Astringent/Chemical off-flavor - is it my water?

I've noticed a chemically, astringent kind of off flavor in most of my beers, especially noticeable in my pale ale and other lighter beers (but it is present in the darker beers as well). At first I thought it was the dreaded "extract twang", but I went all grain last year and its still there. Its a harsh, very bitter astringency that is strong in the aroma and in the taste. Others don't notice it as much as I do, but that's typical I guess - I am my harshest critic.

Some research has led to the idea that it could be caused by chlorine or pH levels of my water. I use City of Milwaukee tap water, which I've always heard is fine "as-is" for homebrewing. The city indicates that Chlorine has a median level of 1.10 mg/L and pH is 7.68. I can post other parameters if helpful. Thanks for thoughts as to things I could try to identify and fix this issue.

Thanks.

'As-is' is never correct if the water comes from a municipal water supply. They are required by law (at least in the US) to provide a disinfection residual in the water lines. Its that disinfection residual that will produce chlorophenols in your beer. That must be removed or neutralized prior to brewing. But otherwise, MKE water is generally fine 'as-is' for most brewing use.

Drop half a campden tablet into your mash water and sparge water and see if that helps.

Any way you would brew a batch with bottled spring water just to make sure it is indeed the water and not some other part of the process?

Are you using an aerator on your faucet? I can smell the chlorine when I fill my kettles with an aerator, which tells me it off gases well enough, and heating the water should remove any residual gas. But I'm no expert on water. I've been brewing with Lake Michigan for years with no issues. From what I've seen, water analysis for Two Rivers, Milwaukee and Chicago are pretty much identical. The only other cause(s) would be process or ingredients. If you give more info, someone should be able to help.

Similar problem here in Chicago and got worse once I moved from extract to all grain (BIAB). Stouts were fine, but pale beers had a weird twang or grainy taste. Once I started treating my water the off flavors went away.

Add a campden tablet and make sure your acidifying your sparge water. It should be around 5.6-5.7 range or it will extract the aromatics your tasting.

tmoney645 said:

Drop half a campden tablet into your mash water and sparge water and see if that helps.

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This is the way to go, your off flavor is most likely chlorine, or some derivative added by your water plant. Campden tabs will remove all of them. Also a very cheap way to solve the problem, $3.95 for a bag of them, and 1 tablet treats 20 gallons

Your water contains chloramine. You have to either filter with an activated carbon filter or use Campden tablets. My fridge has a little activated charcoal filter that will remove most of the atrazine, rocket fuel, and chloramine. Otherwise just use bottled water or campden. Try that on your next batch. Also you mentioned a difference in light vs dark beers. Your mash ph may be off.

Could a person use RO water to get rid of the chemicals? I would assume a mix of RO water and tap water would be fine. Maybe something like 75% RO water to 25% tap water. I to have a twangy/Astringent flavor and this is going to be my next step in getting rid of that flavor.

If you're not filtering your water or using campden tablets, there's your problem. You just can't do that. Sure some folks will claim to have made good beer with chlorine-laced water, but that's poor practice inarguably. Our Lake Mich water is great for brewing, but must be treated for chlorine or chloramines.

sabo38 said:

Could a person use RO water to get rid of the chemicals? I would assume a mix of RO water and tap water would be fine. Maybe something like 75% RO water to 25% tap water. I to have a twangy/Astringent flavor and this is going to be my next step in getting rid of that flavor.

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Yes. but you still have to remove the chloramines from the tap water, if using municipal water that uses them.

I had a similar problem recently. I was using straight tap water, and some of my beers were flat-out undrinkable because of the overwhelming chlorine/chemical flavor.

I started running my tap water through a Brita filter, and that flavor has disappeared. So my recommendation is to filter your tap water.

So if I would use 100% RO water it would cure my off flavors? Would I need to add minerals back into the water or would it be fine to just use all RO water?

Having judged in nearly 50 competitions, I've been astounded by how many chlorophenolic beers come across the table. I think that part of the reason may be perception. I was recently introduced to Scotch at a big tasting event. I enjoy Bourbons, but had not had Scotch to that point. The first thing that came to mind when tasting a peated Scotch was phenols. In some cases, they were almost chlorophenolic in flavor. I think that some people either cannot taste chlorophenols in beer, or they think that the flavor should be there. For my palate, they are definitely there! Complete removal of chlorine compounds is important since chlorophenol can be tasted in the 30 ppb range. Considering that the chlorine compounds are typically present in the 1 to 3 ppm range (1000 to 3000 ppb), its no wonder that complete removal is necessary.

You would have to reintroduce minerals back into your water depending on the style of beer you brew. Some of the most important are - calcium chloride or calcium sulfate (gypsum), and magnesium.

There are several important ions to consider when evaluating brewing water. The principal ions are Calcium (Ca+2), Magnesium (Mg+2), Bicarbonate (HCO3-1) and Sulfate (SO4-2). Sodium (Na+1), Chloride (Cl-1) and Sulfate (SO4-2) can influence the taste of the water and beer.

Give this a read - http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

sabo38 said:

So if I would use 100% RO water it would cure my off flavors? Would I need to add minerals back into the water or would it be fine to just use all RO water?

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Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. It is sometimes funny how I've seemingly put so much into this hobby (time and $$), and still am making what seems like very basic mistakes. I will try the camden tabs with my next brew and take a harder look at water treatment generally.

Skip the Camden and go straight to RO. It made a huge improvement in my beers.are you controlling fermentation temps?

tgmartin000 said:

Skip the Camden and go straight to RO. It made a huge improvement in my beers.are you controlling fermentation temps?

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What have you noticed negative about the campden? Is purely based on the ability to control for minerals in RO?

highgravitybacon said:

What have you noticed negative about the campden? Is purely based on the ability to control for minerals in RO?

