any ideas what made my porter so bitter (going into bottling stage)

Just bottled my brown sugar molasses porter today... it has a really bitter aftertaste. I'm hoping that bottle conditioning will mellow that out, we'll see.

The recipe is based on the one in Homebrew Recipe Guide but i wanted to make it organic so I can possibly enter it in a competition. That means I had to sub in organic hops, and I wasn't sure I did the right thing there.

I'm curious if anyone can point out what made it so bitter.

6 lbs Organic Malt Extract (described as "amber/light"). 3 lbs at 60 min, 3 lbs at 15 min.
1 lb 15L crystal steeped
1/2 lb steeped chocolate malt
1/3 lb steeped black malt
2 c brown sugar
1/2 c blackstrap molasses
1 tsp gypsom
1/2 tsp irism moss
1 oz hallertaur traidition @ 60 min
1/2 oz new zealand cascade @ flame out, steeped 15 min

Thanks!

It will mellow.
Did you adjust the hop addition in relation the AA rating?

The recipe doesn't seem hop heavy.
What was the IBU supposed to be?

THe bittering hops were 6.8% AA, the flame out (aroma?) hops were 8.0% AA.

Beer alchemy puts this at 27 IBU.

Do you have a water report? If so please post it.

The reason I ask is that you added gypsum. This might not have been necessary. If your base water is already high in alkaline and sulfur, or has a high sulfur to chloride ratio, then the gypsum could be your issue - especially because you are doing extract. Extract already has salts in it. The amount is hard to discern though. If you add more salts, via direct salt additions and via your base water, then you could be over doing it. Too much mineral content can cause harsh bitter flavours in even lightly hopped beers.

This is a guess but there are many threads on here where brewers have had similar issues do to overly mineral-heavy brews.

I think the molasses is causing the aftertaste. Not directly, but it has a very strange flavor in the early weeks and it might be combining with the black barley. The gypsum is another possibility. Most likely it's a combination of factors and will take some time to settle.

david_42 said:

I think the molasses is causing the aftertaste. Not directly, but it has a very strange flavor in the early weeks and it might be combining with the black barley. The gypsum is another possibility. Most likely it's a combination of factors and will take some time to settle.

Click to expand...

+1 on this possibility. It's likely still green, in fact almost certainly not ready since you are just bottling it, but wait it out and post a water report if you can.

I don't have a water report handy... though I guess my utility company posts an annual report here: http://www.ebmud.com/water_&_enviro...l_report/2008_annual_water_quality_report.pdf

I was just following a recipe.

Thanks for all your thoughts!