Astringency

[Twah]

oh shit, didn't think about Polyclar.

i haven't had my Kolsch in about 3 weeks now. I'll give it a try and see if it has dropped out any.

Scottish is still stuck in the 10gallon aging keg as I brewed the Altbier. I'll update when i get my Altbier done and carbonated.

thanks for the help BDawg

[mabrungard]

I condition my grain as Brewinhard does. I feel it helps. I also mill with a low-speed 1/2" drill on my MM2-2 mill and the husks come out virtually intact with a large amount of flour. The husks are doing the trick since I am a RIMS brewer and need the flowrate. I recommend slowing your drill speed down as slow as it will tolerate.

The other thing to do is to avoid ALL air contact with the fermented beer. That means that all transfers need to be pushed with CO2 and all vessels need to be fully purged with CO2 prior to transfer. I've only started doing this in the past year (after 15 yrs!) and this has made a difference in the longevity of the beers and reduction of staling and oxidation.

[Twah]

I do all closed transfers and CO2 purging so I don't think it's that.

I resetup the mill and after this last brew, the husks were a lot bigger this time vs the previous brews. So I'm hoping this will be the solution because everything else is down pat during the process that I could think of. I think my mill has just changed over the milling over the last couple of years. I never had this problem before, only the last handful of beers that I've noticed. And it's not even a subtle astringency, it's full on hard core strong. I'm hoping this Alt will be good. I'll be tasting it this weekend hopefully.

Appreciate it.

[Twah]

I think I figured out the astringency issue. I just sparge with less water and add an extra pound or so of grain to make up for the missing sparge gravity. I've made several beers now and they are all good.

Thanks!