Decreasing/masking of bitterness/astringency

[supermastersbros]

So, first of all, my brother and I have been homebrewing for a year or so, mostly extracts and starting to branch out into partial mashing. I've had pretty good luck with tweaking recipes and have always ended up with very good results.

I've got a problem with my latest batch, however. I was attempting to recreate a green tea IPA I sampled a few months ago, which was one of the best beers that ever crossed my lips. In order to recreate the slight "tea-ish" astringency I tasted in this beer I steeped about 4 liters of the wort in a fairly strong green tea. Everything in the fermentation went fine and it proceeded nicely. My gravity readings and the action in the secondary fermenter are indicating I should bottle.

Enter the problem: I tasted it today and it's entirely too bitter and astringent. Upon review of my brew log I grossly underestimated the malt needed in this recipe. I could bottle, but I don't see it being particularly drinkable. My wife seemed to like it, but it was a bit to thin for my taste.

So, what I'm thinking of doing would be to siphon off a gallon or so and reboil it with some more malt extract or DME. My thinking in doing this is that I'll mask some of the astringency and bitterness with some more malt sweetness. If needed, I'll add a fresh batch of yeast.

Any suggestions here?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Uziyahu]

I think boiling your beer is a bad idea- even just one gallon. I think the agitation of the boil would mix in oxygen. The heat would kill flavor and maybe cause the alcohol to evaporate. I'm not expert, but I think boiling even just a portion of your beer would be a really bad idea.

 

[HobbenSchlobben]

You'd surely need to repitch if you ever want it to carbonate.

 

[greenthumbed]

Tip it out and try again or drink it as is. I can't see you improving it at this point.

 

[jsherlock22]

I've have screwed up a few brews and dry hopping has made them tolerable/enjoyable. Weren't the beers I was shooting for but they were more than drinkable.

 

[supermastersbros]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies.

Upon inspection in a decent light before bottling I found a serious case of stratification going on. My initial tasting samples had been from the very bitter and astringent top layer, when I sampled a nice mixture of the two layers the beer tasted fine, in fact, it tasted pretty close to what I was going for. The stratification can easily be attributed to the dry hopping, as the top, oil-rich layer was definitely full of hop residue and matter.

I bottled the beer last night and tasted a bottle a few minutes ago, it was excellent.

Thanks for the advice, and I'm glad I didn't go crazy and amend the beer.