I'm losing my mind over this

[ja09]

Mashing in now. Hit 152 right on the nose after adding some boiling water. BeerSmith just can't seem to get a handle on hitting my mash temp consistently.

Have you ever taken any PH readings during your mash? This ^^ right here could be the source of all your problems if you're regularly mashing or sparging with too much water... and possibly amplified by water profile issues. What's your ratio after the additional water today?

Does this sound familiar to your situation & off flavors? https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15241.0

 

[grathan]

Gypsum is good. The calcium is good for the mash, but even more important it helps clarify the beer. If the cold break does not drop out it creates a bitter taste, perhaps could even be considered metallic with some yeasts. Calcium in the boil helps coagulate the protein not broken down by the boil.

If you cold crash you don't want any headspace. it can lead to oxidation. If you have a 5 gallon carboy you could transfer to that before cold crashing to minimize headspace. If not, you can shorten the cold crash period to a day or two at most. If you dry hop at day 3 and don't rack until day 10-14, then you shouldn't have any hop particles floating still.

 

[LovesIPA]

1 package is fine, Safale US-05. Don't oxygenate. You really should stick with centennial imho. Hops add a ton of flavor and sometimes it isn't a good thing. You also should be careful of old hops. If you put oxygenated hops in your beer it could ruin it. The best thing to do is to open a fresh package of hops each time your brew a batch ( I'm assuming you have 2oz left from a 1# package that wasn't vacuum sealed ). If you do use old hops, use them earlier in the boil than the fresher hops.

Also don't open the ferementer for gravity readings. once for dry hop and once for rack. remember to dry hop while air-lock is still bubbling.

Lemmie know what hops you end up using and I will brew a similar batch for comparison.

I'm trying to buy as little as possible. My girlfriend lost her job and while she's looking I'm don't want to end up in a hole. I'm going to have to go with what I have and I have a 1-lb bag of Mosaic in the freezer that I bought a few weeks ago and it hasn't been opened yet.

Have you ever taken any PH readings during your mash? This ^^ right here could be the source of all your problems if you're regularly mashing or sparging with too much water... and possibly amplified by water profile issues. What's your ratio after the additional water today?

I have some of the cheap test strips that read from 4.8 to 6.0 or so. They're designed for brewers. The few times I used one they read that my mash pH was in the 5.2 to 5.4 range.

Does this sound familiar to your situation & off flavors? https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15241.0

Not really. I've checked the gravity of last runnings and they are always well above 1.010. Sometimes I will run off some of the mash, heat it up, and return it to the mash tun to tweak temperature. Sometimes I've mashed at 1.5 qts/lb. It doesn't make a difference.

 

[LovesIPA]

3 tsp of gypsum is exactly 10g. I put 20g in so far, I usually use between 4g and 5g, so that makes this is a 4x-5x increase.

 

[grathan]

Not knowing what mineral content is in the Glacier water you can't compare to distilled water.

But if you look at this chart:
www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-4.html

You'll see a tsp of gypsum per gallon is only 60ppm calcium. If you read this book it will suggest the minimum should be 50ppm. So if distilled water is 0ppm and you use 10 gallons and 4 tsp. that is still pretty low.

 

[Conman13]

Are you purging all the O2 out of your keg before force carbing?

You could also try racking it to a keg and leaving it off the gas at storing room temperatures. Taste a sample out of there after a few days.

 

[LovesIPA]

Not knowing what mineral content is in the Glacier water you can't compare to distilled water.

It's filtered, reverse osmosis water. I don't have any reason to believe it doesn't produce any less pure water than any other regularly serviced and maintained reverse osmosis water filter.

But if you look at this chart:
www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-4.html

You'll see a tsp of gypsum per gallon is only 60ppm calcium. If you read this book it will suggest the minimum should be 50ppm. So if distilled water is 0ppm and you use 10 gallons and 4 tsp. that is still pretty low.

If I open up Bru 'n' water and create a water profile and add 3.3 g/gallon (5 gallon batch, 1 tsp = 3.3 g), it tells me I will end up with 252 ppm Ca and 528 ppm SO4.

Can anyone explain the discrepancy?

