1503 beer...was it a success or a failure?

So I just finished bottling my first period beer, well, my first beer ever to be honest. When I was bottling the beer, I put some in a mug, let the yeast settle (though it was still cloudy) and tasted it. I found the aroma to be quite pleasant, but was a little surprised with the bitterness of the beer and the strong aftertaste. Will this go away as the beer ages/carbonates in the bottle or is it simply supposed to be like this? I've never had anything but commercial brews, so it could just be that I have an unrefined palate. Here's the recipe I used. It is adapted to a 5 gallon recipe from Richard Arnolds Chronicles.

8 lbs. English Pale Malt (I toasted about 1 pound in the oven to mimic medieval techniques)
1.5 lbs. Wheat malt
1.5 lbs. oats
1.5 oz. Fuggle hops
Nottingham Ale yeast

I put all the malt in a cooler, and poured 7 gallons of boiling water on top of the malt from two feet above. The temperature was about 150F when I was done and I closed the lid and let the enzymes do their stuff. After three hours, I emptied the contents into a fermentation bucket. I was only able to get 4 gallons out of the cooler, so I poured another gallon into the cooler and drained that into the bucket. I didn't have a pot large enough to boil all five gallons, so I added the hops to 2 gallons of wort and boiled that for an hour then added it to the wort. (I assumed the only consequence would be that the enzymes wouldn't be killed and the proteins wouldn't break up) I poured my yeast in the next morning once the wort had reached room temperature. Fermentation stopped after six days. I added gelatin, and 15 hrs. later, bottled and capped the beer. Was all of this correct, or did I mess up somewhere?

Yes the brew will mellow out after a few weeks in the bottle. What you have just tasted was a green beer. It is a good idea to taste at every stage in the brewing process.

is there a risk for infection or anything because you didn't boil all of the wort? i'm a noob but i thought you had to boil all of it.

As long as your water source is safe (if it's drinking water it should be fine) you shouldn't have issues. I know some people that have been brewing for years and have never boiled more than 2.5 gallons of wort.

Your hop addditions will have to be adjusted for the smaller boil volume (more hops). By the way if your beers seem to be to bitter you may be using a recipe for a smaller boil. If you are boiling more wort, your hop utilization rate will go up, resulting in a more bitter beer.

The only thing I would be concerned about is letting the wort cool overnight insead of cooling it quickly, but it sounds like it's working out fine. Three hours at 150F probably sterilized the wort well enough.

Did you add any priming sugar before bottling? Not that there's anything wrong with real ale.

Give it 3-4 weeks and it should be great.

I like the pour from two feet up. I couldn't get that close to my grain, my mash tun is rather tall.

{pickle} said:

is there a risk for infection or anything because you didn't boil all of the wort? i'm a noob but i thought you had to boil all of it.

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A vigorous boil will boil off any compounds that could result in potential off-flavors, especially Dimethyl Sulfides. Your wort should be boiled in order to get these baddies out of the beer - they boil off during a long and vigorous boil.

The resulting flavor may be one of cooked vegetables. If you happen to notice this flavor in your finished beer, you will know why. However, - you made beer and it has a great chance of tasting really good.

I wouldn't worry about it now, but I would boil the wort next time.

Sounds like a good recipe - just remember, almost any beer will benefit from more conditioning. If you don't like the way it tastes, just let it set for another couple weeks.