I'm bitter. Too bitter.

[Dom P]

Hey chaps.

Just finished my third brew and yet again it seems really bitter. I've been using northern Brewer extract kits and have followed the recipes (with an extra addition of dry hops on the last one) and they've all come out really bitter once conditioned. Would this mellow with more time in the bottle?

My temperature control isn't great to be honest, I have stick on thermometers on the FVs but rely on manually moving it round the house to keep it in the sensible range, so I'm wondering if this could have had an impact?
Any thoughts gratefully received

D

 

[Steveruch]

Yes, hop presence fades with time, which is why heavily hopped IPAs are better fresh.

 

[hagar]

There are a couple reasons why you might have excess bitterness in your brews. Others will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not aware of a situation where FV temp would affect bitterness, so I'm going to say that's likely not the culprit.
Chances are high the answer will be found in the kits. Can you tell us more about the kits you've been brewing with, and how you've been brewing them? The ingredient list at least. That will help others to help you.
The good news is it will most likely resolve itself in time.

-Cheers!

 

[SanPancho]

Water chemistry can also enhance bitterness or harshness. Try and see what your local water report shows.

now if the brew kit doesn’t include hops and you buy your own then make sure you are calculating an ibu level to match the recipes ibus. There are free online calculators that can do it, you just need your alpha acid % from the hop package.

Lastly, if you are not cooling quickly then you could be getting extra bitterness from the hops you add at the end of the boil. The longer they stay hot the longer they give you ibus. The higher the acid% the more bitter you will extract if you dont chill quickly.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[JohnSand]

There are a couple of other possibilities. It might be infection, which might taste sour, or very sharp.
Temperature control might have an effect. I find that fermenting Nottingham over 70 results in an unpleasant sharpness that does not fade.
It will help you to get experienced feedback. Try to bring your beer to a homebrew meeting, let other brewers tell you what they think.
Study and practice will improve your beer. Good luck, brew on.

 

[jalc6927]

Also if these are extract kits try adding 30-50% of the extract at flameout instead of all at the beginning

 

[Dom P]

Thanks guys, some good replies. Sadly I don't know of any homebrew clubs locally (south coast of England, near Chichester). It was a Dead Ringer extract kit; I can't seem to find the ingredients anywhere, however I am going to boil up a caribou slobber tomorrow and am going to try buying water in to see if it makes a difference.

I've also noticed some gunk floating on the top of the bottles today after bottling; I think it's probably hop residue. Any ideas if this will settle in time?

 

[JohnSand]

It should. After carbing and chilling, if there is still something floating on top I find that tapping the neck can make it sink.

 

[Dom P]

Thanks John. It actually seems to have settled a tiny bit already, so I think I was just being overly worried and not using the good old homebrewers best tool...patience! Fingers crossed it comes good in the end and the bitterness mellows out a bit

 

[ncbrewer]

If you did a full boil (boiled the full volume rather than adding top-off water) when the recipe called for a partial boil, hop utilization will be higher. Also, adding half (more or less) of the extract at the end of the boil would increase hop utilization, and increase bitterness.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Also, with the dry hop, if you just toss 'em into the fermenter and don't cold crash, they will find their way into the bottle. Not a big deal, but they need time in the fridge after carbonating for the hops to drop out of suspension. I dry hop loose pellets all the time and for the first week after kegging, they're really bitter and almost burn my throat because of the hops in suspension (and that's with a 48 hour cold crash). After a week in the kegerator, they taste awesome.

If they're fully carbed, but them in the fridge for a week and see what they taste like (oh, and leave the last half ounce or so in the bottle when you pour it).

 

[Jako]

Thanks guys, some good replies. Sadly I don't know of any homebrew clubs locally (south coast of England, near Chichester). It was a Dead Ringer extract kit; I can't seem to find the ingredients anywhere, however I am going to boil up a caribou slobber tomorrow and am going to try buying water in to see if it makes a difference.

I've also noticed some gunk floating on the top of the bottles today after bottling; I think it's probably hop residue. Any ideas if this will settle in time?

the stuff floating in the bottle could be the yeast eating the priming sugar. it looks like your picture.

 

[PADave]

Just curious, what do you consider a good commercial IPA to be? Could be your perception. I can brew a beer with calculated IBU's well over 100 and drink it no problem, but to some it's way too much.
Either way, the hops will fade over time.

 

[Jako]

Just curious, what do you consider a good commercial IPA to be? Could be your perception. I can brew a beer with calculated IBU's well over 100 and drink it no problem, but to some it's way too much.
Either way, the hops will fade over time.

this is a good point.