 

[LovesIPA]

Are you purging all the O2 out of your keg before force carbing?

Yes I am.

You could also try racking it to a keg and leaving it off the gas at storing room temperatures. Taste a sample out of there after a few days.

At this point, batches are not tasting good out of the fermenter, either.

 

[LovesIPA]

I ended up with 7.4 gallons of 1.051 wort. That means I got 93.9% efficiency, which is a few points higher than I usually get. BeerSmith predicted the pre-boil gravity to be 1.048.

I collected another 3/4 gallon or so of wort from the mash tun after I stopped filling the kettle. The gravity of that is 1.014 so I don't think I have to worry about tannin extraction with this batch.

 

[LovesIPA]

Hit OG perfectly. Ended up with 5.6 gallons in the kettle at 1.066. I used a new burner today (SQ-14) but switched the pressure hose and regulator with the 10psi one that came with my Bayou Classic. For some reason mine only came with a 5 psi regulator which was noticeably slower while heating up sparge and strike water. I haven't gotten used to how much it boils off yet, so I was a little high on volume but with the slightly higher boil gravity it worked out perfectly mostly due to dumb luck.

Waiting for the cold break to settle for 10 more minutes

 

[LovesIPA]

Done. Pitched re-hydrated yeast at 64 degrees.It should settle around 65-66 and ferment there. I will check on it in 48 hours and every few hours after that to see when the krausen falls so I can dry hop it.

 

[grathan]

It's filtered, reverse osmosis water. I don't have any reason to believe it doesn't produce any less pure water than any other regularly serviced and maintained reverse osmosis water filter.

your probably right. If the membrane was properly serviced then it should be fairly similar.

A TDS meter is a good way to tell if the membrane is getting bad. They are fairly cheap too. Though I don't think RO is highly effective at removing chlorine/chloramine which is likely in the water the machine is hooked to at the store.

If I open up Bru 'n' water and create a water profile and add 3.3 g/gallon (5 gallon batch, 1 tsp = 3.3 g), it tells me I will end up with 252 ppm Ca and 528 ppm SO4.



Can anyone explain the discrepancy?

I would trust Bru'n water over Palmer's book. That is quite a difference though!



You rehydrated the yeast? That can be a possible source of infection too. I typically don't rehydrate cause it's a pain to make sure it's clean. Your gonna wanna minimize possible sources of infection until you get that under control.

 

[LovesIPA]

I boiled water for about 15 minutes, then let it cool to 90 or so with the lid on, pitched the yeast, put the lid back on, waited for 20 minutes, chilled it to 65, then poured it into the fermenter. I was very careful about not taking the lid off for more than necessary.

 

[thisisbeer]

If you bleached your carboys for hours then the flavors from the plastic are leaching into the beer.

 

[Hopper5000]

Wouldn't the heat from the boil kill anything living in the valve or threads?

Yes probably, but I was just trying to trouble shoot. It's recommended to clean them out every few brews. I have hears of people not realizing they were supposed to and there being some pretty nasty stuff in there.

 

[unionrdr]

If you bleached your carboys for hours then the flavors from the plastic are leaching into the beer.

If food safe plastic is used,that's not an issue. They don't have the chemicals in them or parting compounds on them that're toxic.

 

[LovesIPA]

I brewed another batch yesterday. An all-amarillo ale with Maris Otter, munich, crystal 40, and 4oz of roasted barley for a nice red color. I'm going to call it Amarillo Red.

I used Crystal Geyser spring water, which I used for a batch over a year ago and it came out fine. I made no other changes from my standard process.

It smells great with two fermenters bubbling.

 

[jbaysurfer]

How many batches have you brewed in the 4 months since you started this thread? If I had a problem so persistent that 4 months of the collective brewing wisdom of this community couldn't solve it, I'd probably pick a new hobby. Thus, I commend you stubborn determination even if I'm baffled....because brewing really isn't that hard.

 

[LovesIPA]

I know it's not that hard. That's why I'm so frustrated. I haven't been brewing as much lately. If I don't get a drinkable batch pretty soon I will need a new hobby for sure. Woodworking sounds like fun....

