first all grain BIAB very tart after taste

[jsmitty]

I have growing concern that my first BIAB did not go well. I was brewing an irish amber ale. The grains I ordered did not come crushed so I just used a blender a cup at a time. So I way over crushed will be the first problem. I mashed at 152 strike water at 162 and only did a light fly sparge at 166 to bring up pre boil volume. I used bought spring water. After taking a starting specific gravity (1.056) I tasted the wort and it had a strong bitter after taste. I fermented for 11 days did a gravity reading (1.01) and tasted it again. There was again this very strong bitter after taste.My question is did I extract tannins from over crushing? Or am I judging to soon and this off flavor will go away in time. The beer is still in primary and will stay there for another 2 weeks this is my first time tasting beer at this stage so for all I know it might be normal. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Foosier]

Tanins are a function of mash PH and mash temp. If you did not have a high mash PH (6 or higher) and did not mash in the high 160's you should be fine.

Using a blender to crush your grains should not by itself create tanin issues. Also note that "Tanin" extraction is something of a hot button issue with lots of old wives tales out there about where they come from. The information above is the currently accepted conventional wisdom on that matter.

What kind of "spring water" did you use? If it was distilled water then your mash PH should have been in a reasonable range. If it was something with a large amount of minerals or hardness you may have had an issue with your mash PH being a bit high.

All that being said, unless you are sure what "tanins" taste like I would recommend relaxing and letting your beer finish. It is soooo hard to tell what you will end up with before it finishes fermenting, carbonating and aging.

 

[gr8shandini]

. . . I mashed at 152 strike water at 162 and only did a light fly sparge at 166 to bring up pre boil volume. . .

Was the mash temperature 152, or your strike water? If it was your strike water, the resulting mash temperature would be much lower and you may not have gotten much, if any conversion. Did you do an iodine test?

 

[masterfool101]

Frankly, in order to give you any idea if what you're tasting is normal for this beer, we would need to see the full recipe and process.

Can a crush that fine produce off flavors .. . sometimes, but as Foosier said, there's a lot of misinformation out there regarding tannins.

 

[jsmitty]

hey guys thanks for the replies. I am going for a new recipe on weekend just trying to figure out if anything went wrong. I used bought spring water nothing much on label to help with the ph question
5 gallons, all-grain; OG = 1.050 FG = 1.010 ; IBUs = 22

Ingredients

•6.5 lbs. pale malt
•5.75 oz. roasted barley (300° Lovibond)
•7.25 oz. flaked barley
•1 lbs. Karo light corn syrup
•4 AAU East Kent Goldings (0.66 oz. of 5.9% alpha acid)
•5 AAU Fuggles hops (1 oz. of 5% alpha acid)
•1 tsp. Irish moss
•Irish Ale Yeast (Wyeast 1084)
•3/4 cup priming sugar

Step by Step

Add grains to 2 gal. water and hold temperature at 152° F until conversion is complete (30 to 60 min.). Sparge with 4 gal. of 162° F water. Add corn syrup and 3/4 gal. of water to the brew pot. Total boil is 60 min. At the boil, add 0.22 oz. of EKG. Boil 40 min. and add 0.22 oz. of EKG. Boil 5 min. more and add Irish moss. With two min. left, add 0.22 oz. of EKG and 1 oz. of Fuggles. Chill wort to 60° to 80° F and pitch the yeast. After a week, transfer to secondary and hold for one more week. Bottle and condition for at least two weeks.
uestion. Here is the recipe I followed

 

[DrummoRC]

I have a similiar issue - I believe my problem comes from missing my strick temp and over heated the mash.

The batch turned out pretty much undrinkable. I have been very close to dumping it. I can't think of anything that will minimize these astringent flavors. I was thinking about putting it into gallon plastic jugs and freezing it :: but I am guessing it will still taste the same but stronger.


Any suggestin would be appreciated.

 

[jsmitty]

I just transferred to secondary and gave the beer another try and the bitter flavor has faded a bit. I think giving this beer lots of aging might save it.

 

[sky4meplease]

Let it mellow for a month after bottling. My first AG was a light beer mashed at low temp for probably too long (I took too long getting sparge water ready) and it had a real bite to it for a long time. It is rounding out nicely now that it's been about a month since bottling.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[marvin_yorke]

I had the same problem with one of my first BIAB brews. Still not sure about the reason, but most probably it's overheating and tannin extraction. My kettle gets cold pretty quickly so I keep it on small fire during the mash. I know that's no good, but my new HERMS system is on its way, so I don't want to put too much effort insulating the kettle. Anyway, when doing BIAB with heat on, you need to mix the grain in the bag thoroughly time to time. It helps to maintain consistent temperature throughout the grain. Also keep in mind that you need to control the temperature of the grain, not water. After taking these thoughts into account, now I'm getting consistent (and desired) mash temperature within 1 deg. and I've never seen this problem any more.

Hope it will help you.

P.S. oh, about the beer. I've bottled it and going to let it sit for a month and see what will happen.

 

[RM-MN]

I had the same problem with one of my first BIAB brews. Still not sure about the reason, but most probably it's overheating and tannin extraction. My kettle gets cold pretty quickly so I keep it on small fire during the mash. I know that's no good, but my new HERMS system is on its way, so I don't want to put too much effort insulating the kettle. Anyway, when doing BIAB with heat on, you need to mix the grain in the bag thoroughly time to time. It helps to maintain consistent temperature throughout the grain. Also keep in mind that you need to control the temperature of the grain, not water. After taking these thoughts into account, now I'm getting consistent (and desired) mash temperature within 1 deg. and I've never seen this problem any more.

Hope it will help you.

P.S. oh, about the beer. I've bottled it and going to let it sit for a month and see what will happen.

With BIAB you can work with grain that is crushed really fine or double crushed. With the grain crushed that way, your starches would all be converted to sugars in less than 30 minutes so even if your kettle loses heat in an hour, you don't have to wait that long. Try it once before your HERMS system arrives and don't add any heat. You can use iodine to test for conversion.

 

[marvin_yorke]

With BIAB you can work with grain that is crushed really fine or double crushed.

If you look at my profile, you'll see that I'm living in Russia Homebrewing is not quite popular here, hence not so much homebrew shops (Local? What do you mean "local"? Internet is your best friend) and the one I'm making orders from offers just a single crush. Sure I could get my own barley crusher, but I dont think that I need one right now. The crush I'm currently using gives me decent 75% mash eff. with BIAB and probably would give high 80s with HERMS.

I'll try shorter mash with coarser crush, I think it would be ok in about 45 minutes or less

 

[RM-MN]

If you have iodine available, use it to check for conversion. It sounds like you do get a decent crush and I understand not wanting to get your own mill with that good of a crush. The closest place to me that has a crusher is 150 miles so that made me want to have my own mill so I bought a Corona style mill so I could buy grains in bulk. It paid off rather quickly with the prices the local store charges for grains. I've been getting 85% efficiency since I got that mill.

 

[JonM]

wait - are you tasting this in the fermenter/secondary? If so, it is WAAAAAAAYYYYYY, way, way, way, way way too soon to make any kind of judgment about the final flavor, especially something with dark roasted grains in it.

Bottle it and wait two months (not two weeks like the recipe says) before making any final judgment about the flavor.