the County. Is there a profile you suggest for the perfect Ale that I should be shooting for? Palmer has a section on Water profiles and additions that talks about chemistry (background screaming).

Again, thanks for sharing your smarts.

 

[Yooper]

Ms. Yooper:

I have a water report from the County. Is there a profile you suggest for the perfect Ale that I should be shooting for? Palmer has a section on Water profiles and additions that talks about chemistry (background screaming).

Again, thanks for sharing your smarts.

Not really a profile, but I'd check the level of alkalinity you have. Can you see how much bicarbonates you have? CaCO3?

 

[gallagherman]

How sharp of an aftertaste do you experience? could you elaborate a bit about this? Sometimes I get something similar, but I feel it develops over time. Often, a beer that I believe tastes superb from the fermenter will pick up this over-carbonated, sharp character. This leads me to think is its perhaps an infection that I pick up somewhere between fermenter and bottle. Is this a viable possibility? I've tried to be extra careful cleaning my gear and I think it is helping.

 

[remilard]

I'm interested in why this porter was better than everything else. Could you post that recipe and the most similar recipe of any other beer you have made (a problem beer)?

Other than that, I would look at water and trying to improve fermentation (amount, viability and vitality of yeast, temperature). The best temperature is yeast dependent and then there is a personal preference factor. I don't personally like fermenting ale yeast cool, though I like it when Rogue does it, go figure. I do 68 for the chico strain and I think 68 for the anchor liberty strain (just started using that). I like a touch cooler for the fuller's strain, just a few data points.

Let's see that water report too. Most pro brewers do minimal water treatment (and will tell you so) but they do manage pH. Homebrewers tend to see that as all the same thing (as we like to manage pH with salts and not acid) and so we might misinterpret a brewery saying they do nothing to the water and not understand they are adding acid to the mash.

 

[mikeysab]

Champ, I'm in Staten Island. I don't know if we get the same water, but I've tried tap, and I've tried "spring". neither one gave me any sharp aftertaste. The reason I tried spring was because my first 3 batches tasted "weird". But they were Coopers kits, and I guess that was just the hopped malt extract taste. When I switched to spring, it was the same time I switched to unhopped extract and was happy. Then one day I had to brew and didn't have spring water on hand, so I used untreated, unboiled tap, and it came out fine. Try boiling your water the night before you brew. I've heard of brewers from NYC swear off the water because of chloramine that our water is treated with. If it's feasible, try a batch with boiled water and see what happens. If we have the same water, it's fine.

 

[Champurrado]

I've always sanitized the crap out of anything within ten feet of my beer. Clean with PBW and Sanitize with Starsan.

Ward Labs sounds interesting - are they handy here on the internet somewhere?

The porter recipe is pretty straightforward although it has brown malt in it and some recipes do not:
5 Gallons
OG = 1.054
FG = 1.015
IBU = 30
Ingredients:
7.5lbs Maris Otter
1.5 lbs Brown Malt
1 lb English crystal malt 80L
1.3 oz Fuggle hops (60 min)
.67 oz Fuggle hops (15 mins)
Wyeast 1968 or WLP 002 yeast

Procedure:
Mash at 153 degrees for 60 minutes at a mash thickness of 1.3 qt./lb. Boil for 60 minutes. Ferment at 62 degrees.


I made it without the 12 oz of chocolate malt it called for and, like I said, pretty clean taste.

My standard Ale is, well, pick one, I've made them all, except with a sharper flavor.

First I think I'll lower the Ferm temp and see what I get. Then, because it's more work, I'll send off a water sample.

Thanks all.

 

[Pappers_]

Just to rule it out, you could try one batch with store-bought RO water and add some calcium chloride to it.

+1 this would be a good experiment, you can do this before testing your water

 

[Champurrado]

Jim:

Another good suggestion - save the test by going right to a potential solution. And - I get beer out of it!

 

[passedpawn]

Just get some filtered water from the supermarket and give it a go.

 

[mikeysab]

Actually, don't boil it, add campden to it, and that would get rid of the chloramine. Which, coincidentally, was cleared up in another thread by Mr. Yooper. And for some reason, after watching Jaws, every time I read her name, I think of Quint yelling at Hooper. I think "Yooper drives the boat chief" and "Yooper, are ya payin attention....starboard".

 

[Yambor44]

Actually, don't boil it, add campden to it, and that would get rid of the chloramine. Which, coincidentally, was cleared up in another thread by Mr. Yooper. And for some reason, after watching Jaws, every time I read her name, I think of Quint yelling at Hooper. I think "Yooper drives the boat chief" and "Yooper, are ya payin attention....starboard".

