Astringency problem

[bustdbrewing]

Astringency is usually sparge related. IMO, you should treat your HLT so that you are sparging with the same
water that you use to mash.

Check your temp and pH while sparging. It should never get above 170F and it should stay below 5.8 pH.
Also check your gravity when sparging. It should not get below about 2.5 brix (1.010)
If you hit those numbers and haven't hit your volume yet, then you should
stop your sparge and top up with plain water and/or DME to hit target gravity.
Adjust your recipe to add more base malt for the next time you brew that batch (and re-calc your efficiency given those pH and gravity limits).

HTH-

Agreed.

I can normally brew a 1.071 beer without issue using the same techniques. I use RO water and normally throw all salts into the mash tun and then sparge with RO water. Any ideas what is it would be become an issue now on a smaller beer?

This might not necessarily be related to a higher or lower gravity unless you brewed the exact same recipe with the exact same processes and found that the lower gravity is more astrigent. You may have just noticed more in the lower gravity because the flavor threshold was lower.

My question without knowing your equipment setup is that it sounds like you're looking to finish up the boil with 12 gallons of wort and then putting that wort into a (2) 5 gallons vessels or (1) 10 gallon vessel? If that is the case, how come you have such large preboil volumes of 14 and 15 gallons? To me I look at that and think you're potentially using too much water and diluting your sparge more than you think and you're having to use a ton of energy to get that boiled down to your target volume. With a large volume of untreated RO sparge water you're not doing yourself in favors in avoiding tannin extraction. Definitely acidify your sparge water.

On my system I look to finish up with 12 gallons post boil and I start with 13 gallons (for a 60 minute boil) or 13.5 gallons (for a 90 minute boil) at the beginning of the boil and look to lose .5 gallons every 30 minutes. I acidify and add salts to my strike and sparge water and haven't had any issues. Typically 11 gallons of water gets used for strike water and 6-7 gallons gets used for sparging. During the mash the grains will lower the pH but when you add untreated RO sparge water at the end of the process the pH lowering ability of the grains has already been diminished so you need a helper to aid in maintaining that low pH during the sparge.

Astringency can also come from your water profile, the hops and the amounts you use and yeast in suspension post fermentation. Can you describe what the astringency taste like?

Afterlab I swear if I didn't know any better I would say you are spying on me I do exactly that. I get 12 gallons post-boil and put into 2 seperate carboys.

I have a 3 vessel system. Keggle HLT, 20 gallon Boilermaker MLT, 26 gallon B3 kettle. It is single tier with 2 march pumps. The boil is pretty vigorous so after a 60 minute boil when starting with 14 gallons and the whirlpool along with chilling I end up with 12 gallons.

I build my water profile to the following.

Sulfate - 250ppm
Chloride - 97ppm
Sodium - 18ppm
Magnesium - 18ppm
calcium - 110ppm

It also could be my definiton of astringent is wrong. There are not a lot of advanced homebrewers where I am so I have to figure this stuff out for myself. It tastes just like a really nasty harsh bitterness that lays across my tongue and is just undrinkable. Is that right?

[Afterlab]

Afterlab I swear if I didn't know any better I would say you are spying on me

Haha most definitely.

So it looks like you're essentially using Tasty's water profile? I would start off by gradually lowering your Sulfates and Chlorides. Try reducing your Sulfates to maybe 175-200ppm and get your Chloride down to 50ppm. Then start adding back more Sulfate to your liking as you brew more and more batches.

Are you calculating the PPM values you have listed for 14-15 gallons of water/wort or are you achieving these PPM values just for your volume of strike water? If you're calculating for 14-15 gallons you are effectively concentrating the PPM of each mineral as you boil down 2-3 gallons to achieve your preferred batch size.

What Bittering hops were you using for these last astringent beers?

[bustdbrewing]

It's a variant on Tasty's profile. I will try lowering to those amounts and see what happens. I use CTZ as bitter in most of my beers. AA 17.5%. I use a calculator online to calculate the salt additions but essentially I am concentrating the salts into the mash. Would it help to just put all my salts into say my BK with all my RO water. That way the salts can be evenly distributed into the sparge water?

[Afterlab]

CTZ as a bittering hop looks good, it's certainly not a cleaner lower cohumulone hop but it's low enough to where it should provide a firm but not harsh bitterness.

You can certainly add all of your minerals and acids into a single kettle and split the volume into your strike and sparge water. However make sure you do not add any minerals that increase water alkalinity like Chalks, Baking Soda or Lime to the sparge water; they should only be added to the strike water. Also make sure your PPM values are based on the correct water volumes and know that you will still be concentrating your PPM values if you have a large Preboil Volume that you are having to boil down to your post boil volume.

