In my process I usually start with something around 4 gallons of strike water depending on the amount in the grain bill and the ratio I want to use. When I batch sparged I would end up with 3 gallons on an average with the first running. Now that I fly sparge, I usually end up with roughly 8.75 of pre boil wort and 2 gallons left over in the sparge kettle. This I save if I need top up water in the event I boil off too much. I know I have good sanitized water to add. I split one campdon tablet between the two volums (mash and sparge). So that may be too much for 13 gallons of water? I could shave off some water but I don’t have my starting and ending volumes down to a science yet. My ultimate goal is 5.5 gallons in the fermenter. No I take that back…my ultimate goal is to get rid of the off flavor then I can work on the volums.
Brad
That is a lot of preboil wort. Are you sure you’re not over sparging? You probably aren’t, but it seems like you would be with that much preboil volume. Anyway, Dave has some good insights.
It seems a lot, but I lose just about 3 gallons in a hour with such a large surface area in that 15 cgallon kettle. It winds up that I go through 5.5 gallons of sparge water to reach my pre boil volume. But like I mentioned before, I don’t have this down real good yet. I would love to handle less water with the sparge. I guess I could cut back the amount of sparge water and in the end if I need to I can top off with some bottled water to get to 5.5 gallons into the fermenter. Saturday when I brew, I am going with a less radical boil, just go with a nice easy roll and see if that helps my water loss.
Brad
A vigorous boil is a good thing. If you know you are losing 2 or 3 gallons per hour due to the large kettle, then by all means keep on doing what you are doing. But I do think a whole Campden tablet is overkill. Break it into quarters and use 1/4 for mash in and 1/4 for sparge, and save the rest for a future batch. I’m not exactly sure what too much Campden will do to the flavor, but, you are using a little more than you really need to.
Dave, I have never experienced nor heard about off flavors due to the use of campden. Can you fill me in on what’s happening?
I don’t think Campden is really the problem, but I am unable to discount it. I know when I have used Campden in my cider making, it certainly imparts a salty flavor to the cider at least for a few days before eventually disappearing after its job is done. So, my concern stems from my experience with cider. But the flavor does typically fade over time as well. Unless perhaps too much is used? That is the concern. It’s just an idea – not a for-sure thing.
See my previous novel for further details at:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=119113&start=45#p1043085[quote=“dmtaylo2”]I don’t think Campden is really the problem, but I am unable to discount it. I know when I have used Campden in my cider making, it certainly imparts a salty flavor to the cider at least for a few days before eventually disappearing after its job is done. So, my concern stems from my experience with cider. But the flavor does typically fade over time as well. Unless perhaps too much is used? That is the concern. It’s just an idea – not a for-sure thing.
See my previous novel for further details at:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=119113&start=45#p1043085[/quote]I’m guessing you use sodium metabisulfite and that’s where you get the salty flavor. I use potassium metabisulfite to avoid that.
The bottle I have only says “Campden”. I have no idea which kind I’ve got. But chemically speaking (I am a chemical engineer, by the way), I would think both would taste similarly nasty, and bisulfite is a flavor component that the two share.
[quote=“Denny”]
I’m guessing you use sodium metabisulfite and that’s where you get the salty flavor. I use potassium metabisulfite to avoid that.[/quote]
Chemically speaking, both sodium and potassium can form salts, correct? I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted potassium-based salt, though, so I don’t know if it’d have a “salty” taste…
I think that I don’t get the saltiness from the potassium version that I got from the sodium version. Could all be mental, though. I seem to remember reading about the chemical reaction with the bisulfite and how it was either volatilized or otherwise driven off. You;d know more about that than I would, though.
Potassium salts taste salty, and kind of nasty.
Morton Lite Salt is half sodium half potassium. Potassium is a little more bitter but not horrible, they both taste salty though.
Alright, so I got a chance to taste Brad’s beers tonight. I’m still currently drinking the vanilla porter. But here are my notes on the Alaskan Amber clone and the Vanilla porter.
Alaskan Amber
Appearance: Nice, clear amber color with off white head that leaves no lacing.
