Astringency problem

I’ve been having some astringency problems and hoping someone can help me out. I have had 4 batches turn out astringent and I am at a loss for the root cause. I followed previous steps with my RO water and adding minerals. My grain gaps is fine. I’m not oversparging and my sparge water is around 170. I still have issues and am at a loss. Any help would be appreciated.

Have you monitered pH at all during the sparge?  One way to help this is lowering sparge water temps at the end of fly sparging.  Also lots of dark grains can cause astringency issues.  Is there a common ingrediant or pattern in the malts you use over the last 4?  Posting grain bills may help

There have been three pale ales and one double IPA. All the recipes have been pale/2row and 20L and 40L crystals. I have done previous double IPA’s that came out great. I followed those procedures from the successful double IPA’s to no avail. I was using pH strips it the readings seem ok but maybe inconclusive. I used calculators to determine pH with success earlier.

Latest batch.

13gal
70% efficiency

28lbs pale malt
2lbs 20L

3oz CTZ 90min 17.5%
2oz CTZ 30min 17.5%
8oz Bravo Whirlpool (20min) 15.1%

Water Profile
Sulfate 250ppm
Chloride 97ppm
Sodium 18ppm
Magnesium 18ppm
Calcium 118ppm

Are you adding Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) at all?  If so, don’t.  Tastes horrible.

You might also need to acidify your mash.  Maybe add a half pound of acidulated malt to your next batch and see if the problem disappears.

I disagree in regards to the Epsom salts. I use them in everything hoppy. There is no way to get the sulfates up so high without them.

  • 1 to mash acidification. What was your calculated mash ph?

Around 5.3 I put all the salts into the mash. I have been using Brewers Friend Water Chemistry calculator.

I also have used Epsom salts with success. Am I correct in assuming astringency is the nasty bitterness that lays across your tongue?

All of the salts? As in mash and sparge/kettle salts?

Yes, the calculator showed me my pH would be closer to target doing it this way. I had success with this method before.

Fiddling with your profile in bru’n water. If you basically increase the mash salts by (assuming) the additional 50% that were meant for the kettle, your ph would be low 5.2. I’d try the same recipe with salts based on your target profile and mash volume.

As for target ph. I only target near 5.3 for very tart and dry beers. Like saison. Otherwise I am aiming for 5.4

Your Sparge water PH may be to high which can leach some grain astringency. Do you know what your finial beer PH is higher PH like 4.8 can seem astringent or harsh i like to say but i like that in these styles. Good luck

Also, your chloride is a bit on the high side. That may be part of the problem.

What’s your bicarbonate?  Alkalinity?  Could be throwing your pH balance off-whack.

Another issue could be that the area you live had its water source changed/moved according to some sort of seasonal issue.  So your old water report becomes defunct and you are essentially adding blindly.

Jeff

Good point. I read his post as using RO, but maybe he is diluting tap water with RO

I probably missed that part.  If he is making his own RO tho he may need a membrane change etc etc.

If starting with high quality RO water that has been verified to have low TDS, then the amount of hardening minerals added to the mashing water should produce an acceptable mash pH. In addition, high quality RO water should have low alkalinity and there shouldn’t be a need to acidify the sparging water.

I’ll repeat a favorite mantra: The difference between medicine and poison, is dose. As pointed out above, if you taste straight epsom salt or mix up a strong solution, it will taste like sht. Just like the rest of the minerals that we use would taste like sht if you performed the same test with them.

At 18 ppm Mg, there is little taste added via the epsom salt, but as pointed out, it adds a bunch of desirable sulfate. However, this not to say that any brewer should add epsom salt willy nilly. Unless you know that your starting water has very low Mg content, don’t add more Mg since the upper limit for Mg is fairly low.

I had an astringency problem like the OP and I finally found out that I was oversparging the mash and the runoff gravity was allowed to fall too low. I had been stopping at 2 brix and found that the problem went away if I stopped runoff at 3 brix.

Not really. It’s more like a drying sensation that you’d get from super strong tea or a big, tannic red wine. But that bitterness does sound like it could be water-related, as others have said.

It could also be hop-related. I’ve had that kind of nasty bitterness where I’ve done a big dry-hop addition and let it sit too long. Sort of like chewing on a raw hop cone versus a proper IPA-type bitterness. In that case, some cold conditioning time may help clear that up a bit.

Sorry I forgot that part. I am using RO water from the local grocery store. The water that comes out of my tap is high in alkalinity… The range given on the water report is 300-600 CaCO3. Plus it also has chloramine so I started using straight RO.

What I have done in the past was heat up some RO water toss the grain in and then add the salts and stir it up to get it circulating. Should I be putting all my water into one vessel and treating it there then disbursing it to the proper kettle?

Martin – What about us batch spargers? Trial and error? Batch sparge with less and add water to the kettle?

That is a better description of what it is. I do not have many advanced homebrewers in my area so I’m learning this stuff as I go :slight_smile: