what caused grainy flavor?

[Steve3730]

so i brewed my first all grain and i know i had some issues..but which caused the beer to taste like grains?

my biggest mistake the strike water was 162 aiming for 152. i mashed in (4 gallons) and the temperature dropped to 147. i started scooping some of my 175 degree sparge water in..not realizing 175 degree water doesn't raise the temperature of 147 degree water easily. by the time i hit 152 degrees(my target) i had poured 2 of 3 gallons of sparge water in. my second mistake was before the boil started i thought my starting amount was low so i added another gallon...this resulted in a low OG. howeveer attenuation was pretty good
target OG 1.056 actual OG 1.044
FG 1.011
recipe
6lbs pale
4lbs red wheat
6oz caravienne
fwh .5 amarillo
60m .25 amarillo
15m .5 amarillo .5 cascade
5m .5 amaillo
1m .5 casacade
1968 yeast

 

[bobeer]

Not too sure what you mean by "tastes like grains" Beer is made from grain so it's going to have some sort of grainy aspect to it.

Putting in the 175 degree water could have stopped some of your convergence. That's a mash-out temp which kills off the enzymes that are converting the starches into sugar. Your attenuation seems decent enough so it seems like this wasn't as much of an issue.

How long has your beer been conditioning before you tried it? Sometimes those wort like flavors mellow and fade out over time while the beer conditions in the bottle/keg.

Do you do any calculations as to how much mash water you need or what strike temp you'll be needed to achieve your desired mash temp? I use an app for my andriod phone called Homebrew Calculator. It calculates all this stuff except the mash water volume. To do that I take the total amount of grain and times it by 1.25 quarts then covert those quarts to gallons. Then I use the homebrew calculator for everything else. For strike temp you put in your total grain amount, how much mash water, the desired mash temp and the current temp of your grains. I just always say my grain is 70 degrees and I've always hit it dead on. The calculator works very well and I strongly recommend it!

FYI- you need to preheat your mash tun with a little hot water before you dump in the strike water and your grains. If you don't the coolness of the mash tun will bring down the strike temp of the water before you even put your grains in.

Sorry if it's TMI or you already know this stuff. I hope it helps in some way.

 

[zmanzorro]

How was your grain milled? I've seen some off flavors categorized as husky/grainy because of over milled grain.

 

[Steve3730]

Not too sure what you mean by "tastes like grains" Beer is made from grain so it's going to have some sort of grainy aspect to it.

Putting in the 175 degree water could have stopped some of your convergence. That's a mash-out temp which kills off the enzymes that are converting the starches into sugar. Your attenuation seems decent enough so it seems like this wasn't as much of an issue.

How long has your beer been conditioning before you tried it? Sometimes those wort like flavors mellow and fade out over time while the beer conditions in the bottle/keg.

Do you do any calculations as to how much mash water you need or what strike temp you'll be needed to achieve your desired mash temp? I use an app for my andriod phone called Homebrew Calculator. It calculates all this stuff except the mash water volume. To do that I take the total amount of grain and times it by 1.25 quarts then covert those quarts to gallons. Then I use the homebrew calculator for everything else. For strike temp you put in your total grain amount, how much mash water, the desired mash temp and the current temp of your grains. I just always say my grain is 70 degrees and I've always hit it dead on. The calculator works very well and I strongly recommend it!

FYI- you need to preheat your mash tun with a little hot water before you dump in the strike water and your grains. If you don't the coolness of the mash tun will bring down the strike temp of the water before you even put your grains in.

Sorry if it's TMI or you already know this stuff. I hope it helps in some way.

it smells and taste like a yeast stater wort prepitch taste and smell. minus some of the sweetness. it has not conditioned too long before i tried it,about 4 days. been there a week now. going to try it again this weekend and see if it has changed. i have some calculations because i ran it through beer smith. 1.25qt/lbs of grain strike 163 sparge 170.i ran the sparge water through the mash tun to warm it up. never TMI thanks for the input

 

[Steve3730]

Not too sure what you mean by "tastes like grains" Beer is made from grain so it's going to have some sort of grainy aspect to it.