Aroma: Caramel aroma with little to no hops and an ever so slight sourness
Flavor: I get a full mouth feeling, possibly from over carbonation as the beers seem pretty highly carbonated or from the early stages of oxidation where beers seem to fill your mouth.
There is a slight tartness or sourness that starts up front and lasts through the back end of the palate. It made me think of tart cherries or some sort of tart dark fruit. Almost reminded of the flavors I get from drink Oud Bruin, which is very malty with a slight sourness. But it doesn’t taste like contamination. It’s not green apple, it’s not buttery, it’s not metallic, it’s just a full mouth feeling with a slight tart dark fruit flavor. I drank New Glarus Raspberry Tart on Saturday, so that flavor is fresh in my mind.
Overall: I thought it was a pretty good beer. Had good color and clarity, just a bit of a dark fruit sourness that lasted through the finish. I know it wasn’t intended, but I kind of liked it.
Vanilla Porter
Appearance: Opaque color with slight dark ruby highlights on the edges and a dark tan to light brown head with no lacing.
Aroma: Slight roast with vanilla dominating. No hop aroma.
Flavor: Same as the aroma with a slight roast with vanilla being the dominating flavor. No hop flavor. I don’t get much, if any, of the tart dark fruit sourness in this beer. Perhaps the roast and vanilla cover it up. I still get a full bodied or filling of the mouth feeling to this beer. Might also be the beginning signs of oxidation, but I don’t taste any cardboad-y flavors that I’ve tasted in oxidized beers. So perhaps that’s not it.
Overall: I think it’s a good beer with perhaps a bit too much vanilla versus the roast quality. It also seems a bit on the sweet side as well. But there really are no off flavors that I can taste. If there’s any sourness it is very faint.
So, in trying to get to the bottom of this “off flavor” it’s very hard to tell at this point. I would suggest creating your own recipe from fresh ingredients and with your newly acquired water profile with adjustments. None of these flavors are bad or make me not want to drink the beers. I’m not a vanilla porter fan, but I actually kind of enjoyed your porter. I’m fairly certain the flavor was not from contamination. What temperature do you typically ferment at? You used pH stabilizer in both of these beers? I didn’t taste the salty flavor that I used to get from that stuff, but I can’t discount that that is what is causing the flavor. Also, campden would not cause that. I brew 4 gallon batches and when I use tap water I split a campden tablet between the mash and sparge water and I don’t get any off flavors.
I hope we can get to the bottom of this for you! There has to be something causing this. If it’s there before you keg it, it’s definitely pre-packaging. So, if you ferment in glass, you should be good there. It very well could be an ingredients issue. If the homebrew shop you get your stuff from doesn’t have a high turnover, I’d say that perhaps you just need to try brewing with fresh ingredients. Also, knowing how to adjust your water will make a big difference.
Cheers, Brad! And thanks for sending me beer! I’ll surely send you back some of mine.
Jesse
Thank you for your time in trying to nail down where this off flavor may coming from. I can tell you your taste is way more refined than mine. You are pulling out flavors and aromas I would have never guessed was in the beers. I will have to pay closer attention the next time I pour a beer. Working in industry for 30 years may have dulled the senses.
The two beers are from two different suppliers. The Porter came from our host,the Alaskan came from a different supplier in Missouri. For the Vanilla Porter I went on BeerSmith and purposely scaled the hops way back. I cut the amount by 1/4 and only did the bittering hop boil for 30 minutes instead of one hour. There was 5.2 stabilizer in both beers. I added 5.2 to both mash and sparge water. I mashed at 150 -153 degrees for both beers and fermented in a glass carboy in a chest freezer with an external temperature controller set to 62 degrees with the temperature probe in a quart of water in the freezer.