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Your water can have other undesirable elements than just the chlorine/chloramine that the RO can account for. For instance, if you have a ton of bicarbonates/alkalinity, which is about the most important thing you need to control in your mash.

I used campden on my Denver tap water (relatively soft, medium alkalinity, chloramines) and going to straight RO made a much bigger improvement than using tap water and campden. I just add back gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salt, and sometimes baking soda to hit my desired mineral levels.

If you haven't, download EZ Water and Brun Water to help with the calcs.

tgmartin000 said:

Skip the Camden and go straight to RO. It made a huge improvement in my beers.are you controlling fermentation temps?

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I appreciate all the advice in this thread. One of my favorite brewing blogs (Mad Fermentationist) recommends a countertop carbon filter system, as he's noticed fermentation issues when using camden tabs. My problem is that I am really focused on trying to simplify things, while still making good beer. Now that I brew AG, its at least a 5 hour brew day for me. I use a tub with either frozen water bottles or an aquarium heater to control ferm temps as best I can. To think that I need to procure 8-9 gallons of RO water, take multiple measurements and then add back 4-5 different minerals and other things just to get started makes my head spin. I love this hobby, but with kids and a career there's a great deal of competition for my time. At the same time, I can't afford to make the time/money investment and end up with bad beer, so I suppose I will have to find a workable solution to the water issue.

The unfortunate thing is that it is common wisdom among Milwaukee homebrewers that our water is great for brewing. The City water dept. even publishes an online info sheet each year that proclaims its water is excellent for brewing and other hobbies: http://city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/WaterWorks/files/2012WaterQualityBasicsforHobby.pdf

Big_Belgian said:

I appreciate all the advice in this thread. One of my favorite brewing blogs (Mad Fermentationist) recommends a countertop carbon filter system, as he's noticed fermentation issues when using camden tabs. ...

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Your link says your water has Chloramines, and folks here say that carbon filters don't get chloramines out! So you're stuck with campden unless you buy distilled water or have a RO system.

If you don't want to deal with RO, then use a carbon filter plus some campden and you're all set. That's certainly what I would do. I also use Lake Mich water but fortunately Chicago doesn't use chloramines so I simply use filtered water out of my fridge.

My tap water has a whole mess of problems. The cholrine treatment is so heavy the water has a green hue to it. We also need to soften our water (metro Twin Cities.) I noticed a similar off flavor in my first couple brews. In the end I switched to using 100% store-bought spring water. Made a world of difference in the finished product. I've since moved to all-grain brewing and start off each brew with 7 gallons of spring water. Adds a little expense to each batch but the results are totally worth it.

SpeedYellow said:

Your link says your water has Chloramines, and folks here say that carbon filters don't get chloramines out! So you're stuck with campden unless you buy distilled water or have a RO system.

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Activated carbon will certainly remove chloramine from water. That is how the chlorine and chloramine are removed from the tap water in RO systems. Its just that the flow rate through the carbon filter has to be so low that most brewers just blow the water through the filter before its fully cleaned up. A flow rate around 0.1 gallons per minute should be sufficient to remove chloramine from tap water when using the standard 10" undersink filter. Most brewers don't have the patience to wait for that.

Campden tablets dosed properly into tap water CANNOT affect fermentation adversely. It leaves nothing but Cl, SO4, maybe some NH4, and either Na or K...all at very low concentration. 1 tablet per 20 gallons is typically sufficient. If you overdose the water with campden, then it is possible to affect fermentation.

^^Yes.

When they say "good water for brewing", they are typically referring to the mineral profile. The great-lakes supplied water is solid for brewing, provided you remove the chlorine/chlroamines and acidify your mash (and sparge) appropriately.

And, FWIW, I use campden exclusively and have had no issues whatsoever.

I too had the exact same experience with Milwaukee tap water. Camden tablets fixed the taste problems associated with the chloramine and proper aeration fixed the remaining issues. I still use at least some RO water for light beers and acid malt to correct mash pH.

I BiaB so I heat up all my brewing water to mash temp, add Camden and salts as needed, stir like the dickens to drive out the chlorine, and then mash in.

Had the same experience with my city water, a few years ago....had to call to confirm that they switched to chloramine (this is becoming the new standard). A half tab of campden will cure your (chlorophenol)off flavor. Easy fix

mabrungard said:

Activated carbon will certainly remove chloramine from water. That is how the chlorine and chloramine are removed from the tap water in RO systems. Its just that the flow rate through the carbon filter has to be so low that most brewers just blow the water through the filter before its fully cleaned up. A flow rate around 0.1 gallons per minute should be sufficient to remove chloramine from tap water when using the standard 10" undersink filter. Most brewers don't have the patience to wait for that.

Campden tablets dosed properly into tap water CANNOT affect fermentation adversely. It leaves nothing but Cl, SO4, maybe some NH4, and either Na or K...all at very low concentration. 1 tablet per 20 gallons is typically sufficient. If you overdose the water with campden, then it is possible to affect fermentation.

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To piggyback on Martin's point- when he says that "either Na or K" are added to the water, it's a pretty insignificant amount and you can get 0 Na if you use campden tablets that are potassium metabisulfite. Campden also comes in sodium metabisulfite. If you are on the verge of too much sodium, getting the K-meta campden tablets would be the answer.

Another point he made is that campden dosed properly into the water cannot adversely affect fermentation. That is absolutely correct. I'm an old winemaker (both figuratively and chronologically!) and we winemakers routinely use moderate doses of k-meta (campden) in our musts and wines. Wine yeast and brewers yeast are very tolerant of sulfites, even IF some sulfite made it through to the wort. But it won't, unless you overdose. Whoever said it can adversely affect fermentation is incorrect.