Hey everyone
I have a Blichmann RIMS electric system so I'm recirculating for the entire mash time.
I have been getting astringency in my last few brews and I'm trying to track it down. I had a dubbel that got a 41.5 in the 2nd round of NHC 2016. It had astringency initially but it sat for a good while and it went away and it was fantastic.
Just brewed a Kölsch in Jan '17 and it was horrible with astringency. It's been sitting in a keg for a few weeks now and it's getting better but not even close yet.
I brewed a Scottish 80/-ish two weeks ago and after i transferred it to kegs to age some in my freezer, it was astringent but not like the Kölsch but it was there.
So brew process is down and almost automatic, I check my pH on mash and it's spot on at 5.2-5.4 and I treat my sparge water to get my pH to around 5.8. I sparge at 169 during mash out for that just in case. This is all the same for the last few brews. Lautering is done with the BeerSmith recommended amount of water. I get very close on numbers and then add in carbon filtered water to boil kettle if my pre boil gravity is high.
I was browsing around reading things and I think it's my grain mill. After poking around the internet and then reading many of the brew books I have, I'm thinking my crush is too fine. Thinking about it, my flour level seemed pretty heavy so I'm thinking that my mill has really crushed the grain too much and has extracted the tannins that way. I'm pretty certain it's not my mash/sparge because that's all below 6 pH and under 170F.
I just tore my Monster Mill 3 roller mill apart. I adjusted it to .040 gap (per their starting out FAQ instructions). I had it down at .035 but haven't checked in a while so it may have been knocked and got closed even more. So changing that variable for my next brew coming up and hope it works. Do you think it could be Mill gap?
OR
Could it be my milling speeds? I put my drill on high torque so it can blast through the grain without problem but I wonder if I'm milling too fast and it's shredding the husks that way?
The more I think about it, I think it's the milling process.
Thoughts??? Appreciate any thoughts and thanks for any replies.
Twah