Putting in the 175 degree water could have stopped some of your convergence. That's a mash-out temp which kills off the enzymes that are converting the starches into sugar. Your attenuation seems decent enough so it seems like this wasn't as much of an issue.

How long has your beer been conditioning before you tried it? Sometimes those wort like flavors mellow and fade out over time while the beer conditions in the bottle/keg.

Do you do any calculations as to how much mash water you need or what strike temp you'll be needed to achieve your desired mash temp? I use an app for my andriod phone called Homebrew Calculator. It calculates all this stuff except the mash water volume. To do that I take the total amount of grain and times it by 1.25 quarts then covert those quarts to gallons. Then I use the homebrew calculator for everything else. For strike temp you put in your total grain amount, how much mash water, the desired mash temp and the current temp of your grains. I just always say my grain is 70 degrees and I've always hit it dead on. The calculator works very well and I strongly recommend it!

FYI- you need to preheat your mash tun with a little hot water before you dump in the strike water and your grains. If you don't the coolness of the mash tun will bring down the strike temp of the water before you even put your grains in.

Sorry if it's TMI or you already know this stuff. I hope it helps in some way.

it smells and taste like a yeast stater wort prepitch taste and smell. minus some of the sweetness. it has not conditioned too long before i tried it,about 4 days. been there a week now. going to try it again this weekend and see if it has changed. i have some calculations because i ran it through beer smith. 1.25qt/lbs of grain strike 163 sparge 170.i ran the sparge water through the mash tun to warm it up. never TMI thanks for the input

 

[bobeer]

it smells and taste like a yeast stater wort prepitch taste and smell. minus some of the sweetness. it has not conditioned too long before i tried it,about 4 days. been there a week now. going to try it again this weekend and see if it has changed. i have some calculations because i ran it through beer smith. 1.25qt/lbs of grain strike 163 sparge 170.i ran the sparge water through the mash tun to warm it up. never TMI thanks for the input

Yea, 4 days in a bottle is not nearly long enough. Fermentation restarted due to the priming sugar so you're going to get that wort like taste. Let them sit for 3 weeks at 70 degrees and they'll probably be totally fine.

 

[Steve3730]

Yea, 4 days in a bottle is not nearly long enough. Fermentation restarted due to the priming sugar so you're going to get that wort like taste. Let them sit for 3 weeks at 70 degrees and they'll probably be totally fine.

kegged. i tasted it last night and it had a little better yeast taste to it

 

[Bellybuster]

4 days!!!! have some patience man!!!

with your recipe, the low mash temp, it should be light and hoppy. A refreshing type beer
Actually tasting the grain itself is where many home brewers would love to be. 6 row will give a nice grainy taste.

 

[bobeer]

kegged. i tasted it last night and it had a little better yeast taste to it

oh ok. Kegged or bottled 4 days still isn't enough time for it to condition out. Are you doing the set it and forget it method or are you force carbing at a high psi?

 

[Steve3730]

Yea, 4 days in a bottle is not nearly long enough. Fermentation restarted due to the priming sugar so you're going to get that wort like taste. Let them sit for 3 weeks at 70 degrees and they'll probably be totally fine.

Forced 30psi for 48 hours. Tasted it yesterday slightly better but still not good. Thinking of dry hopping the keg to get some hop profile in there and make it more drinkable

 

[bobeer]

Forced 30psi for 48 hours. Tasted it yesterday slightly better but still not good. Thinking of dry hopping the keg to get some hop profile in there and make it more drinkable

Yea, at 5 days later since our last convo, it should have mellowed out at 30psi. Let us know how the dry hop affects it. Good luck man!

 

[Steve3730]

Yea, at 5 days later since our last convo, it should have mellowed out at 30psi. Let us know how the dry hop affects it. Good luck man!

Thank. I'm brewing to batches next week and hope to have my mash rest and sparge problem fixed

 

[CeeTee]

I know exactly what you mean by "grainy taste" as I posted the exact question on here before and no one knew exactly what I was talking about. It tastes like you're literally chewing on grain (Like oatmeal), or grain husks...

While I never pinpointed the cause, once I got a couple all grain brews under my belt, it went away. I notice Maris Otter will give you this taste more than Pale Malt. FWIW

 

[Steve3730]

I know exactly what you mean by "grainy taste" as I posted the exact question on here before and no one knew exactly what I was talking about. It tastes like you're literally chewing on grain (Like oatmeal), or grain husks...