 

[tektonjp]

I know it's not that hard. That's why I'm so frustrated. I haven't been brewing as much lately. If I don't get a drinkable batch pretty soon I will need a new hobby for sure. Woodworking sounds like fun....

Woodworking is a fun hobby indeed, but it's easier to keep all your fingers as a homebrewer!

 

[LovesIPA]

I visited a friend of mine this weekend who lives a couple hours away and I haven't seen in a few years. After taking another friend of ours out on Saturday night and crashing at friend #1's house, we decided to have a "brew-b-q" on Sunday. We smoked a couple racks of ribs and brewed a batch while we waited.

He didn't care what we brewed, so I picked an amber ale that I've brewed before, converted it to extract, picked up the ingredients from the LHBS, and got started. Heating the strike water up took about an hour because he uses the side burner on his BBQ.

He looked shocked when I told him that you really shouldn't leave the lid on throughout the boil. He said he ALWAYS leaves the lid on the whole time.

We never got a rolling boil. The best you could call it was a strong simmer.

His normal practice is to dump the kettle into the "settling bucket", top it off with cold water, rack to the fermenter, pitch the yeast & ferment for a week, then rack to secondary for another week. He owns a hydrometer (I saw it) but I didn't see him use it once.

He doesn't write anything down, doesn't measure gravity, doesn't know the ABV, doesn't re-hydrate dry yeast and doesn't measure any of the volumes. He says that brewing is supposed to be fun and he doesn't like to stress about stuff like that. It really drove the point home to me on how two different people can have two completely different approaches to the same hobby.

But I'll be darned if he doesn't make some of the best homebrew I've had. I tasted a Belgian tripel that was amazing.

I am beginning to believe that at least part of what we think we know about brewing isn't true at all.

 

[uatuba]

Brewing is as much art as it is science. Good beer was made before we understood the science behind it. Heck, an open pot of honey that had been left for too long got us where we are today.

That's one reason why I told you to stop monkeying around with your water. There are plenty of other processes that can be improved well before the step of stripping your water and then building it back up.

 

[LovesIPA]

That's one reason why I told you to stop monkeying around with your water. There are plenty of other processes that can be improved well before the step of stripping your water and then building it back up.

First, what processes are you referring to?

Second, if I use my tap water, dark beers come out fine but light beers don't taste right. What should I do if I don't modify the water profile - brew only stouts and porters?

 

[grathan]

Boiling extract isn't as important as with all-grain, I believe most extracts has already been boiled down. The main goals with boiling all-grain are breaking down the protein and getting a hot break (again removing protein) and isomerzation of hop oils for bitterness.

I agree with not using a hydrometer if your using extract, or even for all-grain if your process is somewhat dialed in ( I personally think your %93 is too high though and should be toned down ).

 

[LovesIPA]

Boiling extract isn't as important as with all-grain, I believe most extracts has already been boiled down. The main goals with boiling all-grain are breaking down the protein and getting a hot break (again removing protein) and isomerzation of hop oils for bitterness.

Good point, I hadn't thought of the fact that the extract has already been boiled.

I agree with not using a hydrometer if your using extract, or even for all-grain if your process is somewhat dialed in ( I personally think your %93 is too high though and should be toned down ).

I was thinking about this too. My mill is only set for 0.030". I honestly am not sure why my efficiency is so high.

 

[Safa]

Time for a photo documented brew day?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[LovesIPA]

Time for a photo documented brew day?

Video would be better. It's crossed my mind once or twice. I'll see if I can recruit SWMBO to record a brew day. I haven't edited video in a long time though. I'll need to do some research to see what software I can use for editing.

 

[uatuba]

First, what processes are you referring to?

Second, if I use my tap water, dark beers come out fine but light beers don't taste right. What should I do if I don't modify the water profile - brew only stouts and porters?

If you think an infection is the issue, then obviously sanitation, for one. If it's astringency you're getting because you're using too much water during the mash, too high of a temp with your mash water, or too much water for mashing out at 170+ and not enough during the mash, then your mashing process.

I don't mean don't doctor your water--but I do mean to take care of the chlorine or chloramine only and let the rest take its course.

