Hops Help I Hope

Below is the recipe that I used...
14 lbs. pilsner malt
2 lbs Vienna malt
2 lbs Munich malt
0.75 oz. Tettnanger hops (4% alpha), 0.25 for 90 min., 0.5 oz. for 75 min.
1.5 oz. Mt. Hood hops (3.2% alpha), for 60 min.
0.75 oz. Saaz (3% alpha), for 30 min.
3 tsp. rehydrated Irish moss
2-qt. starter of Wyeast 2206

Brewed on 02-02-2k8

Boil went without any surprises. Used the hops per the recipe and it came out of the boiler pretty bitter.

Wort came out of the Purple Tornado cool…guess at ~80°.

I probably used about ½ gallon of starter.

It started working in the fermenter by the next morning. That morning at the top of the wort there were large “structures” of yeast and, I assume, Irish moss and hops. By that afternoon the activity had become violent in its action and it looked as if it were in a roiling boil. That level of violence lasted two days and movement continued for almost 5. I left it on the primary for 2 weeks.

Bottled on 02-16-2k8. I used 1 ½ cups of DME boiled into a couple of quarts of water.

Broke down and tasted two bottles on 02-20-2k8 just because I damn well wanted to. Very little carbonation at that point.

Still has a very pronounced hops bitterness. Initially bitter but not unpleasant, secondary bitterness was actually unpleasant. Finish bitterness was good. Don’t know how to get rid of that in the middle. I'm not a big hop head.

Very good tasting beer outside of the hops. Color was almost orange it was so reddish brown. Very cloudy. One thing at a time.

All of that to ask this: While I'm happy with the initial and finish level of hops, it's just too bitter overall. Where and how do I cut the hops rate?

2 weeks is way young for a hoppy beer, I'd reserve final judgement in at least another two weeks. In fact that's a little soon to bottle, hopefully you won't get too much sediment in the bottles. The lack of carbonation can affect bitterness perception too.


By the way, I've seen that churning before too, to the point that it was pushing all the Krausen to one side of the carboy. What temp are you fermenting at?

Right at 65 degrees...I didn't have too much blow-off either. My thumper water got golden colored from the foam but it never, ever blew so much out that it created any overflow problems.
This is the first time I've ever used a lager yeast and I know that the temp mentioned is high but, I would have thought, there shouldn't be a problem as long as the yeast was working. And work it did!
I've never seen ale yeast go crazy like that. It looked thermodynamically impossible without some source of energy moving that stuff around.

Billyjoe Jimbob said:

Right at 65 degrees...I didn't have too much blow-off either. My thumper water got golden colored from the foam but it never, ever blew so much out that it created any overflow problems.
This is the first time I've ever used a lager yeast and I know that the temp mentioned is high but, I would have thought, there shouldn't be a problem as long as the yeast was working. And work it did!
I've never seen ale yeast go crazy like that. It looked thermodynamically impossible without some source of energy moving that stuff around.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the yeast does generate quite a bit of heat when it's going crazy like that, it'll heat the beer up 4-5 degrees over the ambient temp. I think most of that churning has to do with CO2 being made and released at such a high rate it moves the liquid. I dunno, either way, it's pretty fun to watch.