Sweetness from hopbursting?

[brianpablo]

I was making an American pale ale and decided to go for something with a bit more hop intensity, so I grabbed the hop schedule from Jamil's Evil Twin. The latter is actually an amber ale, and the final product ended up smelling strongly of amber and malt sweetness when I bottled it. Sure enough, two weeks later, my first pint felt like it had an overwhelming resinous quality to it and a bizarre sweetness that I don't know the origin of. The beer finished at 1.009 (fermented with Safale-05), so obviously not much in the way of residual sugar. I'm genuinely a huge fan of hop bursting, but wasn't quite ready for this result. Perhaps a product of the shortened boil time/ Anyone else seen this happen?

Type: Extract
Batch Size: 2.65 gal
Boil Size: 3.20 gal
Boil Time: 30 min
End of Boil Vol: 3.09 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 2.40 gal

Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Bitterness: 38.7 IBUs
Est Color: 8.2 SRM

5.9 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 1 10.5 %
1 lbs 9.1 oz Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 2 44.6 %
0.15 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 3 14.8 IBUs
0.10 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 4 6.4 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [6.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 5 10.8 IBUs
0.20 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 6.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 7 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
1 lbs 9.3 oz Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 9 44.9 %
0.25 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs

 

[wildactbrewer]

I had this same thing happen on an IPA I did last year! I had no idea, and still don't, what happened. I attributed the sweetness to the proportion of crystal malt I used as the beer also came out a bit darker than I expected. Still a good beer, but like you described...not quite right.

I know that didn't help at all, but at least you know you're not alone

 

[Quaker]

I've had that as well, and believe it came from an insufficient start of boil bittering charge to balance out the malt. You definitely get bitterness from the hot steep or whirlpool, but I suspect the IBU predictions are much less reliable then. I expect moving your 30min addition back to 60 would help.

 

[brianpablo]

Yep, that makes sense. I've always wondered whether there was some kind of downside to getting all the IBUs from late addition, always figured "Hell, who wouldn't want more hop flavor?" Given that these are relatively small batches, I don't usually do a 60 minute boil because the bitterness somehow ends up totally blown out even when I keep the proportions the same. A 45 minute boil is probably the bare minimum though. Live and learn! My wife seemed to enjoy it, and I only have about another two gallons to go. It has a bit of a resinous toothpaste type quality to it, and after a pint I really felt like I wanted to drink some water. I've certainly drank worse.

 

[m00ps]

10% crystal malt is very high for an IPA. I've read Stone and Russian River suggest to eliminate it or stay below 5%. I think thats definitely whats giving you the sweetness. The crystal clashes with the hops. I do hopburst/hopstands for all my IPAs with as much as 16oz going in after the flame is out (5gal batch). I've never gotten any sweetness from it apart from any tricks your nose and tongue play on your from association with the fruity flavors

 

[JordanKnudson]

I agree that the first thing to look at would be your crystal malts. That's a more likely source of residual sweetness than the timing of your hops.

This might be an obvious (and I hope not insulting) question, but since you bottle conditioned, are you sure the sweetness isn't just priming sugar that hasn't been eaten up yet? 2 weeks is *usually* about how long the leftover yeast takes to fully consume the priming sugar, but it's certainly not a guarantee. I've had bottle-conditioned beers that took much longer to carbonate for a wide variety of reasons. And even a little bit of unconsumed sugar from priming is enough to be noticeable, in my experience.

 

[brianpablo]

Yes, that's entirely possible, and not an insulting question at all. I tend to think no, because I get pretty aggressive fermentation given that I'm at altitude in a warm climate. It would be nice if that's indeed the problem, since it would effectively solve itself.

I've routinely used 10 percent crystal malts in pale ales to no obvious effect. I've actually started pushing the crystal a bit higher precisely because of the strong fermentation I get here, simply because my final gravities rarely end up above 1.010 and in some cases have practically gone to zero. I don't totally understand it myself, but I know brewers are down on crystal malt these days so I've got no concerns about significantly knocking them back.

Thanks guys.

 

[ricshayne]

I had this problem wih a couple of IPAs where i was trying to get all the bitterness from FWH and Whirlpool additions. they would come out with this nasty sweetness at the end, and after making this mistake a few times i decided to change my process.
I used a traditional hops schedule and aimed for a little over 1/3 of my total bitterness with the FWH. the rest came from bursting in the last ten minutes and then I still did a whirlpool but set my extraction #s way down in beer smith.
This beer turned out great and I know that was the problem and fix for me and hopefully for you as well

 

[brianpablo]

They've actually started to mellow out in terms of sweetness over the last few days, which means it probably was a bottling sugar issue. Will give them three weeks before cracking into them next time. The bitterness still doesn't taste quite right to me, it's a bit of a lesson for me in not going overdrive with the hopbursting.

 

[jmadway]

I've had this issue with big double IPAs that have no crystal and finish at around 1.010. It's been with citrusy hops like Amarillo and Mosaic where the vast majority of hops are whirlpool. Perhaps it is about needing to balance late additions with bittering charges, but I fully believe that the sweetness is connected to massive amounts of late hopping.