What went wrong???

First time experimenting with recipes besides brewing kits. I "thought" I copied one recipe for a American Amber that I just really, really liked. This was almost the exact same ingredients as the amber from Brewers Best:
6 lbs of plain light DME
2 ounces of Willamette hops, 4.6 AAU's
8 ounces crushed crystal malt 60L
11 grams of Nottinghams dry yeast
According to Qbrew, target IBU's should be around 20-25%, right at my break even point for hops, not a hop head.
I boiled 3 lbs of DME and 1 ounce of hops for 30 minutes
then 3 lbs of DME and 1 ounce of hops for 10 minutes....I was trying out some new techniques that I read here.
Active fermentation for 24 hours.
Racked to primary and then kegged it after 11 days, again, another technique I had learned here. Forced carb for 7 days, tapped it last night and YUCK.
Not skunky, but really bitter. Surprized me because of the short bittering hop boil. Absolutely no smell to it. Can't taste the sweetness at all and nothing even close to the Brewers Best American Amber that i thought I was cloning, sort of. I didn't expect the same thing, but surely not this. Assume sanitation and all other aspects were followed throughly. Is it just too green, or young? Should I take it off the gas and out of the kegerator for a couple of days or weeks? I got a feeling my "shortcuts" with my techniques screwed the pooch on this one. Maybe I'm not at that point with my brewing. I was trying to save a couple of steps. But, why is the sweetness not there? Does that come out through aging?

Grog,
Two things I can think of. First, Qbrew does not have a way to compensate IBUs for a late extract addition so for that 30 minutes of bittering, your gravity was half of what Qbrew thought. Everything I read says more hop utilization in lower gravity (which is also one of the benefits of doing full boils). However, I don't think there's any way this could taste bitter due to the hops unless your HBS gave you the wrong hops. When I put 1oz Willamette in at 40min, then another ounce at 10min, I only get 19 IBU on Qbrew. Are you sure you entered the times correctly?

The other thing is that Nottingham is supposedly a high attenuation yeast. When I wanted my honey wheat to finish a little sweeter, I used Danstar's Windsor yeast which is a moderate attenuator. It went from 1.055 to 1.017.

Did I read it right that this beer is only 11 days old? Most of my brews taste like a dirty sock at that age.

Adjusting for the late extract addition, your IBUs are around 30.
I agree, if you were thinking about a sweeter finish Windsor would have been a better choice.
It's really green. Give it 4-5 weeks. Once again, forced carbonation does not substitute for aging.

Force Carbination should not hinder the aging of the beer. in my experience the longer it sits in the keg with carbonation the better the beer gets. I brewed a Dubbel on October 26th, racked to secondary November 5th and kegged on Dec 18th. It sat and cleared in the secondary for 44 days, carbonated for 1 week. The beer is still a bit green for my palate so I plan to lager it for a while. I have done this in the past and it seems to work just fine.

In so many ways brewing should be called patients.

- WW

thanks dudes. 30 IBU's....not exactly my particular liking. Guess I'll have to run down to Wallyworld and buy some Michelob Amber to hold me down, that and I have nothing in the primary or secondary.
I thought that the shorter the time for hops in the boil, the less "hoppy" it is????
That was part of my "logic" for going to partial boils. Boy, did I screw the pooch on this one. Speaking of aging, would it age better at room temperature or just leave it in the kegerator? One other thing, with the Brewers Best kit, I used 6 grams of yeast as opposed to 11 this time around. Would that make any difference. I ordered some Coopers yeast for my next batches....which I'm patiently waiting for....
It quit bubbling on 12/16. Sat in primary for 11 days, then straight to the keg, no secondary. Problem also? Man, story of my life....when something works great, I have to go try and screw it up.

It will age faster at room temperature. You could try adding 2 oz. of lactose to offset the bitterness.

david_42 said:

It will age faster at room temperature. You could try adding 2 oz. of lactose to offset the bitterness.

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I am in sort of the same boat. I went away from the kits and did my own thing with late extract additions and ended up with really bitter beer. Is it safe for me to open up the keg, add lactose and just put the gas back on? It has been sitting for a week carbed now. Also...how did you calculate the IBU's when doing late extract additions?

Thanks

I guess I need some more schooling. When you bottle, and I used the 1-1-2 method, they came out pretty good. I had assumed with kegging your are basically getting away from the two week conditioning wait period. Am I wrong? Is it best to force carb it some, let the keg set in room temperature for a week or two and shot it with some CO2 from time to time. Maybe that's why my brews have sucked, been drinking them too soon as far as aging goes.

