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IPA thoughts. My HB IPA's have a harsh bitter after taste. I am just now moving away from my chlorinated tap water for brewing. Is my tap water causing this or is it something else I need to fix ? It's not overwhelming and the beer is decent but I want to smooth this out. Ideas?

EDIT: I know you don't know the recipe or hop schedule. I'm just looking for basic ideas. This is not a heavily hopped IPA. I am basically following the hop schedule from Dead Ringer.

Ive made beer once or twice with my tap water which is questionable about chlorined but apparantly not enough to effect my batches to much,however its pretty hard and scaley.It builds up that white and blue caulky stuff on faucet taps or my sink sprayer. Anyway it was harsh at first but not hop harsh because I didnt make hoppy batches with it. It is good though with age on it. Its like the water harshness settles out as well or something. Thats just my concensus on hard straight tap water. I wont drink it though,flouride,cholorine,and whatever chemicals and byproducts that end up in it that will give everybody cancer.Not to mention the miles of old piping it travels in. I dont have a filter system except an incoming sediment filter and my shower filter which I would recommend-breathing hot steamy chlorine fumes is about more toxic as what chlorine you absorb taking a shower in through your skin. Which is something overlooked by most people it seems.
 
Quantities. I know nothing about my tap water other than that I could smell the chlorine today while bottling.

EDIT: sorry, didn't mean to turn this into the beginner forum.

big cities run a lot of crap to kill stuff in their water. when I lived in Vegas, all the tap water smelled like an over chlorinated pool. I used nothing but bottled water there. the water here is very hard & great for high hop beers. start matching IBU's instead of quantities since not all packages of the same hops have the same Alpha Acid content. go with distilled or spring water (I'd use distilled) and add minerals to harden it up.

edit to your edit: from time to time I do help a bit and not a smart mouth all the time. : )
 
Billy-Klubb said:
big cities run a lot of crap to kill stuff in their water. when I lived in Vegas, all the tap water smelled like an over chlorinated pool. I used nothing but bottled water there. the water here is very hard & great for high hop beers. start matching IBU's instead of quantities since not all packages of the same hops have the same Alpha Acid content. go with distilled or spring water (I'd use distilled) and add minerals to harden it up.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I did match IBU, as the alpha acids were different in my Centennial v Northrern's.

EDIT: I'm a math nerd, so I do get those things. I also use BeerSmith.
 
Sorry, I misunderstood. I did match IBU, as the alpha acids were different in my Centennial v Northrern's.

EDIT: I'm a math nerd, so I do get those things. I also use BeerSmith.

then I say start using distilled water & custom hardening it with minerals if need be. that may take away any harshness without the PITA of pre-boiling your brewing water.
 
Billy-Klubb said:
then I say start using distilled water & custom hardening it with minerals if need be. that may take away any harshness without the PITA of pre-boiling your brewing water.

I started that with the batch I bottled today. I'm just wondering if I need to do something else to get my IPA right.
 
Real Ale Brewing Co, Devil's Backbone...a very nice Belgian Triple.

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A couple of birthday beers at SF's newest brewery, Cellarmaker. 100% citra PA and a mosaic dry hopped PA. Great stuff

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Then a rare barrel dark sour age on raspberries at City Beer Store.

Guys. Pay attention to Rare Barrel (soon to open sour brewery in Berkeley). Ridiculous beer.
 
Billy-Klubb said:
if you're matching IBUs, I look at the water. do a few batches with distilled and some gypsum additions to see if that helps. I hope it does!
That was my thought. I wanted to verify with you guys that I'm sniffing in the right place.
 
A couple of birthday beers at SF's newest brewery, Cellarmaker. 100% citra PA and a mosaic dry hopped PA. Great stuff

View attachment 155012

View attachment 155013

Then a rare barrel dark sour age on raspberries at City Beer Store.

Guys. Pay attention to Rare Barrel (soon to open sour brewery in Berkeley). Ridiculous beer.

I watched a promo video for rare barrel. It was awful. They seemed like they were trying to set a world record for saying 'sour beer' the most times in 90 seconds.
 
Total change of pace. If you can get your hands on this , I HIGHLY recommend it.

EDIT: if I don't win Fantasy Football, and the winner is not in Michigan, this is what they are getting.

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Hello said:
I'm only 10% sure this turbo cider turned out this color/clarity (lack thereof) was because I pitched an entire packet of yeast to 1 gallon of spiced apple cider. Its about 5.3% abv. It's not terrible but I think the taste is "yeasty". Cold crashed for 24 hours and no real clearing but a nice yeast cake on the bottom.
Will try 1/2 a packet next time.

Me thinks you will be blowing the sheets off the bed in the morning. What exactly is "turbo cider"?
 
