Botched AG - Wort with a delayed bittered taste

Hi all,

So, I brewed the following Fat Squirrel clone this weekend: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/fat-squirrel-clone-108705/

I prepared my strike/mash water with 5.2 fivestar ph stabilizer and a small chunk of ground up campden tablet. I also treated my sparge water with the campden tablet. I'm on Seattle water (tolt). I'll have to scrounge up the water report.

My mash temp initially started out low (145*), and I added about half a gallon of water to the mash to bring it up. It then was a few degrees too high, didn't mind a maltier beer though (about 157*). It stabilized at 153 after about 25-30 minutes. Mashed for 60.

My first run off was about 2.5 gallons, so I believe I had a decent quart to lb ratio. (10 lbs of grain, roughly .3 gallons of deadspace). I batch sparged the remaining volume needed to hit 6.5 gallons for my preboil with 168 degree temperature. I had about 1.2 gallons extra wort, whoops . There were some small amount of grains left in the wort. I didn't filter with a steeping bag, like I should have, and I vorlaufed about 2 gallons.

Hit pre-boil, did the boil (took a while (40 mins?), had to switch tanks, because the first one was low on propane and had a weak flame), for 90 minutes due to the recommendation from Yooper on the Pilsner Malt.

Cooled it down quickly (about 30 mins) to 70 degrees. Took a sample and noticed I was a couple points off the posted gravity, no biggy I thought. Set the sample aside to let it cool down for the hydrometer calibration (68*).

Pitched yeast. After I set the beer in my fermentation chamber (impressed with the Cool Brewing bag!)

I tried a sip of the sample (pre yeast) -- it started out sweet, and then after a second or two on the tongue, became bitter. Is this normal?

Yes, that's probably the chocolate malt being a bit "harsh" prefermentation.

I have to tell you that I haven't had good results with the 5.2 stabilizer though, and it left a weird salty/bitter taste in my beers. I threw it out a couple of years ago. Maybe it won't impact the final flavor of the beer, but I would suggest not using that.

Alright. Thanks for that information regarding the 5.2 stabilizer Yooper.

I honestly had doubts about the chemistry behind it. Bought it on a whim. I'll set it aside next time.

Oh, also my OG was 1.048 and the listed OG was 1.051. I'm guessing it was since I over sparged or didn't hit my mash temperatures spot on.

timmah84 said:

Oh, also my OG was 1.048 and the listed OG was 1.051. I'm guessing it was since I over sparged or didn't hit my mash temperatures spot on.

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If you had "extra wort", why didn't you just do a longer boil with a larger volume?

danielbt said:

If you had "extra wort", why didn't you just do a longer boil with a larger volume?

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I didn't know or think about doing that lol. For future reference, would I alter the hop additions?

I have been doing longer boils to help with missed effiencies due to temp variations. I usually boil off at a rate of half gallon per hour (is that normal?) and can calculate how long to boil before starting my hop additions.

timmah84 said:

I didn't know or think about doing that lol. For future reference, would I alter the hop additions?

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Normally, you boil a bit before adding the hops, to start with the correct volume. Say you have 7 gallons in the boil kettle, and you want to start with 6.5. Boil for a while, until you have 6.5 gallons in the boil kettle.

The easiest way is to sparge with less water, up to your boil volume. If you're batch sparging, measuring your runnings when you drain the MLT. If you have 2.5 gallons of wort, then you know you need 4 gallons of sparge water to get to your 6.5 gallon target.

wetzie said:

I have been doing longer boils to help with missed effiencies due to temp variations. I usually boil off at a rate of half gallon per hour (is that normal?) and can calculate how long to boil before starting my hop additions.

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That's about right, for most people I think. If you lived iin the desert, you'd boil off twice that much, and in a real humid climate you'd boil off less. But a gallon per hour seems about average.

timmah84 said:

Oh, also my OG was 1.048 and the listed OG was 1.051. I'm guessing it was since I over sparged or didn't hit my mash temperatures spot on.

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Oh, and that's really good, by the way! You only missed it by .003- nothing at all to worry about!

Whew, thanks Yooper! It seemed the Nottingham works quickly too, barely any activity after 3 days and the krausen has fallen.

Just an update. Kegged it last night, the sample from the hydrometer tasted wonderful (a bit bitter, not much.)