Need help making this recipe less bitter

Made this beer twice, once as a PM and the second time as an AG. Hopefully I made the conversions correctly. The other change was to only boil for 60 min instead of 90 min. The bitterness dropped from 102 to 92.9 but still a little too bitter. If it makes any difference in knowing what to do next, I put a pinch or two of table sugar in the last glass I drank and it seemed to lessen the bitterness. Thanks with help from here, the mash efficiency went from 59% to 69%. Think I can hit 75% next time as I did on another beer I made. Any thoughts on what to do to make this beer less bitter but retain the chocolate / coffee flavor?

malt & fermentables
LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE
6 0 American Two-row Pale
4 6 Extra Light Dry Extract
2 0 Roasted Barley
2 0 Munich Malt
1 0 Chocolate Malt
0 8 Flaked Barley
0 4 Peated Malt 32
Batch size: 6.0 gallons
Original Gravity 1.074 measured
Final Gravity 1.014 measured
Mash Efficiency 59%
hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 90 mins 2.0 Columbus pellet 14.0
boil 15 mins 1.0 Pearle pellet 8.0
boil 10 mins 1.0 Goldings pellet 5.0
boil 5 mins 1.0 Fuggles pellet 4.5
Boil: 7.0 avg gallons for 90 minutes
Bitterness 102.0 IBU
BU:GU 1.36
Nottingham Ale Dry Yeast medium to high flocculation and 76% attenuation
Alcohol 8.0% ABV


malt & fermentables
LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE
12 0 American Two-row Pale
2 0 Munich Malt
2 0 Roasted Barley
1 0 Chocolate Malt
0 8 Flaked Barley
0 4 Peated Malt

Batch size: 6.0 gallons
Original Gravity 1.072 measured
Final Gravity 1.020 measured
Mash Efficiency 69% measured

hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 2.0 Columbus pellet 14.0
boil 15 mins 1.0 Pearle pellet 8.0
boil 10 mins 1.0 Goldings pellet 5.0
boil 5 mins 1.0 Fuggles pellet 4.5
Boil: 7.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes
Bitterness 92.9 IBU
BU:GU 1.16
Nottingham Ale Dry Yeast medium to high flocculation and 76% attenuation
Alcohol 6.9% ABV

Cut your 90min hop addition in half.

And lessen the roasted barley as it will accentuate the bitterness already present

Lower the roasted barley and potentially use Pale Chocolate as an alternative to the regular. More actual choco flavor and less roast in my experience. And I second lowering your IBU's as a way to lower your bitterness.

The bitterness from the hops and the "bitterness" you are tasting from the roasted barley.are different. 2# of roasted barley is a lot so you might first try cutting that to a lot less. Maybe 0.5# or 0.25# of roasted barley. I lie chocolate malt a lot more but it's completely different.

I'd also consider a different and 'smoother' bittering hop such as simcoe

drhop said:

cut your 90min hop addition in half.

Click to expand...

+1

OK, made the following changes. Reduced Roasted Barley from 2# to 1#. Using .5# recommended but don't want to make too large a change at a time. Same for changing the hops. Increased Chocolate Malt from 1# to 2#. Think Dr. Hop recommend an increase but not how much. Reduced Columbus hops from 2 oz to 1 oz. Batch size is now 5 gal instead of 6 gal. OG = 1.096, up from 1.072. IBU = 59.8, down from 92.9. BU:GU = .62, down from 1.16. Surprisingly the ABV remained 6.9%. What can be done to make ABV = 8% while keeping other ingredients relatively the same?

Looking for Old Rasputin RIS clone with chocolate/coffee taste and good body but a little on the bitter side. Last batch was too bitter but do not like sweet beers. Think this new recipe will do it? Thanks for the help.

malt & fermentables
LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE
12 0 American Two-row Pale
2 0 Munich Malt
1 0 Roasted Barley
2 0 Chocolate Malt
0 8 Flaked Barley
0 4 Peated Malt

Batch size: 5.0 gallons
Original Gravity 1.091 estimated
Final Gravity 1.022 estimated
Mash Efficiency 75% estimated

hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 1.0 Columbus pellet 14.0
boil 15 mins 1.0 Pearle pellet 8.0
boil 10 mins 1.0 Goldings pellet 5.0
boil 5 mins 1.0 Fuggles pellet 4.5
Boil: 6.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes
Bitterness 59.8 IBU
BU:GU .62
Nottingham Ale Dry Yeast medium to high flocculation and 76% attenuation
Alcohol 6.9% ABV

Just add some more 2 row and/or munich..or cut the volume..but who wants less beer?

My contribution would be to say use less chocolate malt, one pound would be sufficient.
Or, use pale chocolate malt instead, and in that case I would still cut it to 1.25#.

Likewise, with the roasted barley, cut it to 0.75 or 0.5. It's a very strong flavor, better to be on the lighter side. The chocolate malt will be plenty of roast.