I highly recommend Martin Brungard's Bru'n Water excel for help with your water chemistry. https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

[bustdbrewing]

So should I be calculating my salt additions for my final post-boil volume?

[Afterlab]

A large percentage of your minerals get stripped away during the brewing process so I would say, if you're not able to adjust your boil off and lower your preboil volume then try to aim a little bit lower on your PPMs (based on the volume of your strike + sparge water) while at the same time achieving the correct Residual Alkalinity and pH levels throughout the process. You really only need "enough" PPM to make a good beer so having excess amounts doesn't usually help the beer. The most important thing is that your beer tastes like its 3 core compounds (Malt, Hops and Yeast) and water should serve as an effective delivery vehicle of those flavors as opposed to intruding upon them. When it comes to water and mineral concentration, less is more and more is too much.

[Bobbie Dooley]

Astringency is usually sparge related. IMO, you should treat your HLT so that you are sparging with the same
water that you use to mash.

Check your temp and pH while sparging. It should never get above 170F and it should stay below 5.8 pH.
Also check your gravity when sparging. It should not get below about 2.5 brix (1.010)
If you hit those numbers and haven't hit your volume yet, then you should
stop your sparge and top up with plain water and/or DME to hit target gravity.
Adjust your recipe to add more base malt for the next time you brew that batch (and re-calc your efficiency given those pH and gravity limits).

HTH-

Agreed.

I can normally brew a 1.071 beer without issue using the same techniques. I use RO water and normally throw all salts into the mash tun and then sparge with RO water. Any ideas what is it would be become an issue now on a smaller beer?

This might not necessarily be related to a higher or lower gravity unless you brewed the exact same recipe with the exact same processes and found that the lower gravity is more astrigent. You may have just noticed more in the lower gravity because the flavor threshold was lower.

My question without knowing your equipment setup is that it sounds like you're looking to finish up the boil with 12 gallons of wort and then putting that wort into a (2) 5 gallons vessels or (1) 10 gallon vessel? If that is the case, how come you have such large preboil volumes of 14 and 15 gallons? To me I look at that and think you're potentially using too much water and diluting your sparge more than you think and you're having to use a ton of energy to get that boiled down to your target volume. With a large volume of untreated RO sparge water you're not doing yourself in favors in avoiding tannin extraction. Definitely acidify your sparge water.

On my system I look to finish up with 12 gallons post boil and I start with 13 gallons (for a 60 minute boil) or 13.5 gallons (for a 90 minute boil) at the beginning of the boil and look to lose .5 gallons every 30 minutes. I acidify and add salts to my strike and sparge water and haven't had any issues. Typically 11 gallons of water gets used for strike water and 6-7 gallons gets used for sparging. During the mash the grains will lower the pH but when you add untreated RO sparge water at the end of the process the pH lowering ability of the grains has already been diminished so you need a helper to aid in maintaining that low pH during the sparge.

Astringency can also come from your water profile, the hops and the amounts you use and yeast in suspension post fermentation. Can you describe what the astringency taste like?

Afterlab I swear if I didn't know any better I would say you are spying on me I do exactly that. I get 12 gallons post-boil and put into 2 seperate carboys.

I have a 3 vessel system. Keggle HLT, 20 gallon Boilermaker MLT, 26 gallon B3 kettle. It is single tier with 2 march pumps. The boil is pretty vigorous so after a 60 minute boil when starting with 14 gallons and the whirlpool along with chilling I end up with 12 gallons.

I build my water profile to the following.

Sulfate - 250ppm
Chloride - 97ppm
Sodium - 18ppm
Magnesium - 18ppm
calcium - 110ppm

It also could be my definiton of astringent is wrong. There are not a lot of advanced homebrewers where I am so I have to figure this stuff out for myself. It tastes just like a really nasty harsh bitterness that lays across my tongue and is just undrinkable. Is that right?

I had this experience too when my boil pH was too high. It wasn't happening in non-hoppy beers, so I knew it wasn't grain tannins. I started acidifying my mash and sparge water and it made a huge difference. Hop compound extraction varies a huge amount depending on boil pH.

[markpotts]

I suffered a lot from astringent brews in my early brewing days, particularly in pale beers. It wasn't until I got a grip on alkalinity of my water and mash pH that I was able to address the issues; I've latterly found a brewing spreadsheet called Bru'n'Water that has helped me progress even further.
For pale beers I reduce the alkalinity to between 30 and 40ppm....usually I use sulphuric acid for this, but I also have phosphoric and lactic so I can change the treatment depending on the finished water profile needed and my grist.

If you reduce the alkalinity to a level that is appropriate for the grist to hit a mash pH of 5.2 - 5.4; then you've gone a long way to solving your issue IMO.
Over-sparging (as has been mentioned) is also a possible issue. To take this out of the equation I batch sparge these days and don't find this at all detrimental to my efficiency.

HTH