While I never pinpointed the cause, once I got a couple all grain brews under my belt, it went away. I notice Maris Otter will give you this taste more than Pale Malt. FWIW

Thanks. I think i actually found your thread when googling grainy flavor and seen noone really had a direct answer. Glad to hear you got it fixed.

 

[Qhrumphf]

oh ok. Kegged or bottled 4 days still isn't enough time for it to condition out. Are you doing the set it and forget it method or are you force carbing at a high psi?

Bollocks. If you do your job right, it's entirely possible to go grain to glass in less than a week. Not saying that's the case here, but I doubt that's his problem. Were we looking at acetaldehyde or diacetyl, or bite from CO2 or something, sure, but that doesn't sound like this.

You're dealing with a basically all base-malt wort. I'm not familiar with your water source (Chicago water, bottled water, if you treat it, whatever), but given that its your first all-grain, I'm assuming you didn't do much in terms of mash pH (water treatments, acid additions, etc). With a very pale beer like that, any alkalinity in the water that's not being counteracted (and even without any alkalinity in this case), especially in the sparge water, it's easy to start pulling tannins out of the grain husks. That leads to astringency and....graininess.

Also, wheat can be grainy, and your base malt could too. Without tasting it, it's hard to tell. But if you get an astringency from the beer (imagine sucking on a tea bag, that sensation on the sides of the tongue), I'm more than willing to bet tannins are the issue. And tannins, unfortunately, will not really age out.

 

[Steve3730]

Bollocks. If you do your job right, it's entirely possible to go grain to glass in less than a week. Not saying that's the case here, but I doubt that's his problem. Were we looking at acetaldehyde or diacetyl, or bite from CO2 or something, sure, but that doesn't sound like this.

You're dealing with a basically all base-malt wort. I'm not familiar with your water source (Chicago water, bottled water, if you treat it, whatever), but given that its your first all-grain, I'm assuming you didn't do much in terms of mash pH (water treatments, acid additions, etc). With a very pale beer like that, any alkalinity in the water that's not being counteracted (and even without any alkalinity in this case), especially in the sparge water, it's easy to start pulling tannins out of the grain husks. That leads to astringency and....graininess.

Also, wheat can be grainy, and your base malt could too. Without tasting it, it's hard to tell. But if you get an astringency from the beer (imagine sucking on a tea bag, that sensation on the sides of the tongue), I'm more than willing to bet tannins are the issue. And tannins, unfortunately, will not really age out.

Our public water report has a ph of 7.4 i believe. I did not treat the water at all. How do i go about testing? When do i test ph? When its just water or the wort?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Our public water report has a ph of 7.4 i believe. I did not treat the water at all. How do i go about testing? When do i test ph? When its just water or the wort?

The water pH is only marginally relevant. The important factors for mash chemistry are alkalinity and hardness. Those are what ultimately determine the pH. Calcium and magnesium hardness are usually good (within reason) and carbonate alkalinity is usually bad.

Two points ultimately matter, having a room temp mash pH in the 5.2-5.5 (would be less at mash temp but sample needs to be cooled and measured at room temp), and then the pH during the sparge, which should not exceed 6 by the end of the sparge. Fermenter and beer pH matter too, but if the mash and sparge pH are in line, the rest should be too.

Even in distilled water (with no alkalinity) the pH is usually still to high with nothing but base malts.

Maybe someone else can link it since I'm on my phone but there's a great "primer" stickied in the brewing science section. Will get you in the right ranges without having to measure. But you'll either have to RO filter yourself or buy water. Treating tap water is cheaper and faster but more complicated.

Meanwhile, if you stick to beers with more specialty grain (crystal, roast malts, etc) you'll find hitting the right pH easier.

 

[bobeer]

Bollocks. If you do your job right, it's entirely possible to go grain to glass in less than a week. Not saying that's the case here, but I doubt that's his problem. Were we looking at acetaldehyde or diacetyl, or bite from CO2 or something, sure, but that doesn't sound like this.

