fermentation questions

[jamissr]

ok, so lots of text for a quick question, but im trying to explain my process to help with the answers.

Im brewing AG, 10 gallon batches. I just brewed a stone IPA clone recipe from edwort. Everything came out perfect, hit my numbers right on, 1.066 was og. tasted wort and bitterness was spot on, tasted fantastic. so excited to have an IPA that tasted bitter!

Split into two 6 gallon fermenters.
First one i pitched US-05 dry, was the first batch i pulled out of kettle so almost no hops or trub left. started well, nothing special, seemed to ferment fine.
Second one i re-pitched a starter of notty i had, good sized starter, went crazy lots of blowoff. was the end of the kettle, so a good bit more trub and hops in the fermenter.

14 days into fermentation (chambered at 61 degrees ambient) the first one (us-05) had dropped to 1.014, perfect. pulled it out of chamber, let it sit at 70 for 3 days to clean up, crash cooled for 2 days to clean, kegged it, and it is perfect. tastes just like stone IPA, nice and bitter, tastes clean.

Second batch, at 14 days was at 1.022. Crap, didnt taste nearly as good. So i went ahead and tossed in some of the US-05 slurry from the other batch, let it sit at about 65 for 4 days. pulled a sample tonight, its at 1.010. A little low but should be fine, tasted it, and i can barely taste any bitterness at all. Probably should have skipped the repitch and just let it sit at 70 for a few days to finish out is my guess, but that is the core of my question. What killed the bitterness?

So my question is, if my beer ferments out really low, will that kill the hop bitterness? Its amazing the difference between the two beers. one of them is really what i was looking for in an IPA, the other could barely be called a pale ale. Just looking for some general guidance on this. Is it possible that the notty killed the flavor?

Im really happy with doing 10gal batches, it great to see what different yeasts will do to the same batch of beer, but im not sure what caused this issue.

Thanks for any answers or suggestions!

 

[zzARzz]

There is a thread here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/does-hop-bitterness-mellow-during-fermentation-140968/ of someone describing a similar situation to yours. "SamC" (second post) did a split batch 10 gal IPA like yours and was able to balance out the two batches by dry hopping for a length of time. It may also help you homogenize the two batches if your intention is to combine them later.

 

[jamissr]

Thanks, i dont intend to combine them, however ill read through the thread and see if it helps.

read the first, page, not quite the same problem as me. Mine mellowed in the primary and i dont want it to. That guy had one too bitter and wanted it to mellow out.

 

[zzARzz]

I looked around the net today as I find your problem interesting. I didn't really see any well documented, quick fixes, but I did come up with one completely untested, theoretical idea. What if you made a "hop slurry," that is, take a few cups of water, bring it to a boil, add some hops (1/4oz, maybe?) and boil it down (say, 30-60 minutes?) to get the bitterness out of the hops, strain it and add the "hop concentrate" to your secondary?

Like I said, I looked around to see if anyone has attempted this before but didn't find anything and it would be a big gamble in 5 gallons of perfectly good beer. Maybe try it with 12oz or so of your under-hopped wort in a sterile, air-locked container, add a proportional amount of concentrate and let it sit a couple days to see how it works.

 

[Slainte-brew]

Search "hop tea" for adding hop flavor, not sure how well it adds bitterness. I don't know exactly how your problem occurred. Maybe a lot of the break material was in the second batch and messed with the hop oils?

 

[jamissr]

I looked around the net today as I find your problem interesting. I didn't really see any well documented, quick fixes, but I did come up with one completely untested, theoretical idea. What if you made a "hop slurry," that is, take a few cups of water, bring it to a boil, add some hops (1/4oz, maybe?) and boil it down (say, 30-60 minutes?) to get the bitterness out of the hops, strain it and add the "hop concentrate" to your secondary?

Like I said, I looked around to see if anyone has attempted this before but didn't find anything and it would be a big gamble in 5 gallons of perfectly good beer. Maybe try it with 12oz or so of your under-hopped wort in a sterile, air-locked container, add a proportional amount of concentrate and let it sit a couple days to see how it works.

first, thanks for looking around, much appreciated.

second, what an interesting idea. I have the beer cold crashing currently, however, i believe that i will keg 4 gallons, leave one in the primary, and try this out.

 

[jamissr]

Search "hop tea" for adding hop flavor, not sure how well it adds bitterness. I don't know exactly how your problem occurred. Maybe a lot of the break material was in the second batch and messed with the hop oils?

ill check out hop teas, thank you. ive had this issue before with a few 5 gallon brews when i first started doing AG brews, and i chalked it up to not having the hops bag loose enough or not using enough early hops.

It just seems odd that the wort tasted fantastic, and bitter, but one came out great and the other not so much. the only difference i can really think of is:

a. different yeast
b. more trub (although i would think having extra hop material in the primary wouldnt hurt the bitterness)
c. finished a few points lower than the other one

was hoping someone else had come across the issue and nailed it down. ill be making a 10 gallon batch of bells over this weekend i think, and using wpl004 and US-05, im curious if ill have the same issue again.

Thanks again for the replies!