 

[Jerryskids]

Hop flavor and aroma will fade.... bitterness will not. Are your graviities correct?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Thanks guys, some good replies. Sadly I don't know of any homebrew clubs locally (south coast of England, near Chichester).

The South Downs means you're going to be dealing with a lot of chalk which won't play nicely with a US-style IPA (this kit is meant to clone Two-Hearted, which is 55IBU, so it is meant to be about twice as bitter as the typical British pint)...<Googles> Here's your water report (albeit Portsmouth Water is still operating in 2016, usually they're more recent than that) - pH 7.3, 275ppm CaCO3 equivalent, but 15ppm sulphate and 23ppm chloride are on the low side. You could try boiling it and letting it cool before mashing, which will drop out the worst of the hardness, or cut it with supermarket water (we talked about it a bit here).

As far as local advice goes, the obvious thing to do would be to go to somewhere like Noggins on the Chichester side of Bognor (PO22 7AZ) who will know what's happening locally. And buy some stuff from them rather than (the other! ) Northern Brewer who are part of the ABInbev empire and who seem to be bringing in their kits from the US, whereas local suppliers will probably have something fresher. The online ones at least, kits can stick around in shops...

But I would have a think about what kind of beer you like, and it could be that this style of beer just isn't really your thing.

 

[Dom P]

The South Downs means you're going to be dealing with a lot of chalk which won't play nicely with a US-style IPA (this kit is meant to clone Two-Hearted, which is 55IBU, so it is meant to be about twice as bitter as the typical British pint)...<Googles> Here's your water report (albeit Portsmouth Water is still operating in 2016, usually they're more recent than that) - pH 7.3, 275ppm CaCO3 equivalent, but 15ppm sulphate and 23ppm chloride are on the low side. You could try boiling it and letting it cool before mashing, which will drop out the worst of the hardness, or cut it with supermarket water (we talked about it a bit here).

As far as local advice goes, the obvious thing to do would be to go to somewhere like Noggins on the Chichester side of Bognor (PO22 7AZ) who will know what's happening locally. And buy some stuff from them rather than (the other! ) Northern Brewer who are part of the ABInbev empire and who seem to be bringing in their kits from the US, whereas local suppliers will probably have something fresher. The online ones at least, kits can stick around in shops...

But I would have a think about what kind of beer you like, and it could be that this style of beer just isn't really your thing.

Great reply, thanks! I have considered looking at buying water in, so might try that with my next brew!

 

[Dom P]

Just curious, what do you consider a good commercial IPA to be? Could be your perception. I can brew a beer with calculated IBU's well over 100 and drink it no problem, but to some it's way too much.
Either way, the hops will fade over time.

That's a good question, and to be fair my taste is fairly all inclusive; I'm a fan of anything hoppy and quite like a decent bitterness, as long as the overall profile is balanced. Summer Lightning, Proper Job (Cornish brewery) and a few others spring to mind.

On a side note, do any of our US friends know if you can still get Mack and Jack's in America? Used to love that stuff when I visited Seattle and would love to get my hands on some again to try and work out a recipe!

 

[EnglishAndy]

Hop flavor and aroma will fade.... bitterness will not. Are your graviities correct?

I do find that the bitterness, or at least my perception of it, does change over time. It maybe that harsh bitterness mellows to smooth but there's certainly a change that I perceive between, say 2 and 6 weeks in the bottle.

 

[Dom P]

Hop flavor and aroma will fade.... bitterness will not. Are your graviities correct?

Yes, OG and FG were pretty much bang on, so was pleased about that

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That's a good question, and to be fair my taste is fairly all inclusive; I'm a fan of anything hoppy and quite like a decent bitterness, as long as the overall profile is balanced. Summer Lightning, Proper Job (Cornish brewery) and a few others spring to mind.

Yep, so I think misplaced expectations are part of the story here, US beers tend to be much more bitter and generally rather less balanced, so are perhaps not the best place to start. For comparison with that 55IBU of Two Hearted, Summer Lightning is 38IBU-ish and Proper Job is the high 40's - and British beers tend to be rather more balanced for a given IBU. You may be able to catch Brewdog's latest seasonal in ASDA and Morrisons, Slot Machine which is 55IBU - or get Jackhammer from ASDA and cut it with Punk or Proper Job or something. I don't think you can say you have "inclusive" tastes until you've had extremes like Jackhammer.