I have a Hefeweizen that will be fermenting for three weeks this Sunday. I built this recipe using BeerSmith. I am just learning how to use the program so I am not real sure what to do. I just played around with it and came up with this recipe. I used 8 pounds of wheat and 3 pounds of pilsen malts and a pound of rice hulls to aid in the sparge. For hops I used 1 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh boiled for 45 minutes, and the yeast was Wyeast Weihenstephan Weizen. The mash water was treated with Calcl to bring up the Ca higher than the SO4. I understand that will produce a maltier beer. Using colorpHast strips I was around 5.2 pH. For the mash I did a ferulic acid rest at 105 degrees for 60 minutes then brought up the mash temperature to 152 for 60 minutes. This is my first shot at doing something like this so who knows how it will turn out. With the elimination of the black hose for filling kettles, water treatment and fresher ingredients I am anxious to see if that tartness is still there in the beer. If it is, I will have no clue what to do next. I will keep you posted.
Thanks again for your time
Brad
So, the oktoberfest and the Alaskan Amber were from the same supplier, but the porter was not…sounds like Dave might’ve been right when he said it was maybe stale ingredients. I would trust Northern Brewer to have fresh ingredients with the high turnover they get. I don’t think the black hose would’ve caused it either. I think we can rule out contamination. Are you sure you taste it in the porter? Or are you paranoid and are really looking for it and imagining it there? I’ve definitely done that before. It drives you crazy.
Brad, it’s looking like the problem is now eliminated. If you stop using kits from suppliers who are obscure or of unknown reliability, and start using Northern Brewer’s kits, or developing your own recipes, and always use fresh ingredients, I think your beers will improve. And if your porter is a recent beer, and it apparently did not have the same tartness issue, then yeah, I think your troubles are behind you.
Best of luck to you, Brad.
P.S. Regarding your hefeweizen… this style is supposed to taste slightly tart. So if it turns out tart again, that’s okay! Don’t use this hefeweizen to figure out if your problem is eliminated because a slight tartness is appropriate to the style! See here:
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style15.php#1a[quote=“dmtaylo2”]Brad, it’s looking like the problem is now eliminated. If you stop using kits from suppliers who are obscure or of unknown reliability, and start using Northern Brewer’s kits, or developing your own recipes, and always use fresh ingredients, I think your beers will improve. And if your porter is a recent beer, and it apparently did not have the same tartness issue, then yeah, I think your troubles are behind you.
Best of luck to you, Brad.
P.S. Regarding your hefeweizen… this style is supposed to taste slightly tart. So if it turns out tart again, that’s okay! Don’t use this hefeweizen to figure out if your problem is eliminated because a slight tartness is appropriate to the style! See here:
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style15.php#1a[/quote]Agreed. The hefeweizen will definitely not be a good gauge of whether you’ve resolved the issue. You should try brewing a Northern Brewer amber ale kit or some similar beer or creating your own. I appreciate you sending me beer, Brad. I plan to ship you a couple of mine in the near future. Cheers and keeps us posted as to how your beers are turning out with fresher ingredients.
[quote=“Silentknyght”][quote=“Bier brauer”]
Is it possible my yeast starters be the problem? I keep my starter on the stir plate for 3-4 days depending on work schedule and cold crash for 4 days at 34 degrees. Am I stressing those little yeast cells out?[/quote]
You shouldn’t need that long a cold-crash; about 12 hours will settle enough to decant & pitch. Otherwise, no, a 3-4 day starter length is fine… some might argue that it’s optimal.[/quote]
a starter for 3 to 4 days…no point in waiting that long. You want the yeast active when you pitch it.
Depending on the beer I go maybe 8hr to maybe just over 24hr
[quote=“grainbelt”]a starter for 3 to 4 days…no point in waiting that long. You want the yeast active when you pitch it.
Depending on the beer I go maybe 8hr to maybe just over 24hr[/quote]
Maybe some people do, but I don’t. I want it fermented out so I can decant the spent wort.
[quote=“Denny”][quote=“grainbelt”]a starter for 3 to 4 days…no point in waiting that long. You want the yeast active when you pitch it.
Depending on the beer I go maybe 8hr to maybe just over 24hr[/quote]
Maybe some people do, but I don’t. I want it fermented out so I can decant the spent wort.[/quote]
Agreed. The thought of pouring 2 liters of nasty, unhopped, fermented at room temperature “beer” into my carboy sounds counter-intuitive to the goal of making the tastiest beer you can.
