Dry/ overly bitter wort

[PAjwPhilly]

I just finished my second all-grain batch (both ESBs; same recipe). Each batch has had this off flavor on the back end. Its kinda harsh and bitter. Its definately an off flavor. Sorry my beer palate is not well developed as far as off flavors.

Is my boil scorching my wort? If so wouldn't my pot be blackened on the inside? I am using tap water with Campden tablets, overall hardness of 160. Am I screwing up the mash somehow?


I am using a 10 gallon stainless steel brew kettle, 5 gallon aluminum HWT, a 10 gallon Igloo MT.

1st attempt:

My strike water was 167°F. This gave me a higher water temperature than I tried to target (155°F). I opened and stirred the mash every 20 minutes temps dropped about 1° per. My final temp was 153°F. Sparge water was heated to 168°F before transfer. And while it was there I simply never checked it again. I was draining the mash so slowly the entire process took 48 minutes. Wort was sweet and my pre-boil gravity was fine (1.048 for 6.5 gallons).

I added my hops (Kent Goldings, 5.8%) 1.25 @ 60 and 15 with 0.5 steeping for 10 minutes. I used irish moss in the last 10m of the boil and chill with a plate chiller. Original gravity 1.048 (5 gallons, may be a mistake in my notes).

Post boil wort tastes dry, harsh, bitter. Not what you expect in a "correct" beer procedure. I primary-ed for 4 weeks (dry hopped for 4 days) with Thames Valley yeast. Beer has this dry harshness to it. Final Gravity 1.005. The final Bottled half and dumped half.

Attempt 2:

Similar design with the mash. Mashed 10 lbs @ 153 degrees. No stirring this time. @ 60 minutes temp was 156 degrees (may be I over heated my mash tun with my pre-heated water (?) or I took the initial temp reading too early).
Sparged with 170 degree water. pre-boil gravity 1.034 (6.5 gallon) and wort was sweet again.

similiar hop schedule. Same chilling. Final gravity was 1.053. Wort has this dry harsh almost astringent quality. Currently fermenting...



Any ideas???

 

[bknifefight]

You cannot get an idea for how your beer will turn out by tasting the wort. Ferment it out, bottle or keg it up and drink it cold and carbonated before you are concerned about it having off flavors.

Edit to say, I dont think you know what wort is. Wort is UNfermented beer.

Your FG, 1.005, seems low for a mash temperature of 153. The fact that it tastes dry is because of this, you don't have any body or sweetness to balance your bitterness. Unless you had some funky infection that is driving your beer to ferment out too much, you may want to try and mash at a higher temperature to end up with a higher FG.

 

[rklinck]

I agree that the flavor of wort does not translate to the ultimate flavor of the beer. But what you are describing sounds off to me. What do you mean by "dry"? Are you using that to contrast with sweet? Wort should definitely not be "dry" if this is what you mean and your OG readings suggest there is plenty of sugar there. I'm guessing the sweetness is just masked by the hop flavor. Your 15 minute hop addition is aggressive. One of the brewing books I have been reading recently suggests that a 1 ounce flavor hop addition is an aggressive flavor addition (suggesting that .5 ounces as a middle of the road addition). So your wort and resulting beer will have a pronounced hoppiness to them. I can imagine that masking the sweetness of the wort, but it should mellow with time.

That being said, something was cooky with your first batch. With your mash temp, you should have ended up with plenty of non-fermentable sugars in your wort. With that in mind, you should not have ended up with anything close to the attenuation you got. I generally mash at lower temps (150 or below) to get high attenuation, and my 1.050 OG beers end up in the 1.010-1.012 FG range. So something other than the yeast was eating up some of your sugars. That suggests that something went awry with your sanitation.

 

[frazier]

Your FG, 1.005, seems low for a mash temperature of 153.

Just to cover this particular base, you should check the calibration of your thermometer. If it reads high, your actual mash temp might have been lower than you think. This happened to me, so now I'm leery of digital thermometers.

Cheers,

 

[rklinck]

Your FG, 1.005, seems low for a mash temperature of 153. The fact that it tastes dry is because of this, you don't have any body or sweetness to balance your bitterness. Unless you had some funky infection that is driving your beer to ferment out too much, you may want to try and mash at a higher temperature to end up with a higher FG.

