getting very discouraged with this hobby, pls help...

[Pelican521]

Hi all, as the title says, I'm in a slump and need some pro guidance here. I've been brewing for a year and half and for the last 4 batches, trying to make a good IPA. I just got my score sheet back from a local competition and the 2 judges said it was hop astringent and "hot" from alcohol and has an upfront sweetness. there was also a comment on my water as too mineral and chalky.

I'm trying to figure out why my IPAs are suffering and could use your help. I really thought this one would turn out great. Here's a rundown of my partial mash recipe and process.

5lb.......2 row
8oz.......Carapils
5oz.......crystal 20
1lb.......dextrose (added at flameout)
4lb.......xtra light DME (added at flameout)

.5oz columbus @60
.5oz simcoe @15
1oz columbus @10
1 columbus @5
1oz simcoe @5
1oz simcoe @0
1oz columbus @0
.5oz chinook @0

1oz simcoe DH 10 days
1oz columbus DH 10 days
.5oz chinook DH 10 days

1oz cent DH 3 days
1oz simcoe DH 3 days
.5oz chinook DH 3 days

made a 2 liter yeast starter of wyeast 1056 and decanted.
used 3 gal tap water (water is good according to people on the forum here), and added 3 gal spring water and added 1/8 campden tablet and 2 tsp Gypsum, 1/2 tsp calc chloride and 1/4 tsp non iodized salt. 6 gallons is the max I can handle in my kettle.

BIAB method-mashed 8.6qts (5.75 lb grain) @ 152º for 60 min. Dunk sparged with 8qts for 10 mins at 170º.

pitched yeast under 70º (used wort chiller)

temp controlled fridge set at 65º (probe bubble wrapped to bucket).

Kept in primary for 2 weeks and then dry hopped (no secondary) for a total of 10 days. OG taken @ 65º was 1.072. FG was 1.012. 3.5 oz corn sugar boiled for priming at bottling time (probably should have done 4 oz).

Any constructive feedback welcome. Thanks in advance!

 

[J187]

Hi all, as the title says, I'm in a slump and need some pro guidance here. I've been brewing for a year and half and for the last 4 batches, trying to make a good IPA. I just got my score sheet back from a local competition and the 2 judges said it was hop astringent and "hot" from alcohol and has an upfront sweetness. there was also a comment on my water as too mineral and chalky.

I'm trying to figure out why my IPAs are suffering and could use your help. I really thought this one would turn out great. Here's a rundown of my partial mash recipe and process.

5lb.......2 row
8oz.......Carapils
5oz.......crystal 20
1lb.......dextrose (added at flameout)
4lb.......xtra light DME (added at flameout)

.5oz columbus @60
.5oz simcoe @15
1oz columbus @10
1 columbus @5
1oz simcoe @5
1oz simcoe @0
1oz columbus @0
.5oz chinook @0

1oz simcoe DH 10 days
1oz columbus DH 10 days
.5oz chinook DH 10 days

1oz cent DH 3 days
1oz simcoe DH 3 days
.5oz chinook DH 3 days

made a 2 liter yeast starter of wyeast 1056 and decanted.
used 3 gal tap water (water is good according to people on the forum here), and added 3 gal spring water and added 1/8 campden tablet and 2 tsp Gypsum, 1/2 tsp calc chloride and 1/4 tsp non iodized salt. 6 gallons is the max I can handle in my kettle.

BIAB method-mashed 8.6qts (5.75 lb grain) @ 152º for 60 min. Dunk sparged with 8qts for 10 mins at 170º.

pitched yeast under 70º (used wort chiller)

temp controlled fridge set at 65º (probe bubble wrapped to bucket).

Kept in primary for 2 weeks and then dry hopped (no secondary) for a total of 10 days. OG taken @ 65º was 1.072. FG was 1.012. 3.5 oz corn sugar boiled for priming at bottling time (probably should have done 4 oz).

Any constructive feedback welcome. Thanks in advance!

HI, for one, do not get frustrated. I can tell from the process you've outlined, that you are absolutely close to nailing brewing! Thank you for detailing your question here as well!

Lets start with the spring water... what is your purpose for adding spring water and then salts on top of that? Also, can you give me your water profile?

 

[ram5ey]

Yeah you look like you are on the right track but might have a couple things getting a little crazy. I don't really get the water being good and then adding spring water. If you want a big IPA maybe just stick with adding some gypsum, then again would really like to see your water profile. What were the IBUs?

 

[kh54s10]

If it were me I would try dumping all the salts, the sugar in the recipe, and try all spring water.

I haven't entered any of my beers in a contest so I don't know how the would fare critically, but I like them a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[stratslinger]

Another question - your profile says you're in CT: what town, and are you on city water or well? I'm in Terryville, and we're lucky to have great city water for brewing. It's fantastic for stouts, and does a pretty admirable job at every other style I've tackled, without having to introduce any water additions. I've toyed with the idea of tossing in a little gypsum to enhance hoppiness in IPA's, but without getting a full water report, I'm hesitant to try to modify my water makeup.

