Astringent / Alcohol Taste

[Will]

I realise there are threads on this but hopefully you guys can help.

Since I've started all grain I've been getting an astringent / alcohol twang off all of my brews.

I tried to pin point where it is coming from but I'm at a loss. My fermentation temperatures have not exceeded 21 celsius, my recipes have been basic, and I've made sure to keep my mash temp within range ( c. 66 celsius). Likewise my batch sparge has not exceeded mid 70s.

I use ashbeck tesco water without treatment but from what I've read its pretty good as is.

I can't see how nasties could get in, i use the plastic fermenting bucket and I'm quite thorough with star san. I use the bottling wand for bottling and the airlock bubbles a little but I think I'm keeping any kind of oxidation to a minimum during this stage.

At a bit of a loss!

[DEMPSEY]

could be that your beer is still too young. Should be alot better after some conditioning and time.

[johnrm]

I use the bottling wand for bottling and the airlock bubbles a little

Are you bottling from primary? Remove the airlock at that stage.

I had a string of of beers with a twang for a while when using starsan.
I went through all my equipment with a light bleach solution, hot water rinse and a final clean with starsan.
The off has disappeared now.

[sub82]

Yeah we also had a few problems using only Star San. It's good for a final blast of a sterilised vessel but I don't think its effective enough on its own.

Also, how long in primary/secondary/priming?

Is it always the same beer style? What SG/FG? What yeast?

[Bazza]

+1 on the Starsan. Great stuff but only works on equipment that's been washed really well or, in the case of fermenters, been soaked in or cleaned with a proper sterilising solution.

Other things: You checked your mash PH? Should be around the 5.3-5.6 range IIRC.
Also, do you fly sparge and if so when do you stop? I used to fly sparge until I'd reached pre-boil volume but by that stage the gravity of the wort was well below 1.010. I always wondered why my beer had that astringent taste that got worse over time. I changed my sparging technique to stop once the gravity was around 1.010 and if I was still below pre-boil volume I just topped up with boiling water. That made a huge improvement.

Cheers,

-Barry

[Will]

John by light bleach solution I'm assuming you mean water and bleach?

I don't secondary and usually give all beers a minimum of 2 weeks in primary.

It seems to be a common taste / smell occurring across all styles. I've used both dry and liquid yeast.

My starting gravity tends to be in the region of 1.04 -1.05. I don't have capacity for any higher yet but to be honest I prefer something sessionable. For the most part my beers have fermented down to 1.01 or lower.

I batch sparge at the moment. Essentially I've calculated I require approx 28 litres for the boil so my first runnings give me 8 and I sparge with roughly 20 at 75 celsius. I must admit I don't sparge slowly enough so my efficiency takes a hit.

I don't have any means to test the Ph yet, what do you guys recommend?

[DEMPSEY]

Can never be said enough times,Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sterilizer. This comes up alot as some people think it cleans things

[Will]

I have the boiler and tun soaking in wvp now for a couple of hours then ill give them a good rinse and wipe and put the lids back on so they're clean for brew day.

Then ill just use star san on the day. Its about time I did a deep clean I suppose

[Will]

What do you guys use to check your Ph? Funds are tight at the moment so I can't afford an all singing meter.


Bazza how often did you check your gravity when sparging? Essentially how did you know to stop before 1.01? Presumably the beer collects tannins at that point?

[sub82]

This will probably be poo-pooed but I use these strips:

Beer pH Indicator Strips

I also batch sparge (collecting ~5L wort at a time). After the first 2 or 3 collections of wort I would start taking an SG of each 5L batch before adding it to the brew kettle. To save time I don't worry about cooling the wort to take a reading. The logic being that as long as it is above 1.010 as hot wort the corrected SG will definitely be above 1.010. I've heard of people taking it down to 0.990 but that would worry me too much!

[johnrm]

Can never be said enough times,Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sterilizer. This comes up alot as some people think it cleans things

I know you really meant to say 'Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sanitiser'.

Sterilise <> Sanitise

@sub82 - Perfect once it does the job and its at a reasonable price - all its missing is the Bling!

[Will]

This will probably be poo-pooed but I use these strips:

Beer pH Indicator Strips

I also batch sparge (collecting ~5L wort at a time). After the first 2 or 3 collections of wort I would start taking an SG of each 5L batch before adding it to the brew kettle. To save time I don't worry about cooling the wort to take a reading. The logic being that as long as it is above 1.010 as hot wort the corrected SG will definitely be above 1.010. I've heard of people taking it down to 0.990 but that would worry me too much!

Cheers sub.

Can you recall if they were expensive? No price listed on the site sadly

[DEMPSEY]

Can never be said enough times,Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sterilizer. This comes up alot as some people think it cleans things

I know you really meant to say 'Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sanitiser'.

Sterilise <> Sanitise

@sub82 - Perfect once it does the job and its at a reasonable price - all its missing is the Bling!

Thank you John at least someone is keeping  an eye on what I say

[Bazza]

Can never be said enough times,Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sterilizer. This comes up alot as some people think it cleans things

I know you really meant to say 'Starsan is NOT NOT a cleaner but only a sanitiser'.

Sterilise <> Sanitise

@sub82 - Perfect once it does the job and its at a reasonable price - all its missing is the Bling!

Thank you John at least someone is keeping  an eye on what I say

The pedants amongst us would conclude that when you say 'xx is NOT NOT yy', logically you're saying that xx IS yy, therefore Starsan IS a cleaner.

NOW who's keeping an eye on what you say

Bazza how often did you check your gravity when sparging? Essentially how did you know to stop before 1.01? Presumably the beer collects tannins at that point?

Will, through practise, when doing a 23L boil I'd be checking the gravity pretty frequently after collecting about 2/3 of the required boil volume. I found that it could drop pretty dramatically after then.

May differ for you. Depends on flow of water out of mash tun, the crush of the grain, etc.

-Barry

[Dunkel]

You can get astringent tastes from crushing your grain too fine also.