all grain brewing problem

[gnorwebthgimi]

Just read about another potential issue, which is carbonation.

A heavily carbonated beer will have too much CO2 in the brew which could be making the beer too acidic (as dissolved carbon dioxide dissolved in water turns into carbonic acid). I tend to barrel early and have been trying to reduce carbonation, I only added 50g of sugar last time, but my beer fermented down another 5 points of gravity which is equivalent of about 250 grams of sugar. I leave a bit of head space and I tend to drink the beer as I go along.

Understatement: Looking at this I think I need to reduce carbonation more even if it's not causing the sour/bland taste issue.

[Aleman]

Rather than guessing at your problem . . . Have you thought about asking for another opinion on your beer from a more experienced brewer. I've known several situations where a brewer had a 'flaw' and nothing they did fixed it . . .when they passed bottles of the beer to other brewers the response was "You don't have an issue"

There must be someone local to you . . . if you filled in the location part on your profile it is more likely someone would have offered to try it by now.

[gnorwebthgimi]

You make a good point Aleman! and you can always reason with reason.

will update my profile later.

In the meantime I'm in Ipswich, Suffolk and would really appreciate any help or advice if someone is in my neck of the woods.

[72mgb73gt]

I'm just outside Ipswich, so maybe we can arrange to meet up.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Another update.

The beer in the barrel has got more sour.

The sample with the campden didn't get more sour but tastes rubbery (from the campden).

The sample with the sugar didn't ferment any more and tastes the same (didn't even oxidise ).

The beer in the keg is over carbonated but the samples had the pressure released, so I'm guessing carbonation.

I did some additional reading and carbonated water has a pH of less than 4 at soda stream pressure levels, so this is all stacking up!

[Andy__]

Bottle it

[gnorwebthgimi]

The beer I transferred to bottles didn't get worse, so it did sort the issue. I'm just not sure exactly why.

It's not oxidation,it's not infection, it's not water treatment and its not hot side aeration (that's a homebrew myth and I proved it).

It seems like acidity but was it the carbonation? was yeast that had fallen out of suspension?

Thanks for the push Andy, the next batch will be spilt 50% keg and 50% bottle.

Then at least I hedge my bets, if it's the yeast I will get the issue across the board, if it's carbonation it shouldn't happen because I will endeavour to remove the issue.

Thanks for your help everyone.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Let the pressure off the barrel and added some sugar to recarbonate.

Seems to have helped. Guess the only thing is that the beer has NO body at 1.005.

Hopefully I know what I'm doing wrong now and I have a bit more experience to help me deal with this issue.

Also showed me that oxidation really isn't the big scary issue I thought it was.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Got another brew on.

Instead of water treatment I altered the SRM of my beer to suit the suspected water alkalinity (4.5 KG MO pale malt, 1 KG crystal malt and 200g (dark) chocolate malt)

Cleaned out the boiler tap and found some "residue" and sanitised everything from the boiler through to the fermentation vessel.

This time much better SG 1.050 (but not great from 5.5 KG of malt) (is that a 60% efficiency?).
Hope to have an FG of 1.015, 4.5% ABV and the IBU should be about 20-25 (60g goldings, 60 min boil AA 5%) then 30G at 10 min and another 30g at 0 min.

Will leave it to make sure it ferments out before transferring to barrel and leave a day or two before adding priming sugar to ensure that the beer doesn't over carbonate.

Will sanitise and use a different siphon (and siphoning technique) and sanitise the barrel, both with extreme care.

If the final gravity of the beer is too low then I will have to increase the mash temperature for the next beer (my thermometer read 71'c at the start of the mash and 69'c at the end of the mash, which is obviously a false reading but similar mash temps have yielded higher gravity beers in the past).

If the final gravity is fine then to rule out the water, I'll get some gypsum and buy bottled water for the next beer.

Failing all of that I'll try extract brewing.

[mysterio]

If the sourness is getting worse, then it sounds like an infection. Do all the usual things like replacing or boiling plastic equipment. Be completely anal about it.

Acidity from carbonation is not particularly 'sour'. More 'sharp' 'harsh' or a 'bite'.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Hi mysterio

The sourness on my previous beer hasn't gotten any worse (or better). I took two sample in two wine bottles, to one I added more sugar, the sourness didn't get worse but after a while it started to ferment and carbonate (it was flat after drawing from the barrel), it tasted much better with the sugar in it (a bit like leffe) but still not what it was when the beer was "green"/ only days old (it was now sweet but not in a good way). It is still drinkable and better than the vinegar on tap in local pubs, but not as enjoyable as once was.

The beer is slightly better with reduced carbonation.

This leaves me to suspect that the sour taste is all that is left when all of the sugar is gone and the gravity is at or below 1.005. Basically it's just coloured water, alcohol and hop bitterness. The IBU is somewhere in the 30's from my calculations and that would taste odd.

So this leads me to believe that:

1. I'm creating too much fermentable sugar and a low gravity beer through low mash temperature.

2. I've got a gusher infection/ wild yeast.

3. I'm introducing amalyse into the beer.

I bake a lot of bread so it's possible there are wild strains around and my thermometer is not accurate plus I don't have an auto siphon, so they are all candidates.

Have already started with being anal about sanitising and cleaning.
Will put boiling water on the siphons as well as soaking in sanitising solution before and after use.
Wish I had put boiling water onto the fermentation vessel before or after sanitising now but I just hope a good clean with sanitiser has done the trick for that.