There's obviously something in your process that needs improvement ahead of your water doctoring and we're trying to help you figure it out.

 

[tektonjp]

I hate to keep beating this drum, but until you get your beer tasted by more people to identify the off flavor, I feel you're just shooting at things in the dark. I think you've had just one person identify it as an infection. No one else (with authority) has sampled this stuff? I really urge you to get some other tastings done before trying to blindly rectify the "problem."

 

[LovesIPA]

I hate to keep beating this drum, but until you get your beer tasted by more people to identify the off flavor, I feel you're just shooting at things in the dark. I think you've had just one person identify it as an infection. No one else (with authority) has sampled this stuff? I really urge you to get some other tastings done before trying to blindly rectify the "problem."

As someone else in the thread said, "Brewing is not hard." (Although sometimes I wonder...) There really isn't a whole lot that can go wrong with beer that would make it utterly unpalatable. Also take into consideration that I have, on occasion, turned out remarkably good batches - so it's not a fundamental process issue. By itself, one person saying "it's an infection" isn't terribly compelling, but when you look at the big picture, what else fits?

I'm a rational and analytical person by nature and I approach troubleshooting the same way. It's a side affect of my job. At work, when I go into troubleshooting mode, I first gather every data point I can. Then I come up with as many possible theories for the problem I'm seeing as I can. Then I start eliminating them, using either logic (i.e. this can't possibly be the explanation, because it conflicts with an observation) or by performing an experiment to eliminate that theory. Eventually, a solution is arrived at. If you eliminate all the theories, then you need to rack your brain to come up with another one and start over.

If I spent time chasing down every theory without regard to its plausibility, I would waste an enormous amount of time creating experiments to disprove theories that can't possibly be true. This is why I dismissed the idea of the problem being carbonic acid. If it were true, then I wouldn't like the taste of commercial beer, either. Since I haven't tasted this flavor profile in any commercial beers (save for one, which I think had a similar infection problem), I dismissed it as a possible explanation without having to perform any tests.

Unfortunately, it makes me look like I'm argumentative or unappreciative of the feedback I've gotten, and that's not true.

If someone can convince me that there is an entirely different problem that might be the culprit, I'm all ears. But so far no one has been able to come up with a plausible theory.

 

[tektonjp]

I won't quote you back cause it takes up too much space. Troubleshooting starts with identifying the problem. "It doesn't taste right", is too ambiguous. Since you can't identify it well enough to share with us, your first step should be to get it clearly identified. Otherwise, you're just chasing your tail. Collecting data is not meaningful until you identify the off flavor.

 

[BreezyBrew]

I hate to keep beating this drum, but until you get your beer tasted by more people to identify the off flavor, I feel you're just shooting at things in the dark. I think you've had just one person identify it as an infection. No one else (with authority) has sampled this stuff? I really urge you to get some other tastings done before trying to blindly rectify the "problem."

Completely agree with this. It's the only way to find out. Otherwise, troubleshooting is a waste of time.

 

[Seven]

If your willing, I will give you an IPA recipe to brew, your brew it exact. I will pay you to ship some to me. I will tell you what I think or even mail you some of my own.

I thought you were on the right track to possible resolution when grathan gave you a recipe to brew and ship samples for tasting. Then I saw you changed the recipe and wondered how he/she would do a side by side comparison with his own batch if you changed the recipe like you did. Anyways, I think it's a good idea to have someone else taste your beers.

 

[bbohanon]

I visited a friend of mine this weekend who lives a couple hours away and I haven't seen in a few years. After taking another friend of ours out on Saturday night and crashing at friend #1's house, we decided to have a "brew-b-q" on Sunday. We smoked a couple racks of ribs and brewed a batch while we waited.

He didn't care what we brewed, so I picked an amber ale that I've brewed before, converted it to extract, picked up the ingredients from the LHBS, and got started. Heating the strike water up took about an hour because he uses the side burner on his BBQ.

He looked shocked when I told him that you really shouldn't leave the lid on throughout the boil. He said he ALWAYS leaves the lid on the whole time.

We never got a rolling boil. The best you could call it was a strong simmer.