It is possible to drink your beer in a week but that's not what the OP is trying to do... at the time it had only been 4 days conditioning and he said it smelled like a starter; which is fermenting wort or unconditioned beer. Letting your beer sit for a while can mellow out a lot of off flavors, as we all know.

Like I said in an earlier post it sounds like adding the 175 degree water could have either stopped the mash convergence or extracted tannins. Both would have a grainy affect on the finished beer...
I'd find a way to choke this brew down and brew it again with the correct mash temp and see if there's any difference before you go down the ph level/building water trail. IMO, it's best to nail down the problem so you know what caused it. If you build your water next brew, you'll also hit your mash temps correctly, I'd assume, and you'll never really know what caused your issue. If you still have the same issue after a re-brew then I'd look into the water chemistry stuff.

 

[kh54s10]

so i brewed my first all grain and i know i had some issues..but which caused the beer to taste like grains?

my biggest mistake the strike water was 162 aiming for 152. i mashed in (4 gallons) and the temperature dropped to 147. i started scooping some of my 175 degree sparge water in..not realizing 175 degree water doesn't raise the temperature of 147 degree water easily. by the time i hit 152 degrees(my target) i had poured 2 of 3 gallons of sparge water in. my second mistake was before the boil started i thought my starting amount was low so i added another gallon...this resulted in a low OG. howeveer attenuation was pretty good
target OG 1.056 actual OG 1.044
FG 1.011
recipe
6lbs pale
4lbs red wheat
6oz caravienne
fwh .5 amarillo
60m .25 amarillo
15m .5 amarillo .5 cascade
5m .5 amaillo
1m .5 casacade
1968 yeast

Strike water temperature needs to be calculated to give you the correct mash temperature. I would think you needed 165 or higher to get the right mash temperature.

147 degrees for a mash temperature is on the low side and should have resulted a dry beer which should not be described as "grainy"

You also need to determine your boil off rate so that you collect the right amount of wort - pre-boil. My rig boils off almost 2 gallons per hour so I need a little over 7 gallons to end up with just over 5 gallons in the fermenter. Adding the extra water was most of what lowered the OG.

The addition of the water should have diluted the wort and again should lessen any grainy flavor.

Try 1.25 -1.35 quarts per pound of grain for your mash.

Sparge temperature is not critical if you are doing a batch sparge since it is done quickly, mash out to stop conversion is not necessary.

Another thought. If you have only drawn off a couple of glasses from the keg you might be tasting yeast and debris that has settled to the bottom. It might be a lot better after a few more glasses have been drawn.

 

[Qhrumphf]

It is possible to drink your beer in a week but that's not what the OP is trying to do... at the time it had only been 4 days conditioning and he said it smelled like a starter; which is fermenting wort or unconditioned beer. Letting your beer sit for a while can mellow out a lot of off flavors, as we all know.

Like I said in an earlier post it sounds like adding the 175 degree water could have either stopped the mash convergence or extracted tannins. Both would have a grainy affect on the finished beer...
I'd find a way to choke this brew down and brew it again with the correct mash temp and see if there's any difference before you go down the ph level/building water trail. IMO, it's best to nail down the problem so you know what caused it. If you build your water next brew, you'll also hit your mash temps correctly, I'd assume, and you'll never really know what caused your issue. If you still have the same issue after a re-brew then I'd look into the water chemistry stuff.

I don't think this is a temp issue. I routinely use sparge water hotter than that without tannin problems (because the grain bed itself never exceeds 170). I think it's a pH issue.

But i agree with trying one variable at a time generally. However which one causes the issue doesn't matter as long as the issue is fixed, no? And proper mash temp and proper mash/water chemistry both improve the beer so there's no reason not to do both.

 

[coolharry]

If it's the same flavor I'm thinking of, I'd look at your mash ph and water chemistry too. I did back to back batches of an English bitter this spring, the first without any water modifications, and the second with added salts and acid malt additions figured with bru'n water. The first had a very rough grainy taste, the second did not. Check out the water primer and the water knowledge tab in the bru'n water spread sheet and see if it helps.

 

[bobeer]

However which one causes the issue doesn't matter as long as the issue is fixed, no? And proper mash temp and proper mash/water chemistry both improve the beer so there's no reason not to do both.

Totes Mgoats.