As an aside, here's a bit about the background to Proper Job, which is inspired by BridgePort IPA, and here's a clone recipe

 

[Dom P]

Yep, so I think misplaced expectations are part of the story here, US beers tend to be much more bitter and generally rather less balanced, so are perhaps not the best place to start. For comparison with that 55IBU of Two Hearted, Summer Lightning is 38IBU-ish and Proper Job is the high 40's - and British beers tend to be rather more balanced for a given IBU. You may be able to catch Brewdog's latest seasonal in ASDA and Morrisons, Slot Machine which is 55IBU - or get Jackhammer from ASDA and cut it with Punk or Proper Job or something. I don't think you can say you have "inclusive" tastes until you've had extremes like Jackhammer.

As an aside, here's a bit about the background to Proper Job, which is inspired by BridgePort IPA, and here's a clone recipe

I guess it's a fair point, and maybe a poor choice of examples from me; I've been lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time stateside and am a massive fan of the more bitter taste of an American IPA, I just couldn't necessarily name any off hand

Nonetheless I think you are right that maybe I am expecting a more English IPA level of bitterness rather than American, so maybe that's it.

Do you know if you can get the partial mash extract style kits (similar to NB kits) for any of the UK ales? I've seen the solely extract kits, but in my (albeit limited) experience these tend to produce inferior beer.

Appreciate your advice and help

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Not quite sure what you mean - sounds more like AG with extract to me! But it's quite normal to have extract kits with grain for the speciality grains. I've never brewed a kit (well not one that didn't come from Boots!) so I''m the wrong person to ask, but have a poke around eg www.brewuk.co.uk to see if there's something up your street, they make up a lot of their own kits. (no affiliation etc)

 

[MVKTR2]

Northern Nrewer is almost certainly onto your issue, water chemistry. Next batch I'd go half and half, maybe more, distilled/RO water to tap water. High chalk will cause harshness as does high sulfite water.

Fwiw, bitterness does fade with time, not just flavor and aroma. I'm into aging a cpl commercial beers as well as my homebrew. Across years the bitterness drop is apparent.

 

[hagar]

Do you know if you can get the partial mash extract style kits (similar to NB kits) for any of the UK ales? I've seen the solely extract kits, but in my (albeit limited) experience these tend to produce inferior beer.

I've been a partial mash brewer for a couple years now. It's been my experience that a good partial mash kit can be hard to find. Best to learn how to convert AG to partial mash. It's really not very difficult to do. I basically convert half the base malt to 3# DME or 3.3# LME (for a 5.5 gal batch) and then mash a scaled down version of the original grain bill. There's a great deal of info online as to how to convert AG to PM. That way you can convert, brew, and tweek to your hearts content.

 

[Dom P]

Northern Nrewer is almost certainly onto your issue, water chemistry. Next batch I'd go half and half, maybe more, distilled/RO water to tap water. High chalk will cause harshness as does high sulfite water.

Fwiw, bitterness does fade with time, not just flavor and aroma. I'm into aging a cpl commercial beers as well as my homebrew. Across years the bitterness drop is apparent.

Thanks, will have to try and buy some water in I think, seems like it could help the next brew a lot.

 

[flars]

Hey chaps.

Just finished my third brew and yet again it seems really bitter. I've been using northern Brewer extract kits and have followed the recipes (with an extra addition of dry hops on the last one) and they've all come out really bitter once conditioned. Would this mellow with more time in the bottle?

My temperature control isn't great to be honest, I have stick on thermometers on the FVs but rely on manually moving it round the house to keep it in the sensible range, so I'm wondering if this could have had an impact?
Any thoughts gratefully received

D

Is the production of fusel alcohols a possibility from the fermentation temperature being too high in the first few days of active fermentation? Standard yeasts for the Dead Ringer is WY 1056 or US-05. The temperature range for WY 1056 is 60°F (16°C) to 72°F (22°C). Temperature range for US-05 is 59°F (15°C) to 75°F (24°C).

Fusel alcohols in a beer will yield a sharp bite on the tongue.

 

[Dom P]

Is the production of fusel alcohols a possibility from the fermentation temperature being too high in the first few days of active fermentation? Standard yeasts for the Dead Ringer is WY 1056 or US-05. The temperature range for WY 1056 is 60°F (16°C) to 72°F (22°C). Temperature range for US-05 is 59°F (15°C) to 75°F (24°C).

Fusel alcohols in a beer will yield a sharp bite on the tongue.

I'd be surprised if it was; it's more of a bitter finish than an initial bite, but it's a good question. My temperature control isn't tight yet so it's possible I guess.