Depending on just how good the water actually is, maybe the water additions are actually introducing more minerals than you actually need? Do you have a water report that you're working from, in order to figure out the correct amount of salts and such to add?

 

[Pappers_]

Also, don't get down because of the comments from one competition. I'm a judge, I support the BJCP and competitions, but would never put too much weight on the feedback from a single competition. Too many variables.

 

[jekeane]

Are you overcrushing your grains? While debatable this is according to many sources a possible way to extract tannins and get an astringent off flavor.

Is your thermometer properly calibrated? Sparging with water that is to hot can cause astringency.

Water: I would suggest giving RO water a try and build from there. It is a pretty simple way to eliminate water as a problem. Unless you have a water report from the spring water you are using who knows what is in there. Often Spring water will have all sorts of minerals in it. Many companies adjust the mineral profile of spring water as well.

 

[SudsyPaul]

How long was it in bottles? Seems like something that went from 1.072 to 1.012 should have a couple months to mellow out.

Same questions as other people - why spring water and tap water?

I would also drop the dextrose. Only need that if you want to thin the mouthfeel and up the ABV. Probably added to some of the perceived heat, too.

 

[Marc77]

Don't get down on a single judge not liking your beer. A local brewery (Boulevard) did a wort transformation contest. I had one judge say that my beer tasted like a dish rag yet gave me a 24/50 (which is an average beer). The next judge sampling from the VERY SAME BOTTLE gave me a 42/50 saying I nailed the style (saison).

Opinions are like @ssholes, everyone has one.

With that said....out of curiosity, why are you adding so much at flame out? That's a whole lot of extract that may or may not completely go through a hot break.

Have you considered first wort hopping? That's a lot of additions at various times. Finally, like others have said, if your water is fine why the extras? Just curious if anything. In the end if you like the taste of your beer that's all that matters.

 

[bernardsmith]

I am total novice when it comes to brewing beer but have been making wines and ciders and meads for a few years, so treat my questions for what you think they're worth: what do YOU think of your IPA? What is it about your brew that YOU think is out of whack? If YOU enjoy your beer AND if you were to taste your own beer blind so that you did not know it was your own you would give it a thumbs up as fully meeting what anyone would hope an IPA would look and taste then I am not sure that you need to take those judges seriously.

If YOU don't think your beer is good enough that is a different story, but what I might do then would be to search out my local brew club and ask folk there to taste the beer and share their thoughts...

 

[barnaclebob]

The only important thing is do you like the beer?

I'm sure my beer has flavor flaws but it tastes great to me and most people that try it seem genuinely surprised that it tasted good. I guess most of my friends don't expect homebrew to be as good as brewery beer...

 

[jwelch1103]

Opinions are like @ssholes, everyone has one.

This +1

 

[kingwood-kid]

Do you like the beer? Do you agree with the judges' comments? Not all judges know what they're talking about, and the format of competitios and score sheets tends to focus more on seeking out technical flaws than on the overall beer. Fixing these flaws may lead to a better beer, but if you like the beer and the judges don't, then I'd quit wasting my money by giving them free beer.

I don't know what your tap water is like, and "good for beer" is vague and kind of useless, as great water for one style would be lousy for another. Water reports help, but a lot of water companies change their water source seasonally. Using RO water (the machines that charge 25c/gal) with salts, and controlling your mash pH will help with the chalkiness and astringency.

It doesn't look like you should have any hot flavors, but if you do, there's a few steps you can take. A lot of brewers will chill to a few degrees below their ferment temp and then pitch, and let the beer slowly warm. You could drop the ferment temp a few degrees for the first 2-3 days. You could wait until fermentation slows to add the dextrose.

 

[J187]

If he has this comment from two separate judges, I wouldn't blame him for wanting to explore it. I'd really like to hear his water profile, but especially why he's using spring water.

 

[cernst151]

The most obvious thing I see, and I'm surprised only one person mentioned it before me, is the dextrose. If it's too alcoholy drop the dextrose. The only thing the dextrose does is up the alcohol. Drop that and you've solved 1 problem and saved yourself some work and money.

Seems like the same with the minerals and salts. If they say it's too mineraly then drop the minerals. Also, I've only used gypsum once or twice but 2tsp seems like a lot.

Either way, everyone above is right when they say the only person you have to please with your beer is you. Unless you plan on brewing competitively and making a profit from competitions you should brew whatever makes you happy. If you like your beer with a lot of alcohol and mineral tastes (which is a perfectly legit desire) then brew that.

One final note on the alcohol. If it's too hot now just cellar it for a while (like a year or more) and that can subside. I have a coffee stout that was almost undrinkably hot and a year later it's quite tasty. It'll still put you on your ass but it's tasty.

 

[QuercusMax]

Cellaring a hoppy IPA pretty much defeats the purpose of making such an IPA. You'll lose all the lovely fresh hoppiness if you do that. Provided you have a good healthy pitch of yeast and ferment at the proper temperature, you shouldn't need to age a 1.072 IPA.

I have an IPA that I gave to 4 of my coworkers, all of whom have good palates and I trust their recommendations. 3 of them drank it that weekend and said it was as good as any commercial IPA, another let it sit on his desk for a week, and said it was so-so.

