Bitter Brown

[Davida]

I just sampled an English brown ale I brewed two weeks ago. It seems quite bitter at this point.

Simpsons Medium Crystal Malt – ½ Lb
Briess Carapils Malt – ½ Lb
English Chocolate Malt – ¼ Lb
Amber Liquid malt extract – 6 Lbs
Muntons Amber Dry Malt Extract – ½ Lb
Muntons Wheat Dry Malt Extract – ½ Lb
Boiling Hops: 2 oz. US Fuggles (4.2% AA)
Finishing Hops: 0.5 oz. US Fuggles
Gypsum: 4 tsp
Whilrflock Tablet
Yeast: Wyeast 1178 Ringwood Ale Smack Pack
OG: 1052 FG:1018

Will this mellow out with some bulk aging in the secondary or should I add something like honey to help it sweeten up?

 

[malkore]

1. are you certain you need gypsum in your water chemistry?
2. what the IBU calculation you got? 2 oz in the hour boil seems like more than I've ever used, but I prefer a malty brown ale vs. the hoppier brown ales. Both are within style, its just South vs. North English Brown style.

If you add honey, the honey ferments. You cannot back-sweeten with a fermentable sugar, unless you strip/kill ALL the yeast first.

 

[Davida]

Thanks for the reply.

A few brown recipes had gypsum added so I thought I would try it out. I am not sure about my water chemistry. I usually use bottled water (Poland Springs).
Since I mixed recipes together I am uncertain how to calculate the IBU.

I was thinking that substituting honey for corn sugar for priming might alter the final product. No worries. After three weeks of fermenting it is lightening up and is actually tasting pretty good. I plan on bottling tomorrow. https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

If I want a maltier brown next time what changes would you suggest aside from eliminating the gypsum?
https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/smilies/occasion14.gif

 

[brtisbuck]

What was your batch size? Did you do a full boil? Did you do a late extract addition?

 

[brtisbuck]

I took the liberty to assume you did a full boil and did not add extract late. I crunched a few numbers and came up with the following:

Your IBU's are somewhere in the 35 range if 2oz of hops went in for 60 min and .5 went in at flameout (anything earlier would only increase IBUs). Based on your og of 1.052 and an IBU of 35 your BU:SG ratio is .653. An average English Brown has a ratio of .56. An American Brown is somewhere in the .9 range. A perfectly balanced ratio is .5, the further under the sweeter and the further over is more bitter. So if those numbers are close, your brew is in fact a bit more bitter than the norm for the style.

I would assume it will mellow a bit in time, but maybe not as much as you think it should if that ratio is in fact close to this estimate.