 

[Minky]

Whenever I hear the complaint that a beer is too bitter, I have to wonder if the proper hop schedule was used. I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but a common beginner mistake is adding the hops in the reverse order. It is easy to get that wrong. Don't ask how I know!!

For example, the 60 minute hop addition is added with 60 minutes left in the boil, and the 5 minute addition is added with 5 minutes left in the boil.

 

[flars]

I'd be surprised if it was; it's more of a bitter finish than an initial bite, but it's a good question. My temperature control isn't tight yet so it's possible I guess.

I did not mention that the hot/bitter aftertaste of fusels is very predominant.

What cleaners and sanitizers are you using? Not sure if residual from cleaners would cause bitterness but anything is sometimes possible.

 

[Dom P]

I did not mention that the hot/bitter aftertaste of fusels is very predominant.

What cleaners and sanitizers are you using? Not sure if residual from cleaners would cause bitterness but anything is sometimes possible.

Starsan at the correct dilution, so don't think that would be a problem?

 

[Dom P]

Whenever I hear the complaint that a beer is too bitter, I have to wonder if the proper hop schedule was used. I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but a common beginner mistake is adding the hops in the reverse order. It is easy to get that wrong. Don't ask how I know!!

For example, the 60 minute hop addition is added with 60 minutes left in the boil, and the 5 minute addition is added with 5 minutes left in the boil.

No, you're good, I'm adding them when I should. Again, fair question though as the instructions weren't clear and it was only through online research I realised that the minutes given was time remaining in the boil

 

[flars]

Starsan at the correct dilution, so don't think that would be a problem?

Star San is a sanitizer. Are you using the Star San as a cleaner? Any specks of gunk left after rinsing cold side equipment can harbor bacteria. Star San is only effective for sanitizing clean surfaces. It does not penetrate dried residues.

A few days ago I was getting ready to bottle my Dead Ringer after a seven day dry hop. Noticed the color of the beer was much darker. Pulled the air lock for a sniff. Very sharp non-hop aroma. Taste was very bitter. Infected. Didn't check the SG again but it had an FG of 1.007 before dry hopping. I had an infection in some piece of equipment when I brewed a porter in June of last year. Didn't notice the infection until mid December when the remaining few porters were over carbonated. SG had also dropped five points in the bottle. Didn't affect the taste though. Dumped an amber ale last week. Off aroma and very bitter but had not turned a darker color. Three other brews in the middle have no signs of an infection.

It is possible you have picked up a bacteria. It is also possible your palate may not like the IBU level and the level of citrus in the hops. Bottle the beer and taste one after warm conditioning in three weeks. Check the SG periodically after letting a sample go flat if the beer is still a fairly good drink.


I'll be brewing another Dead Ringer tomorrow after bleaching all the fermentors, boiling hard plastics and mesh bags, replacing the bottling bucket and tubing.

Will be using new yeast instead of harvested yeast this time.

 

[Dom P]

Star San is a sanitizer. Are you using the Star San as a cleaner? Any specks of gunk left after rinsing cold side equipment can harbor bacteria. Star San is only effective for sanitizing clean surfaces. It does not penetrate dried residues.

A few days ago I was getting ready to bottle my Dead Ringer after a seven day dry hop. Noticed the color of the beer was much darker. Pulled the air lock for a sniff. Very sharp non-hop aroma. Taste was very bitter. Infected. Didn't check the SG again but it had an FG of 1.007 before dry hopping. I had an infection in some piece of equipment when I brewed a porter in June of last year. Didn't notice the infection until mid December when the remaining few porters were over carbonated. SG had also dropped five points in the bottle. Didn't affect the taste though. Dumped an amber ale last week. Off aroma and very bitter but had not turned a darker color. Three other brews in the middle have no signs of an infection.

It is possible you have picked up a bacteria. It is also possible your palate may not like the IBU level and the level of citrus in the hops. Bottle the beer and taste one after warm conditioning in three weeks. Check the SG periodically after letting a sample go flat if the beer is still a fairly good drink.


I'll be brewing another Dead Ringer tomorrow after bleaching all the fermentors, boiling hard plastics and mesh bags, replacing the bottling bucket and tubing.

Will be using new yeast instead of harvested yeast this time.

I use PBW to clean, and StarSan to sanitise. I always try and make sure I've cleaned everything as much as is possible as from what I've read good brewing is 70% cleaning!

On a side note, FG of 1.007...thats a good FG! Mine finished at 1.012!