Beginner's Seasonal Brews

[beerburglar]

I just kegged my first batch of beer last week from a kit i purchased at a local home brew store. The kit was LME, with some steeping grains. It was an American Amber style Ale that turned out way hoppier than i expected. I think i let the temperature creep up to high to near a boil after adding the hops. Any recommendations on reducing bitterness would be terrific. For my next brew I would like to try a seasonal ale, with some pumpkin spice, perhaps cardamom, etc. I'm looking for a pretty easy option, but would not mind trying a partial mash to increase flavor and get a little more in-depth into the process. Any recommendations on a good seasonal ale, would be terrific. Or if it is possible to do a seasonal, spiced hefe, that would be cool too!

 

[McGarnigle]

Time will reduce bitterness a bit. I'm not sure if i get your 'boil' issue, but that wasn't likely the problem. One possible cause is high AA%. Hops vary, and i wonder whether the kit makers just kept the recipe the same.

I'll let someone else recommend a spiced seasonal. I can only drink a few of those per year, so I don't want to brew them.

 

[malkore]

yeah i don't understand the temperature issue/boil/hops part either.

once teh wort is boiling, its not getting any hotter. the hotter wort becomes steam and leaves the wort.

you need to boil or you don't get bitterness in the right ratio.

i'm sure the beer is exactly as bitter as its supposed to be, assuming you followed the recipe.

give it time to age.

 

[beerburglar]

Hmmm... I thought i had read that once you achieve an initial boil with the LME, you don't need to continue to boil after adding the hops. Either way, it's not bad, just a bit more bitter than i expected. It's probably that it's very young and i haven't let it age at all. Although i did let it ferment for 3 weeks. More importantly, any ideas on the seasonal ales?

 

[scone]

Hmmm... I thought i had read that once you achieve an initial boil with the LME, you don't need to continue to boil after adding the hops. Either way, it's not bad, just a bit more bitter than i expected. It's probably that it's very young and i haven't let it age at all. Although i did let it ferment for 3 weeks. More importantly, any ideas on the seasonal ales?

There are a bunch of seasonal recipes on Austin Homebrew Supply's site, they usually come with a spice packet that contains a variety of stuff. I would go for a pumpkin ale or something of that nature. I haven't brewed either of these, but here are two options:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10886
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_609&products_id=354

In regards to the bitterness. You didn't perchance do a full boil when the recipe called for a partial boil did you? I've done that before I knew anything about hops, and the hop utilization goes up with the water volume, so if the recipe assumed you were boiling 2-3 gallons, and you boiled 5, then you increased the bitterness.

 

[scone]

Hmmm... I thought i had read that once you achieve an initial boil with the LME, you don't need to continue to boil after adding the hops.

I may be wrong, but I don't think this is true. I think you *do* want to boil for the correct amount of time to extract the bitterness you want from the hops (usually 60 minutes). What you don't want to do is boil your LME for the whole 60 minutes, so it's better to add it during the last 10 minutes or so, or even later than that.

 

[ecojack]

AHS Winter Warmer is delicious! I fermented it out for 2 months, been in bottle for 2 weeks now and it's amazing. Possibly the best of 11 batches so far.
AHS has a bunch of new winter ales too. give it a look!
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_452_609

 

[beerburglar]

I don't think the recipe called for a partial boil. I think some of the bitterness may have come from minimal mixing upon adding the LME. So the best option is to boil the hops for 50 mins, then add the LME in the last 10 minutes of the boil? That seems contrary to what i've read, but what do i know - newb here!

 

[scone]

I don't think the recipe called for a partial boil. I think some of the bitterness may have come from minimal mixing upon adding the LME. So the best option is to boil the hops for 50 mins, then add the LME in the last 10 minutes of the boil? That seems contrary to what i've read, but what do i know - newb here!

<-- newb here too

This seems counter intuitive to me also. I did a little searching, here are a few good threads.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/late-extract-addition-full-boils-70890/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/late-extract-addition-35413/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/extract-addition-last-15min-boil-26151/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/late-extract-addition-calculations-32149/

Basically, I guess this boils down to the following.

If doing partial boils (which you are not) do a little bit of extract in the beginning, and add the rest at 10-15 to go.

If doing full boils, it's probably ok to do the whole extract in the beginning since you don't risk as much darkening or caramelizing of the extract BUT it's probably better to do half at first, and the rest at 10-15. It's probably even better to do all the extract at the end, but then you must decrease the amount of hops in the recipe since the very low gravity water will increase your hops utilization.

 

[beerburglar]

-scone, i think you must add most of the LME within the first half (at least 30 mins) of the boil to kill off any unwanted bacteria, etc. that is what i have read. but i think you're right about adding the hops at a later stage in the boil to reduce flavor extraction and bitterness. i'm definitely gonna try that on my next brew. thanks for the help!

 

[McGarnigle]

Scone is right. It's not just caramelization, though. Think of the wort as "crowding out" the hops. So a partial boil with all extract up front will reduce hop bitterness.

You need to boil the extract a little to kill bacteria, etc. But that's not anywhere near 60 minutes. Some have toyed with the idea of adding no extract until late, but i think that has its own difficulties in the opposite direction.

Burglar, adding the hops later would reduce bitterness, but you'd get more flavor/aroma from them. My concern is this was a flukey thing with this recipe, and you don't need to adjust your next beer.