Did I ruin my Dead Ringer IPA?

We brewed our first Dead Ringer from Northern Brewer and I'm worried that we did something wrong but I can't figure out what. Here was our process:

Brewed on 12/27/14; pre-boil volume 5 gal, post boil 3.75 gal, topped off with boiled water to 5 gal. Steeped grains at 180-190 deg F for 20 min. 60 min boil with hop additions as directed. Wort was chilled in snow bank and with copper wort chiller to 60 deg F in 20 minutes!

OG 1.063, SG after secondary 1.013

Primary fermentation in 6 gal plastic Big Mouth at 63 deg F. Temp controlled with digital controller, car boy placed in trash can full of water with aquarium heater.

Secondary in 5 gal car boy on 1/9/15. Secondary at 63 deg F. Dry hopped on 1/17/15. Ramped temp up to 67 F from 17th to 20th.

Kegged on 1/25, put in fridge at 34deg F.

Tried our first taste last weekend (super bowl Sunday) and it was un-drinkable! Flavor is sweet to start with a little banana, finishing very bitter with no good hop flavor or aroma. We tried another little bit today (1/4/15) and it was a little better but still not great.

Does anyone see anything that we did wrong or do we just need to let it sit for a couple more weeks?

We have another kit for this beer because we heard it was awesome but now I'm worried that we can't make it good!

Thanks !

You definitely steeped your grains too high. From everything I have seen 170 should be the max temperature.

Will that cause off favors being just 10-20 deg too high?

Let it sit for a couple of weeks, some of the sweet will mellow and the hops will come through better. The bitter finish is from tannins extracted from the grain husks with the high temperature steeping water.
In all grain brewing, sparging water can be at 170° or over because the grains have reduced the pH of the liquor to near 5.2 to 5.6. Water has a high pH, around 6.9 to 7.2. The high pH combined with water temperatures over 170° will extract tannins from the grain. Tannin extraction may begin as low as 165°, as the pH goes up.

The directions for the kit are on NB's website:

ON BREWING DAY
2. Collect and heat 2.5 gallons of water.
3. For mail-order customers grains for extract kits come
crushed by default, but if you requested uncrushed
grains, crush them now. Pour crushed grain into
supplied mesh bag and tie the open end in a knot. Steep
for 20 minutes or until water reaches 170°F. Remove
bag and discard.

Ok that's a little vague, is the temp supposed to be lower than 170 and you steep until you reach that point? Or higher and you steep until the water cools? I'm going to say that it should be steeped at 170. You can call NB and ask them. Your process otherwise seems ok, except that the fruit flavor you describe would usually come from esters produced at a warmer fermentation temp.
Your post says your "first taste" was after kegging. I like to pull a sample, check gravity and taste it when ferment appears to be finished, when transferring to secondary, before and after dry hop (how else can you tell if its hopped enough?) and before bottling or kegging.
If you had tasted it when dry hopping, you could have left it in there a little longer for more hop flavor.
What does your water taste like? Water chemistry can have an impact on hop utilization.
I'd call NB and ask for their opinion before you make the kit again.

Yeah grains were probably steeped a tad high. Also, what was your FG? The sweetness up front could potentially mean it didn't ferment out all the way.

Per the OP the FG was 1.013 which should be fine.

As mentioned, steeping that high is a problem and 10-20 degrees can greatly change the beer. I would steep at 150 and hold it +/- 10 or put your bag in while its heating up and take out before 160. You could steep at room temperature probably with no ill effects, everything just happens slower at colder temps (like cold brewed coffee or tea).

Seems like the rest of the process is mostly sound. I assume this isn't your first beer? Is it your first IPA? Have you dry hopped before?

My only other thought is how long did you dry hop?

Ok, so definitely keep the steeping temp lower next time. We made the mistake of putting the grains in at just below 170 and then trying to stop it there. The temp kept creeping up even with the heat off! I think I will try to boil a batch of just water and see how long it takes to get up to 170. That should give me an idea of when I need to start steeping so that I get the 20 minutes without going over temp.

I was not accurate in saying that our first taste was last weekend. We did pull a gravity before racking to the keg and tasted then. It was very hoppy at that point but the flavor was definitely off. We assumed part of it was the dry hopping and that it needed to mellow.

I will definitely ask the guys at Northern for any suggestions. As for our water, I have not done any analysis but it is ok. There are days when it has more of a chlorine smell (not sure if they use chlorine or chloramine) but we have not had any issues with our other batches. I am thinking that we will use bottled water next time.

I don't understand why there would be any banana flavor because we kept the temp of the fermenter well within the range for the yeast. I think I will not try raising the temp at the end next time. I understand this can help the yeast clean things up but now I'm not sure it's worth the risk!