I think there must be an infection to get that level of attenuation. Like I said in my post, I mash around 150 and get nowhere near 1.005 as my FG. That is 90% attenuation. Dry styles -- e.g., kolsch and altbier -- usually have 80-85% attenuation. No way you get 90% attenuation with 153 degree mash.

 

[PAjwPhilly]

Edit to say, I dont think you know what wort is. Wort is UNfermented beer.

Made one mistake with the word "wort." Other than that, thanks for you input

What do you mean by "dry"? ... Your 15 minute hop addition is aggressive....
That being said, something was cooky with your first batch... So something other than the yeast was eating up some of your sugars. That suggests that something went awry with your sanitation.

Dry like tannin dry. Like my tongue loses moisture. As I previously stated I am not very good at expressing this stuff and the beer flavor wheel I have doesnt really help me, lol. I am trying to get better. Okay I see what you mean about the aggressive hop addition, noted. As far as kooky, yes I was missing one piece of hardware for my plate chiller (dual female hook-ups for my hose feed, so I used duct tape. I excluded this because the 2nd round was similar tasting without this problem). Thanks for the feed back.

 

[Bierliebhaber]

Concerning the dryness, you may want to check the accuracy of your thermometer. If it's 3-5 degrees off, you may be mashing way low without knowing. This MAY account for the "harshness" you mention in that your beer is coming out too dry for your IBUs. Furthermore, your steeping process may be increasing your IBUs. Unless you cool the wort some, your 15 min addition will be more like a 30 min addition and your steeping addition a 10 min addition.

Other possibilities to check are the mill of your grain. Are the husks pulverized? Check the husks. Do they look more or less in tact, or are they torn? This will result in increased tannin extraction. If you are batch sparging, your drain should not take 48 min. unless something is wrong. You want to drain your tun as fast as the system will allow.

Also, the ph of the mash may be too high. Especially if the husks are pulverized, the high ph will lend even more tannin extraction.

The easiest things to check and change are the thermometer, steeping process, and the crush of the grain.

 

[rklinck]

From you what you have described, it is NOT a problem with the thermometer. If you were mashing at a very low temperature, the resulting BEER would be dry, but would not make the WORT dry. There would be plenty of sugar in the wort, it would just be sugar that can be fermented. Also, because you describe the pre-boil wort as sweet but the post-boil wort as being bitter and dry, it is something in the boil that is causing issues for you. That points to the hop additions. One other possibility would be tannin extraction during the boil if you were getting lots of grain in the boil. I am assuming that you vorlaufed before draining mash tun?

 

[PAjwPhilly]

Thanks for all the responses.

I will definately check my thermometers before I try this recipe again. I will also look into my hop additions (was using BeerSmith).

My grains are coming crushed from my LHBS (which is very reputable, and being crushed by a fellow member of my homebrew club).

I will look into increasing my lauter times... Should i keep the nozzle on my mash tun open while I sparge? Adding 4 gallons of water without disturbing the grain bed takes some time on top of the vourlaf time. That is what accounts for my times.

 

[PAjwPhilly]

From you what you have described, it is NOT a problem with the thermometer. If you were mashing at a very low temperature, the resulting BEER would be dry, but would not make the WORT dry. There would be plenty of sugar in the wort, it would just be sugar that can be fermented. Also, because you describe the pre-boil wort as sweet but the post-boil wort as being bitter and dry, it is something in the boil that is causing issues for you. That points to the hop additions. One other possibility would be tannin extraction during the boil if you were getting lots of grain in the boil. I am assuming that you vorlaufed before draining mash tun?

Yes. I have maybe 10 pieces of grain in my 6.5 gallons that get past me. I vorlaufed about 2 gallon during the first runnings of my 2nd attempt. And another gallon from the 2nd runnings. I kept getting grain pieces so I kept recycling the wort.

If I was scorching the wort during the boil, wouldnt it leave scorch marks on the inside of my pot? I say this because this was feedback from someone in my club. Its 30 degrees outside (where I brew) and to keep a decent boil my flame is pretty steady...

AGAIN THANKS FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK

 

[Yooper]

It sounds more like tannin astringency. I would look specifically at the water, as it sounds like an alkalinity issue, especially in the sparge water.

