Racked to secondary and bitter

gauthierk · 04-03-2006, 01:29 AM

I just transferred to my secondary and took a little sample for my gravity and a little sip. The batch is bitter bitter bitter. Is this the general bitterness I am going to get or will my IBU"s go down some. The expected IBU in the kit said I was going to get 15 IBU's but it seems a bit stronger than that. Would there be something that I have done to make it a bit more bitter?

**budbo** · 04-03-2006, 01:36 AM

It should mellow with age.

homebrewer_99 · 04-03-2006, 01:42 AM

Where is the recipe and your notes? We could give you a better critique if we knew that info.

gauthierk · 04-03-2006, 02:55 AM

This is the kit that I used..

3.5 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
2 lbs Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
8oz. Crushed Cyrstal Malt 60L
4oz Crushed Chocolate
1 oz Crushed Roasted Barley
1 oz Fuggle Hops (Bittering)
1/2 oz. Fuggle Hops (Finishing)
1 each Grain Steeping bag
5 oz Priming Sugar
60 each Crown Caps
1 each Beer Yeast

Starting Gravity1.045- 1.050
Final Gravity 1.010- 1.012
Alchohol by volume 4%-5%
Hop IBU's 15-18

I made a full boil out of the thing. Started off with about 6 gallons and ended up with a hair over 5 gallons... I figured I'd lose some with the transferring from fermenter to fermenter. I'll give a description of step by step what I did.

Put the grains into the cheese cloth and tossed it into a kettle of 6 gallons.
It took about 30 minutes to get it to 170F where I steeped them for 20 minutes as per the paper with the kit.

Removed the grains, and hung them over the pot for about 5 minutes to drain back into the wort. Brought the wort up to a boil then put in my extracts.. The dry went in first then the liquid. When I got it back up to a boil, I put in the hops. boiled for 55 minutes then put in the finishing hops. The finishing hops boiled for about 5 minutes then took the wort off of the fire. I used a wort chiller and got it down to room temp in about 30 minutes. (had to fight with the sink adaptor a few times).

I racked into the primary 6.5 gallon carboy, placed my dual chamber airlock filled with cheap vodka and put it in the dark closet. I started having a little activity about about 4 hours. Like maby a bubble every 10 minutes or so. 48 hours later I thought it was going to blow the airlock off of the fermenter. I know I had to refill the air lock twice. After three days the activity almost came to a hault. I had about one bubble every 15 minutes. This would be about 6 days after I boiled the brew. I racked to the secondary and now it sits with a bubble about every thirty to fourty minutes... Anything else I can add to help with the advice?

flingdingo · 04-03-2006, 08:46 AM

I've noticed my beers are a lot less bitter after bottling and carbonation. I guess something about the bubbles cuts down on the perceived bitterness.

Don't worry about how your beer tastes until it is DONE. I recently brewed a California Common that I thought was junk until it mellowed in the bottle for 6 weeks, now it is one of my favorite batches.

boo boo · 04-03-2006, 11:32 AM

You just may be tasting the adjuncts steeped, like the chocolate malt. Give it time to mellow.

**budbo** · 04-03-2006, 12:32 PM

Did the kit call for a full boil or a 2 gallon? If you change the size of the boil on a kit you need to adjust the hops. According to the recipator by going from a 2 gallon boil to a 6 gallon boil you took your IBU from 11 to 23. So any way you look at it the beer is going to be more bitter than planned. by adding the 4 gallons of water you should have halved the hops.

gauthierk · 04-03-2006, 06:43 PM

The kit said that it was for a 3 gallon or 5 gallon boil. I have a huge pot so I just went for the full 5 gallons... It's not that I don't like bitter. I kinda like my beer on that side. My main concern was that it was a bit bitter than expected. I want to make sure I can control my batches better. On the positive side, my sig other doesn't like bitter beer so its more for me.. hahaha

What's a good program to use for putting together some custome mixes?

El Pistolero · 04-03-2006, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gauthierk

What's a good program to use for putting together some custome mixes?

**budbo** · 04-04-2006, 02:50 AM

http://www3.telus.net/sockmonkeysandbeer/beer/BrewEaze/BrewEaze.html