Skiffy said:

I assume this isn't your first beer? Is it your first IPA? Have you dry hopped before?

My only other thought is how long did you dry hop?

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This is about our 6th batch, first IPA, first dry hop. We dry hopped for 1 week.

I would think that raising the temp to 67 later on in fermentation is a completely safe thing to do. If you are fermenting at 63 initially and keeping it that way during most of primary then perhaps give it more than two weeks before racking to secondary or skip secondary.

Steeping of the grains to extract the color and flavor doesn't need to be done hot. If you want to steep warm, heat the water to 150°, remove from the heat source, and steep for 20 minutes. The higher the pH of your water, temperatures well below 170°, will greatly decrease the possibility of tannin extraction.

Using any municipal water for brewing, without treating the water for chlorine and chloramines, will produce off tastes. The off taste may be masked in some beers, but still affects the flavor of the beer. One-quarter Campden tablet will treat 5 gallons of brewing water.

sounds like you're doing an extract kit that has some grains to steep? If so, I generally put the grain bag into the (clean) water when it's cold and pull it out when it gets close to 170.

JJ900 said:

I would think that raising the temp to 67 later on in fermentation is a completely safe thing to do. If you are fermenting at 63 initially and keeping it that way during most of primary then perhaps give it more than two weeks before racking to secondary or skip secondary.

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It is the first time we have racked to secondary and we thought about skipping it, based on multiple opinions here that it isn't necessary, but after talking with the guys at Northern decided to go with a secondary (they recommend a secondary for almost all their beers).

I just dry hopped my Dead Ringer yesterday, in the primary. I plan to leave it for another week and then bottle. Like the first DR, no secondary.

After three weeks bottle conditioning the beer was sweet. One more week and the Caramel 40 mellowed letting the hops dominate.

Stepping the ferm temp up to 67 is not a problem. Actually your dry hop probably benefited from the warmer temps. Seven days is probably the upper end of preferred dry hop duration, but that shouldn't cause any large problems.

Try distilled water for next batch. That way you won't be adding anything to what's already in the extract. Softer water my lead to a slightly duller hop flavor but it should produce a very good beer on its own.

Ultimately IPAs aren't as easy to make as they seem. There are tons of posts on here of people complaining they have off flavors only in their IPAs. The hop compounds seem to be sensitive to water chemistry and oxidation. Best of luck!

A couple things I can suggest for your next kit is:

Use RO or Distilled water for extract kits.

Steep starting from room temp water to 150-ish (like NBBC13 just suggested). Maybe a gallon of water.

Add 1/2 or less of the extract at the start of the boil. The remaining at the 10min remaining mark.

Dry Hop in the primary when fermentation has subsided (yet not finished) for 5-7 days.

Cold crash it in the primary before moving it to a keg or bottle.

We don't need no stinkin' secondary . . . . . . .

'da Kid

Mountainsax said:

I don't understand why there would be any banana flavor because we kept the temp of the fermenter well within the range for the yeast. I think I will not try raising the temp at the end next time. I understand this can help the yeast clean things up but now I'm not sure it's worth the risk!

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Banana suggests stressed yeast. Usual causes are fermenting too warm, under-pitching the yeast, or not aerating sufficiently. It sounds like your temperature was OK, although I'm suspicious of why you needed an aquarium heater to keep it at 63° F. Usually, I need cooling to keep it there. Heating is rarely a problem if you're fermenting an ale indoors. Ambient plus exothermic heat from fermentation is plenty to keep the beer warm enough. But I'll take your word that you kept it within range.

What was the O.G.? How did you pitch your yeast? Was it liquid or dry? If dry, did you rehydrate? How many packs? If liquid, did you make a starter? What size? How did you aerate the wort prior to pitching?

Yea kombat brings up a good point. How are you measuring temp? The aquarium heater would raise the water temp above your target wort temp and presumably overshoot a bit. If fermentation temp kicked off then you could have been up towards 70 pretty easily. Just speculation at this point as it completely depends on your setup and volume of wort to water and how quickly you raised the temp, but it's not out of the question

I ferment in my garage in a 30 gallon plastic trash can, filled with water to the same level as the wort in the car boy. Being winter in Colorado, the aquarium heater keeps the temp up. I have the aquarium heater hooked up to a single channel temp controller so it stays w/in +/- 1 deg of where I set it. The probe for the temp controller is held against the side of the carboy, under the water level by a piece of syrofoam that has a small notch (slightly bigger than the probe) cut out. The foam is strapped on with a piece of tubing. I realize that the temp of the wort during active fermentation can be warmer than the surrounding temp, which is why I kept it down at 63deg through all of primary.

