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Author Topic: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??  (Read 1889 times)

Offline Philbrew

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Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« on: July 28, 2015, 03:49:58 pm »
Made a 6 gal. batch of rye ale.  Kegged 5 gal. and bottled 12 bottles four weeks ago.  Has a pronounced astringent/mineral after taste that seems to be mellowing a bit (or I may be getting used to/liking it).  I want to make more in future but without or less of the after taste.

It's an extract and mini-mash recipe I concocted.
WY 1332, 5-1/2 lbs. American light LME, hops for 35 IBU,
1 lb. of rye malt and 1 lb. of carapils in a nylon bag mini-mashed in a 1 gal. tun (https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=23145.0).
After an hour mash, I pulled the grain bag and dunked it in 3 gal. of 165-168 F brew water for 20 min. to sparge the sugars.  Then I added the sweet wort from the tun and the LME and went to boil.  Maybe I should have added the sweet wort before the dunk sparge??

I used a Bru'n Water pale ale water profile that called for 300 ppm sulfate and 55 ppm chloride but I reduced the sulfate to 200 ppm.  Perhaps I should have used a *yellow bitter* profile (105/45 sulfate/chloride)??

All opinions/thoughts/suggestions greatly appreciated.

edit:  I should add that the beer turned out clean, brilliant and very dry.  The WY1332 took it all the way down to FG = 1.005.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2015, 09:32:22 pm by Philbrew »
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Offline mainebrewer

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2015, 04:32:33 pm »
I used the "Pale Ale" profile for a few batches of APA and found it to be to "minerally" for my taste.
I switched to the "yellow bitter" profile and like it much better.

Didn't notice the OP was doing an extract/mini-mash beer, my experience is doing all grain.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2015, 05:01:10 am by mainebrewer »
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Offline JT

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2015, 04:57:02 am »
I'm not surprised this occurred with an extract recipe.  Extracts already have minerals in them from the water that was used to make them.  So basically when you made the batch you added a known amount of minerals to an unknown amount of minerals. 

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Edit: I would recommend using straight RO or distilled water for extract. 

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2015, 05:16:05 am »
I'm not surprised this occurred with an extract recipe.  Extracts already have minerals in them from the water that was used to make them.  So basically when you made the batch you added a known amount of minerals to an unknown amount of minerals. 

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Edit: I would recommend using straight RO or distilled water for extract. 

I agree with all of this.
Jon H.

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2015, 05:24:31 am »
+2 - do not add salts to extract recipes. You have no idea what the mineral content of the original brewer's water was. You may even be better off using RO or distilled water.

Offline Phil_M

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2015, 05:33:02 am »
+3

I've got a NB bitter extract kit on tap right now, and it's VERY mineral-y by itself. I brewed it with 100% RO water.
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2015, 05:47:47 am »
I remember back when I brewed from extract that using 'spring' water made minerally, sometimes unpleasant beer, and RO and distilled made much better beer - no big surprise. It took me awhile to realize that the extract had its own unknown mineral content.
Jon H.

Offline erockrph

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2015, 06:06:06 am »
+2 - do not add salts to extract recipes. You have no idea what the mineral content of the original brewer's water was. You may even be better off using RO or distilled water.

+2.5 - The only exception is if you're tweaking a known recipe and all the other factors are the same (i.e., water source and extract brand/type remain the same). In that case if you feel like the recipe needs a boost you can start adding small amounts of a mineral to adjust the recipe to taste.

I found that my extract pale ales & IPA's improved with an extra 1/2 tsp of gypsum in a 3 gallon batch. I think that's in the ballpark of an extra 100ppm or so of Sulfate. I use soft well water and Muntons Extra Light DME, so YMMV. I have heard that Briess's water has a relatively high mineral content, so you may want to think twice about adding extra minerals to it.
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Offline Philbrew

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #8 on: July 29, 2015, 12:07:13 pm »
Bingo!  Very helpful comments from all of the above.  Thank you.

I started out brewing 10 batches of lagers.  Then this was my first attempt at an ale.  (Yeah, I know...I seem to do everything bass-ackwards!)  The RO water I brew with didn't need much additions for the lagers and the pilsner LME (Williams) that I used for them probably didn't have much mineral content either.  I'll go real easy on the minerals for future extract ales.

Two more questions: 
I should still add minerals for the mini-mash water, yes?
The "dunk sparge" the grain bag in 3+ gallons of straight RO water will be OK?
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Offline JT

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Re: Mineral/astringent after taste in a rye ale...water or ??
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2015, 04:48:45 am »
No, you shouldn't need minerals at all since you will be adding what is likely a sufficient amount during the boil. 

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« Last Edit: July 30, 2015, 04:50:49 am by JT »