Beer Forum

Help, Opinions please. Particularly if you have used black DE-husked malt.

I made a 12 gallon batch "kitchen sink" stout with following things:

3#Flaked barley
3#crystal wheat
2#black malt - (carafa II weyerman)
9oz wet Tetnang & 11oz wet Mt.hood
DME to 1.040 OG 60 minute boil
Notty yeast 69dF

It was awesome. Tasted exactly like Yeungling black&tan
-------now it's gone:(

I tried to recreate it with this
As a 15 gallon batch all grains linear increase with 2-row malt AG:

3.75#Flaked barley
375#crystal wheat
2.5#black malt - (carafa II weyerman)
12#2-row - {AG batch sparge} 15gallon run off 2 gallon water added to pot.
29oz wet Tetnang {equal AlphaAcids}
1.040 OG 60 minute boil
Notty yeast 69dF

I taste similar, but like unsweetened tea bite. TANNINS, I can taste em. I shouldn't have oversparged though. Ran off to 1.010 SP, and it tasted sweet, but a [SIZE="1"]little[/SIZE] bitter. Tasted the same going into the fermenter, but the malt suger must have hiden "IT" from my taste budz. Same OG 1.040. I am already trying to save it in secondary by diluting, and refermenting with a nuetral malt base by 15%. I need to know though for the next batch.

I actually suspect from the flavor difference that I may not have been sent "DE-hesked" black malt.....
Would that acount for the flavor difference?

Or....did I not do a proper reformulation?

Opinions, guess's, observations please!!!

The husked black malt would defiately result in more tannins. What about water adjustments?

The water is the same. I charcoal filter and my municipal water comes from the Monongahela river. There shouldn't have been a seasonal change though because the two beers were brewed within a couple months.

The taste difference is comprable to good lightly sweetened good tea, and very oversteeped cheap tea, or overheated coffee.

So OVERSPARGE does NOT seem like the obvious problem huh?.


.

I would have personally cut off the sparge a little higher. That said, I'm much more worried about the degree of black malt. You probably got better utilization from the AG than from the extract batch. That's not out of the realm of possibility, but it's quite a bit of black malt for a low gravity beer without much sweetness to back it up.

That said, roasted astringency and tannins and hop astringency all taste different. Do you have anyone who's got a very good palate who could taste it for you?

Roasted astringency has almost a sourish quality, a strong sharp character (chew on some black malt to appreciate it)
Tannins are more like cabernet grapeskin or oversteeped tea or occassionally like applecore
Hop astringency is well... I always think of a really chinooky beer. I have a harder time having a comparison for that. It's got a roughness to it, but doesn't have the same drying sensation as the other two IME

Tea-like tannins, that to me says hop tannins as opposed to grain tannins. It could be from the quality or quantity of hops you used. Usually this settles out given time. Did you keg it? Give it time, pull a bit off the bottom regularly, and I'll bet it will clear up or at least be reduced appreciably.

Chupa LaHomebrew wrote:Tea-like tannins, that to me says hop tannins as opposed to grain tannins.

And everyone's got a little perception difference. Chupa's got an excellent palate but maybe something tastes like tea to him that doesn't to me. People's flavor descriptors are more of a guideline because everything tastes a little different to everyone.

Did you check your pH oir fuck with your water in some way that you don't normlly?
High pH and/or hot/over sparge => tannins.
Otherwise, there is a HUGE difference between dehusked Carafa 'Special' and 'normal' Carafa with husks.

One other potential remedy is to hit it with gelatin in secondary. Tannins like to flock out in the presence of gelatin finings.

HTH-

BDawg wrote:Did you check your pH oir fuck with your water in some way that you don't normlly?
High pH and/or hot/over sparge => tannins.
Otherwise, there is a HUGE difference between dehusked Carafa 'Special' and 'normal' Carafa with husks.

One other potential remedy is to hit it with gelatin in secondary. Tannins like to flock out in the presence of gelatin finings.

HTH-

I always thought that gelatin only mainly worked on yeast. It can knock out tannins/polyphenols from over sparging too, or is this just a minimal reduction?