Thanks for the tips on carbonation, I think I can rule this out as the cause but it's still something to fix because the beer style shouldn't be too fizzy.

[Fallen]

I've been keeping a close eye on this thread as it sounds like we may be having similar problems.

Do you have a separate boiler and HLT? If so, do you run-off the mash and sparge directly into your boiler? If not, how do you transfer your collected wort back into your boiler?

I run-off into plastic buckets as I don't have a separate boiler and HLT. I then crudely pour my collected wort back into the boiler after sparging. There's a lot of frothing and (by implication) a lot of oxygen being introduced to the wort at this stage. I started doing this as it's quicker and easier than siphoning and I thought that HSA was a myth. However, I'm not so sure now. When I look back on it, my last 4-5 batches (since I started this 'pouring' method) haven't been up to scratch. Difficult to define but they've all tasted good in the early stages of fermentation then have gotten worse. They've been a bit thin, lacking the full hop flavours and frankly taste oxidised. Infection was a concern but I honestly don't think it is.

I'm brewing a couple of batches at the weekend and I'm going to be ultra wary of sanitisation and HSA.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Hi Fallen

I don't have a separate Hot Liquor Tank and boiler.

Here's what I did for the current brew:
I heated 20 Litres of water/liquor for the mash to my strike temperature and ran through 12 litres into the mash.

I then filled the boiler up to 29 litres with sparge liquor and heated it to sparge temperature.

I ran 12 litres of liquor into my mash tun and collected 14/15 litres of wort in a spare fermenter from the first batch sparge run off.

Then I ran another 12 litres of liquor into to the mash tun. Leaving 5 litres (2 litres of deadspace and 3 litres that drains too slowly). I poured the 5 litres away but will use it to further sanitise the fermenter that will actually be used for fermenting in future.

My boiler was then empty for me to transfer the 14/15 litres of collected wort into the boiler, I did this by simply pouring it, with lots of frothing and air introduced because I had ruled out hot side aeration as my issue in the previous brew (I concluded that HSA is a myth for homebrewers).

Finally I ran a second 14/15 litres from the second batch sparge and tipped that into the boiler just the same.

In the previous brew I siphoned the wort carefully into the boiler in two batches making sure there was no splashing or air bubbles but this didn't help anything, so I ruled out HSA.

Regarding your issue, you could always switch back and see if that cures it but it's odd that your beer is "thin" because that doesn't sound like HSA.

What is the gravity of a degassed sample of the beer?

[Dr. Dextrin]

Just a couple of suggestions, as I've had problems that sound a bit similar...

1) I'm not sure what sort of barrel you're using, but if it's any sort of plastic, then you'll find it hard to eliminate oxidation completely as most common plastics are quite porous to oxygen. I find plastic barrels work OK (keep beer for maybe 4 weeks) if they're full, but the beer goes off considerably quicker if they're partly empty. To some extent the keeping time depends on how sensitive you are to the off-flavours (once you get to know them, they're difficult to ignore I know). I think that if your beer no longer gets worse if you put it into glass bottles, then oxygen seeping into the barrel has to be on the suspect list.

2) If the beer ferments down to 1005 in the barrel, then it will definitely not taste at its best. I think the first thing I'd do is measure the gravity of the bottled version to see if that's fermenting down to a low gravity as well. If it is, then I'd look to the mash to fix that to start with. One thing I suspect can cause a problem is inadequate mash tun insulation. Although the central temperature may be maintained during the mash, the outer parts of the mash can get quite a bit cooler. That can affect a surprisingly large volume of the mash without you realising it. As a check, try stirring the mash at the end and measuring the new temperature. If it drops a lot, you need more insulation. Mashing at a higher temperature and maybe for less time might also be a good idea.

When I had this problem, my bottled version of the beer wasn't fermenting down to a low gravity, however. In fact it was absolutely fine. I now suspect that this low gravity effect can happen in barrels as a side-effect of oxidation (see 1 above). I've fiddled about a lot over the past year trying to measure and reduce the oxygen getting into my barrels, but I think it's a fundamental limitation when using plastic. In my experience, beer barrelled in plastic can be quite excellent for maybe 3 or 4 weeks (once you get it clear, anyway), but the window of perfection is short and after that the bottled version tastes superior. The main defect in the barrelled version is a creeping sourness, so maybe you just shouldn't expect too much.

Perhaps Cornies are better, though - I haven't tried them yet.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Hello Dextrin

I'm not sure I agree with a few things.

I do use a cheap plastic keg but I've kept beer in it for 6 months plus and it's kept well, both kit and AG. The kit ales got noticeably better approaching 4-6 months.

I'm not sure how porous plastic is to oxygen but oak barrels are quite porous to oxygen (as well as bacteria) and these were used before the advent of plastic. I really doubt that this is an issue.

The only time I have ever experienced oxidation is when I let air bubbles go back though the tap at the end of a keg when it had run out of pressure. It went cardboardy/stale within 48 hours, but there was very little beer left. Other than that I have never tasted significantly oxidised beer.

I dough my mashes in pretty carefully take a temperature after stirring then wait five minutes then take the temperature again and give another stir and check the reading doesn't change from my target mash temperature.

I leave the mash for 60 minutes and I usually lose 1'c, which all seems fine to me (probably due to not preheating the mash tun)

From what I've learned from taking samples, you don't have to worry too much about oxidation so long as you still have some live yeast in your beer.

I have to say I'm nervous about the beer I've got fermenting so I'm just going to ignore it until the 12th and hope for the best. I might go back to kit ales if this doesn't work.