Flavour issue Pacific Ale clone

[wolfeyes]

Hi all...

I brewed a biab pacific ale clone today... on completion I tasted a sample and noticed a fairly profound off flavour. For the first time ever i tried to sparge by pouring some mash-out temp water over the grain bag trying to chase some extra efficiency points. My thought was i may have extracted some unwanted flavours from the grain during this process.

I only have about 6 or so all-grain brews under my belt and have been progressively improving. My last brew being the best i have ever done, but I’m still on a very steep learning curve.

The brew is currently sitting in a cube really to dump in to fermenter. My question is should i still proceed in fermenting / cold crash and hope the off-flavour subsides?

cheers

 

[Danscraftbeer]

That's a hard call. Off flavor pre ferment. What kind of flavor? Sparging is a normal procedure but how hot? Ideally ~76c. Then again i see people mash out at high temps like 85c. I never go that high but I do decoctions (boiling a portion of the mash and returning it) and get good results for maltiness etc.
I think you may be prematurely worried. Finish it through at least for the learning. You may be surprised and get a great result depending on whatever the flavor is that your worried about.

 

[MHB]

Well, if the only thing wrong is some over temperature sparging, you might have picked up some extra tannins. You could probably go on and brew the beer, treat it as part of learning.
The first question would be, what did you measure the sparge water temperature with? is it accurate.
Second being do you need to get those extra couple of points at the risk of harming your whole batch, probably be better to do a slightly smaller batch and do a classic all BIAB, pretty hard to go wrong.
After you get the basics down, might be a better time to start tinkering.

You have a good club in Newcastle, we will be meeting on the 18th next month. If you put a bit of the wort into a small bottle and freeze it, bring some of the brewed wort along to, I'm sure you will find plenty of people happy to give you a hand.
I'm doing a TechTalk on FOB (Foam On Beer) that you might be interested in.
Another way to try to work out what has gone wrong is to open the "Complete Beer Fault Guide" then search for anything you can think of that might describe what you are smelling or tasting.
Mark

 

[manticle]

It does depend somewhat on what that off flavour is. Can you describe it?

 

[MHB]

That's a hard call. Off flavor pre ferment. What kind of flavor? Sparging is a normal procedure but how hot? Ideally ~76c. Then again i see people mash out at high temps like 85c. I never go that high but I do concoctions (boiling a portion of the mash and returning it) and get good results for maltiness etc.
I think you may be prematurely worried. Finish it through at least for the learning. You may be surprised and get a great result depending on whatever the flavor is that your worried about.

I'm pretty sure he means Decoction (Not that I'm a spelling/gramma Nazi or anything)
Why is 76oC regarded as ideal, provided your sparge water is slightly acidic, 80oC is the number you will find in every reference book.
The hotter the better, but over 80oC well you will get Tannin extractions.
M

 

[wolfeyes]

Thanks for the replies guys...


Sparge water was 75 degrees heated on stove, my probe thermometer is pretty accurate. I actually had it sitting on the table for a few minutes before i used it so im assuming it would of been just under 75.
The only other thing i did wrong (that i can remember) was put the brewbrite in a bit late (5mins from flame out), but i boiled a bit longer (maybe 10mins more all up). I also boiled a bit harder this time to reach the desired flameout volume.



Its hard the describe the taste, its definitely pronounced....maybe a chemical-ish type taste...i know that doesn’t help much.


Im assuming i have stuffed up sparging somehow since it was my first try..


I think your right Mark, ill keep things simple next time. The last beer i brewed (Sierra Nevada pale ale clone) was the best thing i have ever brewed.

I’ll chuck in fermenter and see how i go.



Off-topic..

Hey Manticle...are you the same Manticle that organised the CMI fest in 2006?

 

[manticle]

Yes, that's me.

 

[manticle]

Chemical taste suggests something other than hot/oversparge.

Any specifics on 'chemical'? Did you use chlorine or pink stain remover anywhere?
Medicinal? Solvent? Dettol?

 

[fdsaasdf]

What do you use for cleaning? Is it possible there was still residue from a cleaning product?

Have you introduced any new vinyl or plastic parts into your brewery?

Is it possible that your bag touched an element or other heat source and melted?

 

[Matplat]

The above suggestions are definitely a good place to look.

I can understand why you would think that this process change would be the culprit, but if you sparged with 75deg water, it almost definitely isn't. Perhaps you changed something else that you wouldn't consider to make much difference?

Where did your water come from?

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Agree to all above. The sparge is not the culprit as long as you used clean hot water. Tannins are like stale tea flavor.
Chemical flavor of some kind leans toward , well, chemicals etc. New plastic products? Forgot to empty the cleaning or sanitizing solution?
New products need a good hot clean, hot rinse, sanitize etc.

