Hello,
I did my first all grain brew just before Christmas, a "Lamington Porter", and have just tapped the keg.
I'm reasonably happy with the flavour - vanilla, chocolate, and coconut aroma, good mouth-feel, very chocolatey front and middle, sweet vanilla back, with a nice long sweet finish, with cacao and hop bitterness. But, it leaves me wanting a glass of water - it tastes salty?!
I don't think there was anything in the mash that could be the source - mash started at around 68, and it dropped a few degrees over a nice long 90mins mash. The recipe I was following had me adding cocoa powder and lactose to the boil, along with flaked coconut. Now the recipe called for toasted coconut, but I was multi-tasking and ran out of time to toast, so chucked it in un-toasted. In secondary I added more coconut - toasted this time, cacao nibs, and a dash of vanilla extract (Queen's). My water was just plain old carbon filtered Sydney tap water. I am 99% sure that there was no salt in the coconut or anything else.
So the question is, what is my most likely cause for the salty feeling left in my mouth?
Some reading suggests this could be due to chocolate or coconut oils, converting to soap, and forming salts? Could this be it?
Or maybe from yeast? Or a little yeast autolysis? I don't really detect any yeast flavour except at the very end of the first pour (US-05). It was on the yeast cake in my fermenting fridge for just under 6 weeks. It's been cold keg conditioning for 2 1/2 weeks.
I find it a little unlikely, but now I'm doubting my cleaning processes... could it be from a bit too much StarSan in the transfer tubes? Or some sodium percarbonate not rinsed out of something?
I was planning to brew again, altering the quantities of the flavour additions to suit, and maybe trying a different yeast (maybe Notto), but would like to avoid the salty after taste next time! Cheers!
I did my first all grain brew just before Christmas, a "Lamington Porter", and have just tapped the keg.
I'm reasonably happy with the flavour - vanilla, chocolate, and coconut aroma, good mouth-feel, very chocolatey front and middle, sweet vanilla back, with a nice long sweet finish, with cacao and hop bitterness. But, it leaves me wanting a glass of water - it tastes salty?!
I don't think there was anything in the mash that could be the source - mash started at around 68, and it dropped a few degrees over a nice long 90mins mash. The recipe I was following had me adding cocoa powder and lactose to the boil, along with flaked coconut. Now the recipe called for toasted coconut, but I was multi-tasking and ran out of time to toast, so chucked it in un-toasted. In secondary I added more coconut - toasted this time, cacao nibs, and a dash of vanilla extract (Queen's). My water was just plain old carbon filtered Sydney tap water. I am 99% sure that there was no salt in the coconut or anything else.
So the question is, what is my most likely cause for the salty feeling left in my mouth?
Some reading suggests this could be due to chocolate or coconut oils, converting to soap, and forming salts? Could this be it?
Or maybe from yeast? Or a little yeast autolysis? I don't really detect any yeast flavour except at the very end of the first pour (US-05). It was on the yeast cake in my fermenting fridge for just under 6 weeks. It's been cold keg conditioning for 2 1/2 weeks.
I find it a little unlikely, but now I'm doubting my cleaning processes... could it be from a bit too much StarSan in the transfer tubes? Or some sodium percarbonate not rinsed out of something?
I was planning to brew again, altering the quantities of the flavour additions to suit, and maybe trying a different yeast (maybe Notto), but would like to avoid the salty after taste next time! Cheers!