Sounds good. I haven't made mojitos in a while.
It turned out even more unorthodox then I planned. Apparently I'm out of soda water. So it's muddled spearmint from my backyard, moonshine, the juice from 6 key limes, corn syrup, and diet mountain dew.... Yeah, I didn't plan on mixing booze and caffeine. This should be an interesting night. :eek:
I've startling building my water from RO , using Bru'nwater. Will getting the chlorine out resolve this?

EDIT: after 3 beers it is undetectable. I just moved back to my IPA from Two Hearted and can't tell the difference. But from beer #1 (mine ) to beer #2 (THA) there was a big difference in finish.
Does anything taste bad after 3 big beers?

I'm only 10% sure this turbo cider turned out this color/clarity (lack thereof) was because I pitched an entire packet of yeast to 1 gallon of spiced apple cider. Its about 5.3% abv. It's not terrible but I think the taste is "yeasty". Cold crashed for 24 hours and no real clearing but a nice yeast cake on the bottom.
Will try 1/2 a packet next time.


View attachment 155011
I doubt it's the amount of yeast you added. If your cider tastes yeasty, then it probably is. As in the yeast aren't done and don't want to drop out of suspension. If you want to know for sure, heat a sample in a pan on your stove to 140f for a couple of minutes. Then cold crash it. If it clears somewhat and looses the yeasty flavor, then you are just drinking the cider to young.

Oh, and if you used commercial apple cider and didn't add pectin enzyme, then it won't clear completely.
 
I'm only 10% sure this turbo cider turned out this color/clarity (lack thereof) was because I pitched an entire packet of yeast to 1 gallon of spiced apple cider. Its about 5.3% abv. It's not terrible but I think the taste is "yeasty". Cold crashed for 24 hours and no real clearing but a nice yeast cake on the bottom.
Will try 1/2 a packet next time.

1 tsp of most dry yeast is more than plenty for a gallon batch

Edit lead feller raises a good point though
 
Leadgolem said:
It turned out even more unorthodox then I planned. Apparently I'm out of soda water. So it's muddled spearmint from my backyard, moonshine, the juice from 6 key limes, corn syrup, and diet mountain dew.... Yeah, I didn't plan on mixing booze and caffeine. .
Wow lg, you always surprise me. That sounds freaking awful.
 
TNGabe said:
I watched a promo video for rare barrel. It was awful. They seemed like they were trying to set a world record for saying 'sour beer' the most times in 90 seconds.

Ha! Haven't seen that. But the beer was great.

This place has been hyped up for a while, so I'm glad this beer is at least tasty. Sounds like there may be some pretentiousness going along with it...
 
Killing last nights bottle of Beauregarde. Adjustable wine stopper is a godsend. No carbonation loss whatsoever.
 
Wow lg, you always surprise me. That sounds freaking awful.
It actually isn't to bad. I won't make it again on purpose, but it's not going down the drain.

Then again, that's how I felt about most of the fruit flavored sugar free drink mixes when I tried them in my coffee....:fro:
 
I'm only 10% sure this turbo cider turned out this color/clarity (lack thereof) was because I pitched an entire packet of yeast to 1 gallon of spiced apple cider. Its about 5.3% abv. It's not terrible but I think the taste is "yeasty". Cold crashed for 24 hours and no real clearing but a nice yeast cake on the bottom.
Will try 1/2 a packet next time.


View attachment 155011

Holy crap that's milky. I would crash for a little longer. It will eventually fall out. May not be done yet either.

As for the chlorine conversation. Boil well to evap off chlorine (or let sit for a while, a couple hours, sunlight breaks down chlorine rather quickly). Throw a campden tab in to work on the chloramine. That made my beers much better.
 
Ha! Haven't seen that. But the beer was great.

This place has been hyped up for a while, so I'm glad this beer is at least tasty. Sounds like there may be some pretentiousness going along with it...

[ame]http://vimeo.com/70964576[/ame]

It actually isn't to bad. I won't make it again on purpose, but it's not going down the drain.

Then again, that's how I felt about most of the fruit flavored sugar free drink mixes when I tried them in my coffee....:fro:

You've got problems.
 
I wonder how Devil's Backbone Brewing feels about that one?

Real Ale named this beer after a tight winding highway between Wimberly and Blanco in the TX Hill Country...beautiful scenery there...the Triple Ale is awesome..already on #3 :mug:
 
DFH 60 min IPA. An inspiring beer years ago to me. I rarely can get it but man, it seems so different now after thousands of beers later. I wish I had smell/taste memory to what I use to remember or what it use to actually taste like. Ive sinced learned that all beer is not equally brewed origionally the same every time.That even goes for miller light budweiser-to me it is not always the same all the time even though they are really consistant. Its like saying a certain fruit will grow and taste exactly the same every year. It wont. Unless your palate is all jacked up? That said, I dont think like snickers or Whopper etc. has changed to much has it?.... Im pretty shure McD's Shamrock shake has tasted pretty much the same since I was 5. Maybe I would notice if I was a fast food enteprenuer.Or however you spell that dumb word.
 
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