Rack to secondary to reduce hop flavor?

I am trying to make a clone of BJ's Restaurant's "Jeremiah Red" it is a malty red, with very little hop flavor.

I boiled approximately 1 - 1.25 gallons and added hops at the following rate:
.75 oz Northern Brewer 8% AA - 60min
.75 oz Northern Brewer 8% AA - 30min
.5 oz Northern Brewer 8% AA - 10 min

I did not put the pellets in a bag, I just threw them in the pot. When transferring to the primary I poured through a kitchen strainer.

After tasting the beer which was pulled for a hydrometer reading it had a very strong hop flavor. If I rack to a carboy (which will need to be purchased), will this help reduce the hop flavor by getting the beer off of the hops that remain in the pail, or has this already become a flavor of the beer because it has set on the hops for 2+ weeks?

I'm not sure if you can reduce it by racking. The alpha acids have already been isomerized into the beer and it's now a part of the liquid. Although after carbing and chilling, you may find that the hop aroma and flavor have been subdued.

I was not referring to bitterness when I meant hop flavor. I can't really think of another way to describe the flavor that I am getting off of it.

Is a strainer (guessing ~ 1/16" hole) effective at removing enough of the hop pellet?

Just give it time. Flavor components like hops and oak fade with time...Just go ahead and whenever you are ready to bottle, just let it condition out.

tex3030 said:

I was not referring to bitterness when I meant hop flavor.

Click to expand...

Sorry, you're right. I have not had all my coffee yet today. Revvy is also right by letting it age. I'm sure you'll find you have the beer you want in the end.

Well, it was originally tasted @ 2 weeks, now it is 2.5 weeks, it changed quite a bit over the last 4 days, there is no longer a film on top off it, it looks like quite a bit of the hops are sitting on the rim of the bucket now.

Gravity readings were near identical of each other, 1.021 and 1.0205, will probably let it sit in the bucket another week and bottle after that.

After taking the second reading & tasting (about 10 minutes ago), I realized that I was just being a worrying noob. Guess the idea of parting with money wasn't sitting well.

what was the OG? 1.021 is pretty high for a FG. it sounds like it was racked before it finished fermenting...not the best of ideas.

Let it ride in secondary for at least 2 more weeks...what little yeast you still have is going to take a while to clean up any off flavors like green apples, etc. Then again you may have enough hop flavor to mask slight off flavors.

The OG was 1.074. It has not been racked yet because I don't have a secondary fermenter.

I used danstar Nottingham yeast. On the website they list that the final gravity can reach near 1008. I have seen other yeasts label the attenuation as a percentage. Which of the two should be the goal, a final gravity or a percentage of the OG?

tex3030 said:

The OG was 1.074. It has not been racked yet because I don't have a secondary fermenter.

I used danstar Nottingham yeast. On the website they list that the final gravity can reach near 1008. I have seen other yeasts label the attenuation as a percentage. Which of the two should be the goal, a final gravity or a percentage of the OG?

Click to expand...

I usually get better than 80% attenuation with Notty. That would put you around 1.015 if you got there. There are a lot of variables that go into the final gravity reading, not just the yeast. You are at 72% right now; you might not get much more.