Aging is aging is aging. It is not carbonation. It doesn't matter if the carbonation occurs at the beginning, the end or during the 3 weeks, aging still takes 3 weeks. (And that should be 1-2-3, you've been drinking a lot of green beer)

MR - I just ran the calculation with 3 lbs of extract for 40 minutes. It isn't perfect, but it is much closer than you'll get with a normal calculation because isomerization is also strongly time dependent. It would be simple to change the calculators, but someone would have to want to make the change.

I also think you should force down a few bitter beers because once you start appreciating IPA, a whole new world opens up for you. It takes a few brews to get used to, but once you do, you crave more hops over time. My family keeps asking for a batch down in the lower bitterness (which I consider under 30IBU) and I always says "next time". That was 4 batches ago but I did finally make a wheat for that reason.

Thanks. But, I thought that shorter boils would result in less hop utilization for bittering, at the beginning of the boil. Isn't it here somewhere where there was a full discussion that all the bittering components are ususally, 80% or so, finished by the first 30 minutes of the boil?

This is true, but with the late extract addition, you pretty much counteracted the effects as you are getting better hop utilization with that method. It really just takes experimenting to figure out how your particular "system" works for you. FWIW, i'm on my 10th batch, and am still working out that balance.

Also, yeah, your beer is WAY too young to count out at this point. You'll be surprised at how much the hops will "mellow" with time. I always think my brews are "too hoppy" or bitter at that point in their young life.

Grog,
Since you're hop averse, maybe swing down to very low hop usage and slowly adjust up from there. Sounds like you'd rather a batch turn out a little two sweet instead.

Still learning. Just goes to show you that you can't read enough into all of this. Thanks for the input. I think my impatience has been my main enemy. Next batch I think I'll add all extract at start, then add hops for 45 minutes and use less for the bittering affects.

Impatience is public enemy #1 in this f'n hobby, my friend.

I've heard that adding extract early isn't the best idea unless you like caramelized flavors in there. I add mine 20-30 mins prior to flameout.

I think it really depends on the style you're brewing. If you're going for extremely light color, yes, later the extract addition the better. If you're doing a red or a stout, I doubt a slight extract carmalization is going to matter.

You can still hop first, extract later, but you just need to reduce your hops by 30-40% to account for the increased utilization. I think what bit Grog in the butt is the fact that the hops addition was assuming a really high gravity to begin with (partial boil). Take away all that malt and utilization goes way up. Call it a great learning experience.

Dumb question... but when one says a beer is better at 4 or 6 weeks (or whatever), when does the clock start? After fermentation? After bottling?

MariaAZ said:

Dumb question... but when one says a beer is better at 4 or 6 weeks (or whatever), when does the clock start? After fermentation? After bottling?

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1 in the primary.
2 in the secondary.
3 in the bottle/keg.
-------------------------
6 weeks.

olllllo said:

1 in the primary.
2 in the secondary.
3 in the bottle/keg.
-------------------------
6 weeks.

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I've read a few different suggestions for allowing beer to condition longer, I didn't realize the 4-6 weeks mentioned earlier was the 1-2-3 method.

Bobby...thanks. Clear to me now. Utilization is based on gravity of the liquid. Now I got it.

olllllo said:

1 in the primary.
2 in the secondary.
3 in the bottle/keg.
-------------------------
6 weeks.

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I am amazed at my friends - they all want to watch/participate in a brew session and look at me like I just said it will never be done when I say "we should be able to drink it in about a month and a half". I always get this dumb-founded look like "why the hell do we have to wait that long?".

dcbrewmeister said:

I am amazed at my friends - they all want to watch/participate in a brew session and look at me like I just said it will never be done when I say "we should be able to drink it in about a month and a half". I always get this dumb-founded look like "why the hell do we have to wait that long?".

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Too true! I get that from my friends who come to "help."

There are beers that can and should be drank green and fresh.

An English mild is one.

London Dark Mild O.G. 1.038
2.75kg Mild ale malt
750g Diastatic amber malt
115g Roast barley
95g Chocolate malt
38g Northdown 7–8% alpha acid, 60 min boil
20g Fuggles 4–5% alpha acid, 5 min boil
Prime with 60–70g of sugar(s)
The recipe will produce 25 litres at 80% efficiency. Brewers should aim for 1036-1040. As mild ale is traditionally served young and sweet from the cask, if you're bottling you might like to try some reduce the hop rate a little to maintain the balance. For brewers who prefer dried yeasts, Safale SO4 would in Peter's view be more suitable than say Gervin / Nottingham

orfy said:

There are beers that can and should be drank green and fresh.

An English mild is one.

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Agreed, but inthe newb context, the rule will prevail in almost every case.