We used dry yeast (one pack) and rehydrated it. We pitched it into the 60 deg wort and then I shake the *stuff* out of the car boy for a couple minutes to aerate. We also pour the wort from the kettle through a funnel with a strainer into the car boy, so it gets a little aeration then also.

The10mmKid, thanks for the suggestions! I'll give them a shot next time. We actually have 4 more IPA kits in the pipeline so I want to get those right.

Do you monitor the temps for the next few days?

I took temp readings a couple times a day to start and then got the temp controller installed. There are a couple readings at the bottom where I was ramping up the temp at the end. You can ignore the "set" column. That is the setting for the aquarium heater and as you can see it doesn't correspond to the temp of the wort, which is partially why I wanted the temp controller. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1423280985.459258.jpg

Update:

Just tasted again and it is improving! Still some off flavors, still a little banana, but the bitter tannin flavors are subsiding. I think there may be hope!

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1423356477.489423.jpg

How did it come out?
I brewed mine following the instructions (extract kit) and it's been in bottles for about 10 days. Just tried one and it's got some carb (very little though) but appears very sweet. Not as hoppy and bitter as I expected it to be.

Hoping more time will continue to carb up and drop the sweetness but not too sure it will be enough for my liking.

Jmancan said:

How did it come out?
I brewed mine following the instructions (extract kit) and it's been in bottles for about 10 days. Just tried one and it's got some carb (very little though) but appears very sweet. Not as hoppy and bitter as I expected it to be.

Hoping more time will continue to carb up and drop the sweetness but not too sure it will be enough for my liking.

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My Dead Ringers have come into full flavor after 5 weeks of conditioning at 68°F. Caramel sweetness no longer up front.

Interesting. I guess it's more time. What type of well known
IPA would you compare it too? Perhaps I was expecting too much from this...like the strong bitter hoppy flavor I've come to expect from like a Smuttynose IPA or similar.

Jmancan said:

Interesting. I guess it's more time. What type of well known
IPA would you compare it too? Perhaps I was expecting too much from this...like the strong bitter hoppy flavor I've come to expect from like a Smuttynose IPA or similar.

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It is supposed to be a clone of Bell Breweries "Two Hearted Ale". I have only had one six-pack of Two Hearted, didn't think it was worth to much. Ordered the Dead Ringer before I tasted the Two Hearted, thought I made a terrible mistake. Dead Ringer tastes much better than the Two Hearted.

FWIW, I brewed the Dead Ringer Extract kit from NB and got a very similar flavor profile and was very disappointed with it, as it was the furthest thing from 2-hearted in my opinion. I've since moved to BIAB and will be brewing it again this weekend.

Thanks for feedback. I'll give it time but move on to others.

Doing a Peepers Ale clone and Stone Ruination clone next while I have a bourbon porter and imperial stout aging.

Let us know how that Ruination clone comes out. Love that stuff!

Just finished the keg of Dead Ringer last week. It definitely got better with time. Still not a great IPA in my opinion but I think that was because we messed it up. We have another kit and I think it is worth brewing again, just be patient and give it plenty of time. I will probably let the dry hop sit a little longer to try and draw out a little more hop flavor and aroma.

one thing to mention you seem to not be measuring the wort its self but the air or water around it, the banana flavor is a direct result of high wort temperature meaning the water or air was correct but the wort raised its temps too high while fermenting, this is hard to measure as a new brewer but the wort is what we measure not the anything else. for best results you use a thermocouple inside the fermentation vessel and measure the wort its self, good luck hope it gets better in time

Tried another ringer. Two weeks bottled. Seems better already. Hop presence, sweetness a bit more mellowed. I can see how this could use 3-5 weeks to develop. There is hope!

Brewed the cascade mountain imperial IPA today. On a NB kick! Anyone do that one?

Jmancan, you and i are on the same track! Just brewed the Cascade IIPA today. We were using a 10 gal Tall Boy kettle for the first time and over estimated the amount of boil off that we would have so at the end of the boil we probably still had 6.25 gallons. OG came in at 1.064 instead of 1.086, so it won't be very imperial but hopefully it will still be a good IPA.

Excellent! Did you use a blowoff? My OG was up in the 1.088 + range. Even after topping up at 5.5 gallon. Probably should have went to 6 but maybe will add some boiled water after fermentation. Can't make up my mind.

We did use a blowoff tube. We put probably 6 gallons in our 6 gallon carboy so there wasn't a lot of head space. I use the shake it method to aerate. Since there wasn't much head space, and thus not much air to get into the wort, I did another round of shaking 12 hours after the first. That was this morning and tonight no major action yet. Fermenting at around 62 so not expecting super vigorous activity right away.

I had bubbles within 6 hours. Used a starter. No blowoff at the moment. At about 70 degrees.