Please HELP with harsh bitterness/astringency/tongue drying issue

Hey all,

Been consistently getting a rather harsh bitterness to pretty much all of my all grain batches, regardless of recipe. The sort that isn't all too detectable with friends but is a huge deal to the brewer. It is the main thing separating my beers from decent to great and it is KILLING ME!

If you could help me troubleshoot this that would be amazing!!

Here is a sample WC IPA recipe:

Est Original Gravity: 1.063 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 %
Bitterness: 65.5 IBUs
Est Color: 6.2 SRM

13 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 74.3 %
2 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 11.4 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.7 %
8.0 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 4 2.9 %
0.75 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 28.7 IBUs
2.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop 6 17.5 IBUs
1.25 oz El Dorado [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop 7 11.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop 8 4.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 15.0 min Hop 9 3.7 IBUs
1.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz El Dorado [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs

RO Water report:
pH 5.9
TDS 14
Ca 1
Mg <1
Sodium 2
Chloride 1
Total Hardness 3
Total Alkalinity 3
Bicarbonate 4

I added 4mL Lactic, 4g CaSO4, and 3g CaCl to mash (keep in mind this is no-sparge).

Batch Volume (gal) 5.50 Hardness (ppm as CaCO3) 155 RA (ppm as CaCO3) -86
Estimated Mash pH 5.2 Alkalinity (ppm as CaCO3) -43 SO4/Cl Ratio 1.42

Finished water profile:
Ca - 60 Mg 1 Na 2 SO4 74 Cl 52 Bicarbonate -52
Mash pH 5.3.
Pre boil mash pH 5.4
Beer pH 4.6.

I have tried changing water sources, moved from fly sparge to no sparge, closely monitored ph, and still have this issue. I am literally going crazy and even looking at weird things suspiciously, such as my innocent plate chiller!

I brew on a single tier keggle setup with pumps and a plate chiller.

Ferment at 68 with healthy yeast. Cold crash and keg.

Please help with this, I would be greatly indebted.

For what it's worth, I am truly suspecting the salts and am tempted to do a batch with no salts at all. But how could this be? Tons of recipes call for much higher salt additions and I am using RO water.

Thanks in advance.

Have you brewed a malt forward beer style?  How did that come out? 

There are two possible causes for your astringency issue:  (1) tannins are being extracted from the grain husks or (2) over addition of hops is leading to hop astringency from polyphenols extracted from the hops due to the high volume of hop matter.  Looking at your process measurements, I would be surprised if your issue is coming from the grains.  This leaves the massive amounts of hops in your recipe; especially whirlpool and dry hopping.  3.5 oz of hops for dry hopping seems a little excessive in my mind.  I just finished up brewing a NEIPA today where I am hopping with about 1.8 oz of dry hop in two additions and that is pushing the limit of hop loading in my process. 

My water is pretty soft and very close to your RO water in mineral content.  My salt additions are in the same range as you are adding for hop forward recipes and I end up in the same general finished mineral levels as you have (except for Chloride, as my base level of Chloride is bit higher) and I have not had any issues with astringency from those low mineral levels.

Just my thoughts, maybe others will have better insight.


Edit:  Another thought, if your friends are not picking it up, could it be that you are sensitive to the astringency or bitterness?  Personally, I cannot drink a lot of the high bitterness brews that are out in the marketplace these days.  My taste buds pick up nothing but bitter and none of them seem to have any malt character due to that.  When I brew an IPA that I feel is well balanced, most beer judges tell me it belongs in the APA category. 

What temperature do you sparge at? When is the last time you calibrated your thermometer? How long do you sparge for and do you check the gravity while sparging to ensure it doesn't get too low?

Mark