Troubleshooting IPA - Grainy flavor

Could you be over-sparging possibly? One of the nastiest tasting flaws in an AG beer, imho.

 

Can you please provide more details?

Are you 'making' your brewing water? If so is your base RO water and what salts are you adding? What are your mineral amount for all of the other 'important' minerals: Sodium, Magnesium, Calcium.

Do you measure your mash pH? If so, what is the value?

How much water do you use? How much for the mash and how much for sparging?

Cheers!

 

Before everyone goes off the races to solve your problem, let's define the problem. What do you mean when you say "grainy?"

 

Really? That seems really low

 

Well, the critical pH is the mash pH.

I have never researched this before but I was a bit surprised to read the varying pH values of various water sources:

· Tap Water: 7.00 (neutral)

· Reverse Osmosis Water and Purified water: 4.5 - 6.0 (depending on source)

· Poland Springs Water: 5.0

· Zephyrhills Water: 7.5

http://fit4maui.com/water/pu/bottled_ph.html

What these varying values for source water ‘translates’ to mash pH I am uncertain.

Cheers!

@utahbeerdude

 

"Bready" to me could be a malty flavor or a yeasty flavor. Since you say no "maltiness," think about yeast. Are you fining your beer and/or allowing time for the suspended yeast to fall out of suspension?

"Savory" (umami) also makes me think of yeast, as in yeast autolysis. Can you describe your yeast handling process, i.e. how you store it and at what temps, from the time you get it until the time you pitch it in your beer wort?

 

Water that is nothing but H2O would technically have a pH of 7. But in a sense, it has no pH (or rather no buffering capacity), because when you try to measure it, you get nonsense (like 4.5 or 6.0) because there are not enough ions in the water for the meter's electrodes work properly. It's a measurement artifact. If it could be measured accurately, it would be very slightly acidic, because of CO2 absorption by the water when it's exposed to air.

That's silly. Tap water is all over the place, depending on the source.

 

As soon as I get any yeast I leave it in the refrigerator (at refrigerator temp?) until a couple days prior to brew day when I begin my starter. At that point I will leave it in the flask at around 68 degrees for it to do its thing and then I cold crash for 12-24 hours depending on brew time, decant, and pitch my starter when it is time.[/QUOTE]

Sounds pretty typical/normal.

What about the other question, about allowing the yeast to fall out of supension?

 

No race here, but I have found that key words used initially such as "grainy" and "finish" usually mean astringent in the context of AG mashes (and limited ability to describe). A good question might be if the OP had the same problems with his extract batches...I think not...but I'm not a mind reader.

btw...black coffee is ~ 5ph ...no matter what Palmer and others say, if you use that ph water in a lot of mashes AND 300ppm additions and don't measure your ph you are asking for trouble, imho cheers

 

The pH per se of the starting water isn't really important, but the buffering capacity certainly is. In other words, not all 5.0 pHs are created equal.

 

Sounds like a good argument for not bothering to measure ph (not really)...I am assuming good RO/distilled water has very little buffering agents in it as opposed to Poland Springs/other packaged waters.

 

That's a good assumption.

 

So...you think it might be the Poland Springs water then? (+the 300ppm additions)

I wonder if the OP was making any additions with his extract batches (that he had no problems with)

 

I think it depends on what's causing the 5.0 pH and the overall ion profile in that 5.0 pH water. If the ion profile, including total alkalinity, were known, it cold be used to predict mash pH (along with mash additions and the grain bill). But the pH alone doesn't help predict anything.