I'd suggest trying one batch with store purchased reverse osmosis water (RO water) and especially for sparging. I think that would fix the issue.

I routinely have 1.007ish FG for beers I mash at 150, so that's not an issue. If I want to hit 1.010+, I mash at 153 or so. Everybody's system is different, and you'll get to know where you have to mash to get a predictable FG.

 

[Bierliebhaber]

Are you batch sparging or fly sparking?

 

[PAjwPhilly]

It sounds more like tannin astringency. I would look specifically at the water, as it sounds like an alkalinity issue, especially in the sparge water.

I'd suggest trying one batch with store purchased reverse osmosis water (RO water) and especially for sparging. I think that would fix the issue.

I routinely have 1.007ish FG for beers I mash at 150, so that's not an issue. If I want to hit 1.010+, I mash at 153 or so. Everybody's system is different, and you'll get to know where you have to mash to get a predictable FG.

My next batch will be spring water. Just to rule this out of the equation. I have called the local water supervisor and got the limited details about the water (pH, total hardness, use of chlorine, etc.)


And, I batch sparge

 

[rklinck]

It sounds more like tannin astringency. I would look specifically at the water, as it sounds like an alkalinity issue, especially in the sparge water.

I'd suggest trying one batch with store purchased reverse osmosis water (RO water) and especially for sparging. I think that would fix the issue.

Wouldn't that show up in the pre-boil wort?

But trying it with RO water is certainly worth a try.

 

[Yooper]

My next batch will be spring water. Just to rule this out of the equation. I have called the local water supervisor and got the limited details about the water (pH, total hardness, use of chlorine, etc.)


And, I batch sparge

I'd skip the spring water and go with reverse osmosis or distilled water. You can add a teaspoon of calcium chloride to the mash, and have a "blank slate" to start from.

Spring water may be fine- or it might not. We have a local "water bottler" that sells bottled water. It's called "Crystal Spring" water. It comes out of the Crystal Falls city taps!

Some spring water may be high in bicarbonate, or high in minerals, or super low in them- like reverse osmosis water.

RO water from the big "water machines" in grocery stores or in places like Wal-mart would be my first choice (and it's cheaper!)

 

[Yooper]

Wouldn't that show up in the pre-boil wort?

But trying it with RO water is certainly worth a try.

Pre-boil wort is hard to judge as it certainly tastes different post boil and post fermentation. Aside from taking pH readings and SG readings, it would be hard to guess the outcome of preboil wort.

Even if the mash pH is not where it should be, the wort should still taste fine.

But since this sounds like a tannin astringency, and the most common cause of tannin extraction is a too-high mash pH or alkaline water, that's my best guess.

 

[rklinck]

RO water from the big "water machines" in grocery stores or in places like Wal-mart would be my first choice (and it's cheaper!)

I miss the days when I lived near water machines. They were plentiful in my hometown in Texas, not so much in D.C.

 

[Bierliebhaber]

I will look into increasing my lauter times... Should i keep the nozzle on my mash tun open while I sparge? Adding 4 gallons of water without disturbing the grain bed takes some time on top of the vourlaf time. That is what accounts for my times.

A little off topic, but...

No, keep it closed. You definitely want to disturb the grain with your sparge water for batch sparging. Dump in the water. Stir well and let set for 10min. Ease the nozzle open to vorlauf and go.

 

[PAjwPhilly]

A little off topic, but...

No, keep it closed. You definitely want to disturb the grain with your sparge water for batch sparging. Dump in the water. Stir well and let set for 10min. Ease the nozzle open to vorlauf and go.

lol I actually meant decreasing... That was my procedure the 1st attempt

 

[PAjwPhilly]

If you are finding this thread based on a similar problem....

basically wort tastes like wort and not 100% like your finished beer. The problem with this thread is I was very new to brewing and did not de-chlorinate my brewing water which lead to an astringency issue.

wort is always a little more bitter than the finished beer in my experience (yeast scrub some of the hops during fermentation). But water is water and bad water is bad beer. I ended up using Campden tablets until I bought a filter and proceeded to get my water tested via Ward labs. Campden tablets suffice until your ready to go further, no matter what any elitest says. If your brewing to drink, Campden is your fix.