2 first AG - Way too bitter to my taste

Hi all.
I have brewed my 2 first AG beers a couple months ago.
The first one I did was In December 2010. It was Sierra Nevada clone (called Nierra Sevada - I believe I found the recipe in these forums). It is an American Pale Ale, which had 32.5 IBU in the end.
The brewing seem to have been going just fine - my efficiency was right on 75%, the color was great, the foam was superb...but I find it was way too bitter to my taste.

Here is the updated recipe (after I adjusted the alpha % for the hops).
Can someone tell me how I could keep the same taste, but bring down the bitterness to about 20 IBU?

Nierra Sevada - 5.5 gal
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8,25 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2,0 SRM) Grain 88,24 %
0,55 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2,0 SRM) Grain 5,88 %
0,55 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60,0 SRM) Grain 5,88 %
0,99 oz Pearle [7,20 %] (70 min) Hops 25,3 IBU
0,99 oz Cascade [4,60 %] (10 min) Hops 5,7 IBU
0,49 oz Cascade [4,60 %] (5 min) Hops 1,6 IBU
1,10 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15,0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


I am just emptying my keg and really like the taste, appart from the bitterness. I presumed that the bitterness would go after a while, but it did not. Of course, after a couple pints, the bitterness is gone...


The second I brewed was the Righteous Red Ale that a friend found for me.
I don't like this one as much as the other, and that one is also way too bitter to my taste, with about 30 IBU. I don't think I will do this one again - was not exactly what I expected.


Thanks for the help!

Do you like bitter commercial beers? If not, simply dial down the IBUs for future batches, and consider doing hop bursting or first wort hopping, which tend to yield a smoother bitterness than traditional boil hopping. If you do like commercial pale ales but don't like the bitterness in your own beers, then you're probably picking up harshness from tannin astringency, hop vegetable matter or your water chemistry. Those things are easily fixed.

Thanks ArcaneXor for the quick reply.
I just want to understand the "wording" properly - my first language isn't English, and sometimes, the therms used are a bit confusing for me.

So, if you don't mind, what do you mean by bursting and first wort hopping?

From what i understand from my readings, the bitterness comes from the long boiling of the hops.
If I am to cut down on the 1oz pearl hops from 70 minutes, won't it change the flaver/aroma (still can't really differenciate the two) in the end? Or is the 70 min. boil only for the bitterness?

Where does the tanin come from? From the hops I presume?

Thanks for your help and patience - can't wait to brew the next batch

The 70 minute boil of the Pearle hops give most of the bittering to your beer. The Pearle that you used has 7,2% Alpha Acid. If you substitute something with a lower Alpha Acid like your Cascade that has 4,6% Alpha Acid and boil for 60 minutes your IBU will be lower.

Hops added at the 10 minutes before the end of the boil will be mostly for flavor, not bittering, although they do add some bitterness. The final addition at 5 minutes are mostly for the aroma and you could wait until you complete the boil and get less bittering and more aroma from them.

You could also cut the amount of your 70 minute addition to say a half ounce. I would start with that so as not to change your flavor profile. Only make one change at a time so you can detect the difference that it makes.

The word tannin is a reference to your grain. If you mash or sparge with water that is to hot it causes your grain to release this.

You could download free software like promash, Strangebrew, or Beersmith to calculate the hop additions and the bitterness they'll impart in the brew ( all things being subjective of course ).

Mmmm SNPA, I love the stuff and always have a clone on tap. I really love the crisp/sharp bite of the hops.

BTW, have you looked into joining the http://montrealers.ca/ discussion list. They are an actual club also and as you would imagine quite a few speak french. A lot of great brewers in the montreal area, as well as a lot of great commercial brews.

Thanks all of you for your suggestions!

I will go bit by bit, starting with the amount of hops I put in at 70 minutes - I might bring it down to 60 minutes actually...will it change much? Is it worth it?
I indeed don't want to change the overall taste of the beer, just get the bitterness down.

About the software, I have BeerSmith, but I am still learning to use it - it's a work in progress

And finally, I didn't know about the existense of this Montreal group , but you bet I will join!!

Thanks again all of you!

Zoltanar said:

So, if you don't mind, what do you mean by bursting and first wort hopping?

If I am to cut down on the 1oz pearl hops from 70 minutes, won't it change the flaver/aroma (still can't really differenciate the two) in the end? Or is the 70 min. boil only for the bitterness?

Where does the tanin come from? From the hops I presume?

Click to expand...

Hop bursting is a technique where you obtain your bittering via late hop additions only, usually with high-AA dual purpose varieties like Simcoe (yum!). Doing that is more expensive, but produces a different bittering character compared to a normal 60-minute addition.

First Wort hopping refers to adding some of your hops (usually the flavor addition, but this can also be done with the bittering hops) before the boil even starts. In all-grain, this would be when you start lautering. With extract, it would be after you are done steeping your specialty grains and bringing the wort up to a boil.

A 60-minute addition (or 70-minutes, it only makes a small difference when you boil that long) leaves behind very little flavor and aroma relative to the late hop additions. The quality of bittering varies between different hops, however. Many of us use a single bittering hop for all/most of our recipes, often a potent, high-alpha hop with low cohumalone content, which translates into English as a hop that produces lots of smooth bitterness with fairly small hop additions. I use Magnum for bittering almost exclusively, for example.

You can pick up some tannins from hops, but it's rare for that to be noticeable (virtually none with T-45 pellets, little in T-90 pellets, a little more with whole hops and most with fresh/wet hops). Usually, they come from grains that were heated beyond ~170 degrees or squeezed.

Thanks a lot ArcaneXor for these explanations. This is great information to keep.

I like beermaking so much! It reminds me of my chemestry class, but the end result is Way better Seriously, it is chemestry, which makes it even better and more enjoyable!

Zoltanar said:

Thanks all of you for your suggestions!

I will go bit by bit, starting with the amount of hops I put in at 70 minutes - I might bring it down to 60 minutes actually...will it change much? Is it worth it?
I indeed don't want to change the overall taste of the beer, just get the bitterness down.

About the software, I have BeerSmith, but I am still learning to use it - it's a work in progress

And finally, I didn't know about the existense of this Montreal group , but you bet I will join!!

Thanks again all of you!

Click to expand...

I would leave everything the same and change one thing at a time. I think changing the 1 ounce to 1/2 ounce will give you the most drop in IBU's compared to 1 ounce at 60 minutes. When I get home I will plug it into my BeerTools Pro and see what it says for sure with your exact recipe.

Actually, you are right. Beersmith will drop the IBU at 20 if I just put .5 oz of Pearle...
Interesting to know! I am just starting with BeerSmith, so I still have a lot to learn. I did not even think about checking what the calculated result would be!
Thanks for the tip.