His normal practice is to dump the kettle into the "settling bucket", top it off with cold water, rack to the fermenter, pitch the yeast & ferment for a week, then rack to secondary for another week. He owns a hydrometer (I saw it) but I didn't see him use it once.

He doesn't write anything down, doesn't measure gravity, doesn't know the ABV, doesn't re-hydrate dry yeast and doesn't measure any of the volumes. He says that brewing is supposed to be fun and he doesn't like to stress about stuff like that. It really drove the point home to me on how two different people can have two completely different approaches to the same hobby.

But I'll be darned if he doesn't make some of the best homebrew I've had. I tasted a Belgian tripel that was amazing.

I am beginning to believe that at least part of what we think we know about brewing isn't true at all.

I always love to hear these stories..They are the true testament to a brewer brewing "his" way and I 100% think that once you start over thinking the brewing process is when you start doubting yourself and your beer and making mountains out of molehills in the brewing process which leads to inconsistent results. Keep it simple, clean, fun and stress-free and great beer 9 out of 10 times is the end result.
Great story and I would love to hang out for a Brew-BQ day with you and your friend as he is my kind of brewer!
:fro:

 

[LovesIPA]

I won't quote you back cause it takes up too much space. Troubleshooting starts with identifying the problem. "It doesn't taste right", is too ambiguous. Since you can't identify it well enough to share with us, your first step should be to get it clearly identified. Otherwise, you're just chasing your tail. Collecting data is not meaningful until you identify the off flavor.

I agree but taste is subjective. What tastes like an infection to one might taste good to another. Look at sour beers.

Completely agree with this. It's the only way to find out. Otherwise, troubleshooting is a waste of time.

To both of you: If it's not an infection, what are the other possibilities that fit all of the information I've given?

I thought you were on the right track to possible resolution when grathan gave you a recipe to brew and ship samples for tasting. Then I saw you changed the recipe and wondered how he/she would do a side by side comparison with his own batch if you changed the recipe like you did. Anyways, I think it's a good idea to have someone else taste your beers.

I changed the hop schedule. If I'm going to brew something that tastes great, changing the hop schedule isn't going to turn it into something that make me want to dump 5 gallons down the kitchen sink. I understand the value of comparing the end result, but when the end result is either something good or something undrinkable, I don't need to compare it to anything else to fit it into one of those two categories. To me, that batch was more about silencing the water salt skeptics.

I'm going to cold crash that Mosaic batch tonight and rack it to a keg on Friday.

Also, I had some free time today so I decided to brew a 1-gallon batch. This way, if it sucks, at least it's not 5 gallons gone to waste. It's a Maris Otter/Simcoe SMaSH IPA. I used 2.25 lbs of Maris Otter, mashed at 156 BIAB-style, and 0.2 oz of Simcoe at 60, 15, 5, and 1.

I used RO water built up with salts but I'm fermenting in a 1 gallon glass jug so this will help eliminate the plastic fermenters as a possible source of infection.

This is my first 1-gallon batch ever, and my first BIAB ever.

 

[BreezyBrew]

I just truly believe there's only so much troubleshooting that can be done without actually tasting the beer. It seems like you have changed enough of your process and equipment to drive anyone mad. I think that we have all been there at one point or another, and feel like giving up. I just really think that the quickest, cheapest, and most surefire way to find out what's going on is to have people with good palates drink your beer.

 

[divrguy]

I think the title of your post says it all! Lol


Cheers!

 

[LovesIPA]

I kegged the Mosaic IPA today. Well, technically yesterday. I can't remember if I mentioned that I used a brand new bucket with this batch, but it smells and tastes wonderful. It's very hoppy and it doesn't taste infected at all. I soaked the keg with piping hot water and PBW, including the top outside. I rinsed it well, sanitized everything, and put the keg back together wet with star-san, just as I always do. If it goes bad inside the keg I am going to give up because I can't clean or sanitize any better than I did.

It's carbing now and I'll let you know how it tastes again in a couple of days.

 

[derek704]

Congrats, and good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[LovesIPA]

Question for those that keg: Do you cover the mouth of the keg during racking? I always cover it with a star-san soaked paper towel to prevent the CO2 from escaping and to keep anything from getting into the keg.