Extra hoppy IPA

[rickbath]

Hi,

About a week into my fermentation, i took the gravity reading from the tube of my kit. Instead of dumping the liquid away, i tasted it. It was quite hoppy indeed. Its something which i could pallette but not everyone. I was wondering if there was a way to make it less hoppy.

Here is what i did:

Boil 20-40 grams of barley into 2-2.5litres of water. Added 400 grams of corn sugar and brown sugar. Added the MR Beer IPA to a medium heat for about 15 mins till all the sugar dissolved.

I guess this is where it imparted the hoppy bitterness flavour.

Could i just add more water or perhaps dme or just live with it?

Let me know....

Lesson learnt: Never boil kits for too long

 

[rickbath]

After some reading i realise that boiling of sugar is not required... Perhaps i will take note going forward.

 

[max384]

Hoppiness fades rather quickly. That is why IPAs are best drank fresh. If it's too much hoppiness for you, let it sit in a secondary for a couple of months. The hop kick will fade on its own. No need to do anything else.

 

[FatDragon]

Did you really boil 20-40 grams of barley? Grains aren't boiled in beer brewing; they are steeped or mashed, where steeping (for color and flavor) can involve a fairly wide range of temperatures and times and mashing (for sugar extraction as well as color and flavor) has more specific temperature and time requirements, but the hottest your grains will get in either method is still 20-30C below boiling. If you do boil grains they contribute tannins, which are bitter, but not in the same way that hops are bitter.

Also, did you do a Mr. Beer kit with only 2-2.5L of water, or did you top it up? I'm pretty sure Mr. Beer kits are meant to be one gallon, which is 3.79L. If you really did a Mr. Beer IPA kit in 60% of the water and it finishes fermenting, it'll be significantly more bitter and more alcoholic than the kit was designed to be, so that might be part of your issue as well.

 

[Redlantern]

Week into fermentation? Perhaps bitterness of hops amplified by active yeasties in substantial quantity still present? Let everything settle out and leave it bottle condition. I'll bet the flavor mellows quite a bit.

 

[max384]

Wait, I just reread your post. Let me make sure I have this straight. You added sugar water and then heated the entire solution?

If this is the case, I fear you have killed your yeast. This will leave you with an overly sweet IPA since there will be no yeast to eat all the sugars you added. You may need to add more yeast.

Next time you have an issue, RDWHAHB. Then post here BEFORE you do anything.

 

[bransona]

If you actually boiled the grains, there's your bitterness problem. Tannins all day. And as said above, if it wasn't topped up to proper volume, you made a much stronger and hoppier beer than intended. Did the kit call for brown sugar?

 

[rickbath]

Hi All,


Thanks for the replies..

Just to clarify, that 2-2.5l of water was used as part of the mixtrure for the kit, sugars and barley. I topped it up to the recommended 8.5l mark with cold water.

I intended to put the barley into a muslin bag but as i realised it had a hole in it, i thought i could put it on a medium heat. That did not boil up. It was just enuf to keep it warm and not boil. Perhaps i could take extra caution next time when adding in barley.

The kit does not ask for any additions but in a goal to make decent ABV beer, i added the sugars.
The yeast was supplied as an addition so i let the mixture set at 22 degrees till i added the yeast.

 

[FatDragon]

Hi All,


Thanks for the replies..

Just to clarify, that 2-2.5l of water was used as part of the mixtrure for the kit, sugars and barley. I topped it up to the recommended 8.5l mark with cold water.

I intended to put the barley into a muslin bag but as i realised it had a hole in it, i thought i could put it on a medium heat. That did not boil up. It was just enuf to keep it warm and not boil. Perhaps i could take extra caution next time when adding in barley.

The kit does not ask for any additions but in a goal to make decent ABV beer, i added the sugars.
The yeast was supplied as an addition so i let the mixture set at 22 degrees till i added the yeast.

Thanks. When you share half of your process and leave the rest unsaid, it actually makes it harder to diagnose than if you had shared nothing at all.

It sounds like most of your process is fine. The added sugar is acceptable for beefing up a kit brew like this, though you'll typically have better results if you use malt extract instead. Depending on just how hot your grain steep got, you may or may not have gotten tannins, but again that's a different bitterness than hops (think over-steeped tea). You'd start getting tannins around 80C, I believe.

One thing to note is that beer tastes very different a week into fermentation than it does chilled and carbonated after proper conditioning. You might be mistaking other flavors (esters from warm fermentation - ~18C is optimal for most ales; booziness from the higher ABV since you added sugar; 'green' beer; etc.) for hops bitterness. Or you might just not have the same palate for bitterness that others have, so the kit tastes bitter to you when another brewer might think it's a perfectly normal IPA-level bitterness.

Whatever the cause, give it a few weeks and report back to us when the brew is bottled and carbonated to tell us what you think about it in its final form.