That's what I was going to suggest. I read that boiling (or even just letting the water sit overnight in you vessel with a towel over it) will remove chlorine but not chloramine.

 

[mjohnson]

You've got lots of expert opinions, but I have one more idea - could it be over-carbonation? I was just listening to a Brew Strong episode and he mentioned how if you over carb, you can get some astringent flavors. Also, stouts tend to be less carbed, and if that is the one that turned out, maybe thats the reason.

Just a thought!

 

[Yambor44]

I was also wondering about the yeast washing. Could something be amiss in the yeast?

 

[buffalobrewer]

Yooper is a woman . . . . she's dainty, like a flower

with a hockey stick....

 

[passedpawn]

with a hockey stick....

... and a shotgun ... and a whip ...

 

[Champurrado]

Again, I am stupid careful with bugers around my beer. Everything gets double spic and spanned. The washed yeast looked and smelled as fresh as when Craig pulled it from the brewery's tank. I've also brewed with Wyeast and White Labs and experienced the same taste. I'm really leaning hard on the lower the temp idea.

Spoke to a Pro in Brooklyn this morning and he said his brewery uses "100% unfiltered, untreated NYC tap water. It's the best!"

Thanks for the lively comments - shotgun?

 

[passedpawn]

Thanks for the lively comments - shotgun?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/anybody-miss-me-201169/#post2343546

 

[nutty_gnome]

Are you using a crushed camden tab to kill chloramine? Residual chlorine in your water will give a harsh acrid taste. Darker beers can mask that taste, pale ales, not so much.

Chloramine is insidious and evil when not confronted directly with extreme prejudice.

 

[MyNameIsPaul]

Just a thought- I too had a taste apparent in all my beers, and following Yoop's advice in a thread, I did a late extract addition (last 15 minutes of the boil on a partial mash recipe) and voila! The taste was gone. I guess if you're doing all grain there isnt a real cure like I had, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Homercidal]

While water may or may not play a part in solving the flavor problem, I still suggest having a report from Ward on hand. I think it cost me less than $20 and playing with water for different recipes is fun!

And just because a brewery says they use plain tap water, doesn't mean the don't treat their different beers with salts as those particular styles call for it. Some of the best known homebrewers in podcast land claim that treating water *can* be the difference between a pretty good beer and an award winning beer.

Check to make sure you aren't sparging too hot (tannins from the husk).

Beyond those, I'm not sure what could be wrong. Your method seems pretty solid to me.

 

[Homercidal]

Some other member mentioned that he brewed with water from the hose and got flavors from the hose. Just throwing that out there.

 

[Champurrado]

Homercidal:

I only worry about hot sparging when I raise the temp of the mash after it's been in the tun for an hour. I typically add a few gallons of boiling water to rtaise temp to 166-168 degrees. I worry about the boiling water part but don't know how else to raise the temp of the entire mash otherwise. Could I be getting tannins by doing this?

 

[Champurrado]

Update

Thought I'd report back on results after making some modifications to my process. Turns out pH is good, water is fine, temp may be partly to blame but the beer seems to be turning out fine now. Read Mr. White's book, "Yeast" and learned some good information. I'm starting to use pure O2 before pitching my starter. That seems to get the burbling happening faster. I'm using a stir plate for the starter - I can get away with a litre of starter instead of two. Finally, a few really smart brewers have shared their recipes and that made a world of difference. Mostly I've been brewing a lot and the experience seems to boost quality. Go figure - the more I do something the better I get.

Cheers

 

[agroff383]

Update

Thought I'd report back on results after making some modifications to my process. Turns out pH is good, water is fine, temp may be partly to blame but the beer seems to be turning out fine now. Read Mr. White's book, "Yeast" and learned some good information. I'm starting to use pure O2 before pitching my starter. That seems to get the burbling happening faster. I'm using a stir plate for the starter - I can get away with a litre of starter instead of two. Finally, a few really smart brewers have shared their recipes and that made a world of difference. Mostly I've been brewing a lot and the experience seems to boost quality. Go figure - the more I do something the better I get.

Cheers

Good to see you are making progress, I was having struggles with the same thing and realized it was chloramines and also my water is very hard where I live, also your darker beers will not exhibit that aftertaste because of the pH difference in highly kilned malts. I had problems with the hoppy, lightly colored beers and have gotten them to the point where they have the crispness without the harsh, lingering aftertaste. I mix half RO and half filtered tap water for all my beers now, and add a gram of calcium choride to the mash.

I got some really good responses from the great members on here in this thread...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/harsh-lingering-bitterness-using-all-ro-water-197602/

 

[Special Hops]

Do you treat your water for chlorine? That can leave an astringent taste.