 

[drjoffily]

Hi wolfeyes, I used the Pacific Ale clone from Snow a while back and had the same problem. Mine was a all grain and I was sure I did everything right. I was extremely disappointed with the tannins flavor. I went ahead and bottled it and waited 2 weeks to conditioning and carbonation. Apart from the off flavor the beer was perfect. Great head, great colour, great malt balance but the taste was disappointing.
I drank all of them myself. As a tip from some of the old dogs in this forum, never throw beer away. Take the process to the end and drink it to know what your mistake caused on the beer.
I didn't know what mistake I made but I drank all bottles in a space of 3 months. Even with the off taste it tasted better than most of the commercial beers.
Months latter reading some other post in this forum I learned that the galaxy hops (which is the only hop on Snow's clone) when used in excess gives that cardboard like taste.
That's when I realised I used double the amount of hops needed in the recipe. The recipe used whole hops and I used pellets which are much more concentrated.

Lesson learned. Since then I've already made many delicious beers [emoji6]

 

[fdsaasdf]

Months latter reading some other post in this forum I learned that the galaxy hops (which is the only hop on Snow's clone) when used in excess gives that cardboard like taste.

I can't say I've heard of this before, and without more information it doesn't sound like a problem with the hop variety to me (of course using too much for an intended recipe will cause balance issues). I've used Galaxy at >2g/L in the brewhouse for single hop IPAs without any off flavours.

 

[MHB]

Galaxy is a great hop, up to a point, use too much and I to find it pretty unpleasant.
If however the OP used the Brewman recipe (which I suspect he did) it wont be out of balance.
Worth noting that Pacific Ale is brewed with all Galaxy, probably not as much as some would think, but its a one hop beer.

Cardboard is a classic Oxidisation Flavour, just not usually in the wort, its a flavour that takes time

Mark

 

[Coalminer]

Galaxy is a great hop, up to a point, use too much and I to find it pretty unpleasant.
If however the OP used the Brewman recipe (which I suspect he did) it wont be out of balance.
Worth noting that Pacific Ale is brewed with all Galaxy, probably not as much as some would thing but its a one hop beer.

Cardboard is a classic Oxidisation Flavour, just not usually in the wort, its a flavour that takes time

Mark

Mark, the Brewman version bitters with 6g Magnum then all Galaxy, taste and aroma

Really hard to pick the difference from the real thing in a blind test

 

[MHB]

There are two versions, one at the top of the list, the one you are referring to, with the magnum and another way down listed under stone and wood, it is all Galaxy.
I wrote the all Galaxy version when the beer was pretty newly on the market, after going to a talk by a brewer who had been there brewing and listed all the times and weights.. I would say it very accurately reflects what the beer was when it launched.
The version with Magnum is Steve (Brewmans) pet project, It tastes really good, personally I think its a better overall beer than the PA.

Sorry, forgot the second version was in there, not trying to cause confusion.
Mark

 

[Droopy Brew]

How do you treat your water? If it is straight unfiltered tap water and your council has recently dosed it up with chlorine then you may have chloramine issues which will present as a antiseptic/chemical/bandaid flavour. Sounds the most likely suspect given the symptoms.

 

[Brewman_]

I guess lots of good info here and anyone or maybe something else could be the cause. Both recipes are very light bodied, and before fermentation will have a pronounced bitterness.

Particularly for the Galaxy bittered version. This version, like the commercial example in my opinion has a bite from the Galaxy bittering that I don't like. It will fade during fermentation to a point most drinkers don't mind it or in fact don't notice it. This was the reason I created a new version bittered with Magnum.

The Magnum bittered version. The bittering is super clean and smooth. The hop aroma and taste is fresh, vibrant and very fruit punch like. The only thing I have ever noticed with this version is when the boil is less than 90 minutes the Weyermann premium Pils does not seem to have been completely cleaned up of the associated undesirable malt aromas. A 90 minute boil does the trick and is how the recipe is designed, with bittering additions at 60 min, check that also.

But having said this, these are my notes after brewing both many times, and I have to say in both recipes the affects are very subtle, they are really points of fine tuning.

 

[wolfeyes]

Yes, that's me.

I thought that was you...best 2 days in melbourne ever...still have the t-shirt.

 

[wolfeyes]

Hey guys...

I dumped in fermenter on Sunday, tasted again and it still had that flavour right up front...... It basically coats your tongue and lingers there.

I noticed i was atleast 3 litres under volume into the fermenter as well (yes i didn’t measure at flame out)....i consciously boiled a bit harder this time as a result of my last brew....obviously too hard!

I tested again today and took a gravity reading.... the flavour has definitely sub-sided a fair bit which is good ...but its still present... im hoping once its dry hopped and cold crashed it may go away even more....fingers crossed.....I’m taking it as learning curve....if its drinkable its a bonus...

I don’t treat my water atm Droopy but it’s something i will be changing soon...at the very least use a filter.

cheers