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czaccaria

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Hi everyone

I tried to find something on this but wasn't too conclusive, so I apologize for anything redundant.

I seem to have an issue with a bitter aftertaste in my beers. It's not hoppy bitter, its just an unpleasant bitterness in the back of the mouth. It does mellow out a bit with age as I let the beers sit longer, but never truly subsides.
(from sampling my beer from the bottle after a week, all the way up to 3 months in the bottle).

I don't think I over-hop my beer. I brew around 3-4 gallon batches, and use anywhere from 1 ounce up to 3.5 for an ipa (which was intensely bitter).

Any suggestions. I was told that possible adding the bittering hops in before the wort even comes to a boil might help, but didnt do much. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
What styles of beer? You mention IPA but also make it sound like it is all beers that you brew. Do you only brew hoppy beers or do you do malt forward ones too? What water do you use? If you use your tap water have you gotten a copy of your water report?

If something is happening in all of your beers, then the source has to be something that they all share, such as your equipment, your water or your procedures. Tell us about these.
 
So I've used different kinds of hops in my recipes. I'm fairly new to AG. Only about 7 batches under my belt. My wheat ale was one example. I used only an ounce of Amarillo. Pretty basic hopping schedule. .5 at boil then .5 at 30 mins. Came out pretty bitter. But I've noticed the IPA which was bitter hopped with cascade 1 ounce. Then flavor and aroma at 30 and flame out with a mixture of citra and Columbus. (1 ounce and 1 ounce). So 3 total. That was the most I've ever used.

In terms of my water, I have a well. So we don't get city water. Meaning no tests are available. We have a water pump and softener that comes right from the water table. Our water is generally pretty soft. Lately there has been a high amount of iron.

Equipment is either a glass Carboy or bucket. I'm really sanitary with everything and haven't noticed any abnormalities.
Thanks everyone for the responses. Let me know of you want more info.
 
cluckk said:
What styles of beer? You mention IPA but also make it sound like it is all beers that you brew. Do you only brew hoppy beers or do you do malt forward ones too? What water do you use? If you use your tap water have you gotten a copy of your water report?

If something is happening in all of your beers, then the source has to be something that they all share, such as your equipment, your water or your procedures. Tell us about these.

I've brewed everything from a Hefeweizen to Irish ale. Stout. IPA and a wheat beer. So not particularly all hoppy.
 
Keep the 60 minute addition,& move the 30 minute on down to 20 & 10 minutes for flavor with less bitterness. The 30 minute addition is adding at least as much bitterness as flavor. so moving the 30 minute down to 20 will help that alot. I do the last flavor addition at 10 minutes. The aroma addition about 3 minutes left. Dry hop for more intense aromas.
 
If you're using water from the softener try bypassing it and using straight water that hasn't been softened. Water softeners throw off your water profile. I use my tap water but take it from an outside faucet that doesn't come from the softener.
 
Water tests are certainly available, and I recommend you getting one so you know what you're working with. Every state will have a water-testing lab you can send a sample or to, or you can send one to Ward Labs which a lot of homebrewers do.
My first too guess would be sparging with water over 170 degrees- this can extract tannins and lead to astringency. From your description, it sounds like astringency more than a hop issue.
I had the exact some taste in some of my early beers- a lingering, vaguely unpleasant sorta bitterness that kinda made my lips and throat pucker. For me the problem was my water. My well water is delicious and I don't use a softener but it is extremely hard- 360ppm of temporary hardness. I ended up installing a small Reverse Osmosis system made for aquariums and hooked it to a float switch in a 8 gallon bucket. I cut my well water 1 to 2 with the RO water for the mash and then fill the HLT back up with more RO water for the sparge.

Might be more explanation than you wanted. In any case, I would advise getting some spring water (Or RO/Distilled water and add some salts to it) from the grocery store and try brewing with that, with a recipe you've already made, in order to rule out your water as a source of the issue.

G'luck.
 
I've only sparged once with water that was 170+ ( I think around 175), and that beer is still in the carboy so I have yet to give it a taste. Ill see if that made any difference, but everything else was around the 160 mark. I brewed yesterday with the modified hopping as suggested by union. I'm looking forward to see if that made any difference.
 
170-175F is too hot for sparge water. Although I have gotten away with 170F once when I started the sparge water too early with no thermometer. Got another thermometer to fix that though.
 
I've only sparged once with water that was 170+ ( I think around 175), and that beer is still in the carboy so I have yet to give it a taste. Ill see if that made any difference, but everything else was around the 160 mark. I brewed yesterday with the modified hopping as suggested by union. I'm looking forward to see if that made any difference.

I can sparge with 180-200 degree sparge water, to get the grainbed to 168, and that's fine. It's really a pH issue, not so much the temperature.

I really think it's a water chemistry issue.

I'd suggest sending a sample to Ward Lab, and for $16.50 you can get all the information you need for brewing.

Iron in the water could be part of it, but it tends to be "metallic" or like "blood" tasting. It sounds more like alkalinity, but you said the water is soft. It could be the amount of sodium or sulfate, but it's hard to say without knowing what's in the water.
 
We do have some sulfer in the water. It comes and goes, but we had an issue for a while where it would smell a bit sulferish. So it may be good to get things tested. We have a backwashing system that utilizes salt, but its designed to that the salts do exactly that, backwash everything and we should (in theory) be getting clean water.
 
I have a Rainsoft water softener that works similar to what you are referring to. It has a large carbon filter that is back washed with salt. But it still pushes a LOT of salt into the water as when it cleans it the salt ions exchange with the other ions and remain behind on the carbon filter. Like was mentioned this is causing your water to have little to no alkalinity along with too much salt of some kind in the water. I would stop using the softened water since it is messing with your beer. Get the water test from Ward, as it is amazing and use one of the easy spread sheets out there. I like Bru'nWater personally and I did check several other ones but chose this one. You plug in your numbers from the ward report, then the grain bill for each beer and you can customize the PH of everything for each beer. Takes a couple of minutes to setup and adjust your water once you get the hang of it, and the water adjustment minerals are cheap.

I agree with Yooper about the temp, I've ran sparge water through that started out at boiling and did not have any issues with astringency, so it is largely a PH issue, but PH changes with temperature which is why they recommend keeping it with in a certain temp range, but depending on your water and grainbill it is not always as big of a deal.

You should get your Ward's water report and go to the Brewing Science section and post the profile there to get some awesome info from all the water "experts" there. :)
 
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