Dark beer frustration

[gcjohnson]

Hey all, I've been brewing all grain for a while. My light beers taste good, my darker beers (munich dunkel, irish red, marzen) all tend to have a strange bitterness(not hops)/astringency?/scorched taste, which my light beers don't have. My questions are, 1) how does ph affect dark malts differently than pale malts 2) Does milling finer risk getting too much husk taste extracted from darker malts.

I'm not sparging over 170, grains probably never get over 160.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

My gut is that it has to do with water chem / pH, but not sure.

thanks
Greg

 

[Zoidberg]

You could always try adding all the dark malts in the last 10-15 of the mash as they don't add much to gravity.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Water is the first place I'd look. Dark malts lower your pH quite a bit; some buffering helps smooth the taste out (and will get your mash pH into proper range). There's water calculators all over the web, such as sites.google.com/site/brunwater or http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/ You can read through the Brew Science forums to learn more than I'll ever be able to tell you. Accept anything written by ajdelange or Brunwater creator mabrungard as gospel.

 

[Copbrew133]

Gordon Strong actually recommends adding the darker malts beginning in the vorlauf to avoid the astringency issue. It's the way I do it now(last 10 or so in constant recirc mash) and don't get that taste anymore.

 

[SeeAliceBrewery]

Hey all, I've been brewing all grain for a while. My light beers taste good, my darker beers (munich dunkel, irish red, marzen) all tend to have a strange bitterness(not hops)/astringency?/scorched taste, which my light beers don't have. My questions are, 1) how does ph affect dark malts differently than pale malts 2) Does milling finer risk getting too much husk taste extracted from darker malts.

I'm not sparging over 170, grains probably never get over 160.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

My gut is that it has to do with water chem / pH, but not sure.

thanks
Greg

The first thing that comes to my mind is your aging process. Though I am new to brewing...I continue to read as much as possible. One thing that I have learned is the darker beer quite often take a longer time to mature..and for the flavors to blend. Thus the reason many say the longer the darks sit....the better. How long has your darker brews been conditioning?

 

[garcia]

How much yeast are you pitching, and how much aeration are you doing?

 

[chickypad]

Yep, sure sounds like a water issue. My guess is you have fairly low alkalinity. You'll probably need to do some water manipulation or do something with the roasted grains like steep separately or add at sparge.

 

[RM-MN]

The first thing that comes to my mind is your aging process. Though I am new to brewing...I continue to read as much as possible. One thing that I have learned is the darker beer quite often take a longer time to mature..and for the flavors to blend. Thus the reason many say the longer the darks sit....the better. How long has your darker brews been conditioning?

This is what I find too, dark beers need time as do beers with high amounts of alcohol and dark beers with high alcohol take lots of time. The stout I had last evening was the best I've drunk. It has been in the bottle for 2 years and wow is it smooth. It was harsh at first, getting pretty drinkable at 3 months, better at 6 months, and it just kept getting better.

 

[gcjohnson]

If the milling is too fine, is there a greater huskyness taste in mid range darker malts (ie munich 20, 40, cara 40, 60) as compared to pale and pilsner malts, that may be accentuated by residual alkalinity?

I've got a schwarzbier that is without the flavor in question. Yeast pitches and aeration are all good (usually on or slightly above mrmalty recommended amount). The flavor occurs regardless of the OG (both in strong and mild). I agree that age does help to mellow things out especially for stronger beers, but mild ones shouldn't need to. My current dunkels OG was only 1.044. Its on tap now, so we'll see.

thanks for the responses.

 

[Dakota21601]

Oversparging is apparently another possible source of astringent flavors. But that being said I am not sure exActly how that happens. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[kingwood-kid]

It's oversparging when what you're drawing off has a gravity under 1.010, because that's about the point when the pH rises enough to extract tannins from the husks. As acidic as most dark malts are, it's not nearly as much of a concern for dark beers. Shreddding or pressing on the husks shouldn't make any noticeable difference; the husks are so thin that you're not really increasing the surface area, no matter how you treat them.