I brewed a barleywine... was supposed to be an Imperial IPA - help?

[becks41]

So I am new to brewing, just brewed my third batch on Sunday. I bottled my 2nd batch last night which was actually a rebrew of my first batch. The first batch was pretty good, great hop bitterness and aroma, however as I was trying to go for an Imperial IPA, I was a bit off so I tried brewing it again.

The second batch seemed to go much better, I hit a OG of 1.095 and a FG of 1.016. When we tasted a small sample in the very beginning there was a ton of hoppy bitterness which is what we wanted. It was in the primary fermenter for 14 days, and the secondary for 4 weeks with 10 days at the end for dry hopping before bottling yesterday. I had to leave it in the secondary for so long because I had to travel for 3 weeks.

When we bottled it last night, all of the hops disappeared, and the dry hopping had zero effect as the beer tasted very sweet. I have an idea about what happened between the first batch and the second batch from the same recipe, but would appreciate some input from everyone else.

I used two smack packs of 1056 Wyeast which I pitched to a starter a few days before I pitched it to the fermenter - so plenty of yeast.

As my brew kettle is only 29liters and can only comfortably handle 20-25 in a nice boil, I had two other pots going to reduce my wort down as I collected 31 liters of wort from my mash. I had to boil for 30-40 minutes to reduce the volume before I added any hops for the scheduled 90 min boil. I think this is where it all went wrong as I only added hops to the main brew kettle and probably caramelized the sugar in the post because of the long boil time - the two pots on the stove were on very high to reduce the wort down as quickly as possible. Does this make sense or am I missing something?

Is there any other information you need? to help answer this? The final product actually tastes quite good and would be perfect if I was trying to brew a barley wine, however I want to avoid this in the future so its important to understand what went wrong.

This was an all grain recipe, brewed with 7.2 kg of malt and 375 grams of hops (Magnum, Amarillo & Willamette). thanks for the help!

 

[Pie_Man]

What was your hopping schedule? How many grams did you use per addition and at dry hopping?

 

[becks41]

Hi, below was my hop schedule:

boil 90 mins 50 Magnum leaf 12.7
boil 60 mins 35 Magnum leaf 12.7
boil 45 mins 15 Magnum leaf 12.7
boil 30 mins 20 Amarillo leaf 9.7
boil 15 mins 70 Amarillo leaf 9.7
boil 15 mins 30 Willamette leaf 5.5
post-boil 5 mins 55 Amarillo info leaf 9.7
post-boil 5 mins 30 Willamette leaf 5.5
dry hop 7 days 30 Amarillo leaf 9.7
dry hop 7 days 40 Willamette leaf 5.5


though as I said before, the first time I brewed it, the beer was very hoppy.

 

[Pie_Man]

Wow, that certainly seems like plenty of hops. I'm guessing your initial assertion was correct. I've heard that wort can only retain a certain amount of hop resin before it becomes saturated; Perhaps that occurred? Adding the additional pots of wort to your main kettle diluted that amount, but the wort may still have been saturated with hops. The potential hop saturation, combined with the caramelized sugars, could have masked your intended flavor and aroma hops.

You may want to try using less bittering hops and more flavor and aroma additions for your next batch. Also, reducing the batch size to fit into one pot should work. At least you enjoy the end product

 

[beerman0001]

SO you jugged how this beer is going to taste before it has even had a chance to carb up for 3 weeks?? Give it time and let us know how it taste when it is ready to be drank.

 

[becks41]

Actually, I'm judging this beer against the same recipe at the same stage with my previous brew and the hops have disappeared. I think the best explanation I received is the following:

You can only impart so much bitterness into the wort before your hop additions start only having an exponential effect (eg what would by calculations give u 200 IBUs in reality only gave you 105). And when you diluted it with the 0 IBU batches that would definitely bring down your IBUs. Best to add hops to all kettles.

 

[dcp27]

IIRC, IBU saturation is around 100, so if this was a split boil, you're only looking at around 50IBUs. doesn't explain why you're hop aroma would be non-existant tho

also, by your attenuation, it doesnt sound like there was much caramelization

 

[weirdboy]

With that hopping schedule you should be getting plenty of hop aroma regardless of the IBUs, and the bitterness shouldn't suddenly and dramatically decrease. The "wort can only hold so much" is not really an explanation and lacks any kind of meaning in this regard.

What might be an explanation is that you used older hops, or improperly stored hops, which can oxidize and fade quite quickly.


I would still wait and see how this turns out after carbonating. Perception can vary, so it's possible that for whatever reason it tasted sweet to you from your small sample, but the next time you try it it does not. Whatever you do, don't dump the batch based on that one tasting.

 

[becks41]

Thanks for the comments all, hops were fresh out of an unopened bag (different bags) from a good source. I'll post some more notes after these sit in the bottle for a while. I'll probably crack one open on Friday to compare and see where it's at, give it a few more weeks at 19 degrees C and then move to the basement where it's a constant 10 degrees and see how it ages.

No change that I'll throw it out. Beer is still beer whether it was the style I was going for or not, it still tasted quite good. On the plus side, both my Pale Ale and Black IPA seem to be progressing quite nicely, so I'll have plenty of beer to drink while I wait to see how the "barleywine" batch turns out.

Cheers!