All Grain sour/astringent taste on pale IPA - Please help

[Mike Cole]

Hi there everyone, first post - Hi!

I have previously been brewing extract beers with steeping grains, attempting to create a hoppy, west coast style IPA. Although these beers have been drinkable they always had a mild sharpness to them that I equated to the extract.

Fast forward to now, I am attempting to brew all grain BIAB. My first attempted recipe was from the can you brew it guys - West Coast IPA by greenflash. This is mainly pale malt (86.4%) and 6.8% Carapils, and 6.8% crystal 40L. I fermented the beer with US-05 dry yeast (1 pack for around 3 gallons). I overshot my gravity a little and fermented it right down to 1010 at 18 degrees stable in a fermentation fridge controlled by an STC1000,

Everything looked great until I tasted the beer and there was the same sharpness/bitter/astringent flavour that has been there in small amounts with the extract beer but this time it was almost unbearable. Very hard to drink the beer, but behind that intense soury flavour I could tell the beer had fermented cleanly as if you could see past the sharpness the beer felt light and nice... hard to describe.

At any rate I have started to grow a little despondent, not being able to produce a decent beer. I went searching for the 50th time online and stumbled across some people talking about the effect of mash pH and tannin extraction. I downloaded my water report (Im in New Lynn, Auckland) and added the figures from the Huia water supply to EZ Water Calculator and it told me that I was just out of the 5.6 maximum pH range with the west coast IPA recipe and my unmodified water.

So my question is: Is this slight pH difference going to produce a strong astringent taste that I am experiencing in my very light in colour IPA? Or is it something else? I plan to add some minerals and lactic acid to the next brew and going to attempt a lightly lower gravity Epic Pale Ale clone to see if that improves it, but in your opinions is this the appropriate route to take? Im kind of at my wits end to be honest...

I cannot say for sure if what I am tasting is astringency. It is like this sharp, tanniny, bitter flavour that is really hard work on the tongue. Biting you could say.

Mash temps were 64 degrees C, and mashed for 75 minutes. No sparge or anything just normal BIAB, full amount of water. I did squeeze the bag but lots of BIABers say this is fine. Used a single fermenter (no secondary) and left it on the yeast for 14 days, with a 2 day crash cool period, then bottled. Sanitation practice is good, use starsan and keep everything very clean. No sign of infection either.

Also previous beers have been a little darker due to the extract colour along with extract pH range may have reduced this off flavour, which is now coming front and centre with pale, all grain brewing.

All thoughts would be most appreciated!

Thanks

[Mike Cole]

Hi there Paul, thanks for the response!

I did indeed rehydrate a full package of US-05 yeast. I think from memory the OG was around 1071 or so... as I said I overshot the recipe prediction somewhat as it was my first all grain brew. 

Also most of what I have read around BIAB is that you can squeeze all you want and that tannin extraction as a result of squeezing was a myth? I will definitely experiment with this on the next brew though as if it is simple as not squeezing then that would be awesome! 

Anyone in New Lynn area want to try a bad IPA? ahaha

[Patrick]

I agree that squeezing the bag doesn't seem to impart any off flavours. I squeeze the crap out of my biab bag and none of my beers have tasted tanniny. Internet folklore IMO.

[Mike Cole]

Yup! Agreed.

Interestingly with some time in the bottle the astringency is definitely mellowing, still there just much more drinkable now. Also I had an amber ale in the fermenter (someones Yakima Scarlet clone from this forum if I remember rightly) and it has alot less of the astringency than the ipa did at a young age (tasted directly from the measuring cylinder used for hydrometer). The only difference between the two is the grain bill really, which via the EZ water calculator put the mash in a much better pH range. Fermentation temp and fermenter bucket, boiling approach, BIAB and squeezing, sanitation and level of hops etc are all basically the same. 

I will need to retry the IPA recipe but with modified water and see what happens. Thanks for all the help and heres hoping I can get rid of it once and for all.

[Paul Finney]

Hey there. No worries

By the sounds of it you have underpitched the beer. Generally around the 1.060 mark standard practice is to use two packets to avoid stressing the yeast trying to collonate the wort at the start. Underpitching will cause off flavours as the yeast have to work harder and so give off esters. 

I hope the next one goes better!! 

[Mike Cole]

Figured I was about right considering this was slightly less than 3 gallons... Mr Malty put me just under.

[Dan]

Out of interest, how much of the trub do you let get into the fermenter after the boil. I found when I made hoppy beers and let too much of the hop and break trub into the fermenter I got bad astringent flavours that took a while to mellow. These days Im anal about not transfering any trub over. Beers drink much better a lot quicker. Maybe something to think about also.

[Mike Cole]

Hmm this is really interesting Dan. I do let alot of trub into the fermenter as I had read that it doesnt particularly matter. This is an experiment for the next batch for sure!