 

[J187]

The most obvious thing I see, and I'm surprised only one person mentioned it before me, is the dextrose. If it's too alcoholy drop the dextrose. The only thing the dextrose does is up the alcohol. Drop that and you've solved 1 problem and saved yourself some work and money.

Seems like the same with the minerals and salts. If they say it's too mineraly then drop the minerals. Also, I've only used gypsum once or twice but 2tsp seems like a lot.

Either way, everyone above is right when they say the only person you have to please with your beer is you. Unless you plan on brewing competitively and making a profit from competitions you should brew whatever makes you happy. If you like your beer with a lot of alcohol and mineral tastes (which is a perfectly legit desire) then brew that.

One final note on the alcohol. If it's too hot now just cellar it for a while (like a year or more) and that can subside. I have a coffee stout that was almost undrinkably hot and a year later it's quite tasty. It'll still put you on your ass but it's tasty.

I'm not sure less than 1% ABV boost would cause a hot alcohol flavor... and Dextrose is not uncommon in IPA recipes. However... he does mention that he leaves it 3+ weeks in primary while dry hopping. Yeast being left too long in trub CAN cause fusel alcohols- or too much yeast as well.

I wouldn't drop minerals or do anything water related until I hear more about the spring water. Spring water is, as Forest Gump would approve, like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get. That would be my starting point.

With regard to cellaring.... that might be fine for your stout, but this is an IPA he's talking about. The hop aroma and flavor will fade LONG before that. In fact, these are beers best to drink ASAP to some extent. Besides, cellaring his beer for a year isn't going to fix the process that he thinks might be broken.

 

[henchman24]

I would be interested to see your water profile as well. Seems like a lot of salts are being added. With my water I only use a touch of a few salts (very rarely over half tsp) to fit the style of beer I want to brew and a touch of acid to bring down the PH if I need to. As long as the water report seems okay, I would try brewing the same beer without the salts (or very few depending on the water) and only using tap water. That or use RO water and add the appropriate salts.

On the alcohol, cut the dextrose down or eliminate it. If you still want the high alcohol, bump up the grain or DME a bit to compensate. Personally I have never had an issue with using that percentage of dextrose, but who knows?

 

[mmb]

I'd skip the water additions until you know EXACTLY what you're starting with as far as water composition. Without knowing what you have, how do you know that your additions are doing what you think they are?

Once you get your water figured out, the rest will fall together.

 

[jbaysurfer]

Astringent and chalky + good water cut 50% with spring water, and quite a bit of gypsum.

It's your brewing liquor. "Is good according to people on this site" is a bit too vague. You got a thread to point us too?

If it's good, why cut and then add salts back in? You're just introducing two more chances for errors, and I think that's where your results are coming from based on the info provided.

 

[Oginme]

The only important thing is do you like the beer?

I'm sure my beer has flavor flaws but it tastes great to me and most people that try it seem genuinely surprised that it tasted good. I guess most of my friends don't expect homebrew to be as good as brewery beer...

Leaving the judges and judging out of this, because we really cannot comment on what they tasted, the bottom line is 'do you like drinking what you are brewing?'

I brew a number of recipes that don't quite fit neatly into style, but I enjoy them and I have a number of friends who will take these beers over many well known commercial beers.

Take the score sheets and the beer you submitted and sit down with both. Read through the score sheets section by section and evaluate the beer for each section at the same time. Can you see, smell, taste what the judges are describing? If not, take the comments for what they are and move on.

Remember also, that they are sampling a number of beers during a sitting, and yours may have been far into the session. Palate fatigue is hard to overcome late into a tasting session.

Pay attention to a lot of the other comments in this thread also, because if you decide that the judges are on to something, there is a lot of good advice above on how to fix it.

 

[jCOSbrew]

Recipe looks pretty solid, here are a couple ideas:

* Increase crystal malts to 8oz C60 or C40.
* Remove sugar and replace w/ DMR or 2-row, this will give you more malt flavor and a more balance beer.
* Maybe simplify the hop schedule.

The original malt bill is similar to what I use for a Belgian tripel or Belgian Strong Ale where you want a light color and dry finish.

 

[simnick]

I agree with a lot of the feedback here. But you might not learn much if you follow every suggestion at once. If you are patient, change one thing at a time. I would start with the liquor, and maybe just use tap, or otherwise greatly simplify it. See if that helps.

After trying that, I would try in order: Boiling DME for a few minutes, remove the carapils which can mess up sweetness(not a fan, I think it is a crutch for wrong mash temps). I would leave the sugar.

Also, you sound like you might agree with the judges, but do you? If you can see what they taste, then you can try and fix it. But if you don't taste it, that it is hard to correct, and they might be full of it. If they both said the same thing, they were likely talking to each other, and may have had groupthink.

 

[Pelican521]

First off, thanks for all the responses and well wishes!

It took a while to go through all the posts but here are some responses...

I do think something is not right with my IPAs I brew but I find it hard to distinguish what it is. This is actually the main reason why I entered the contest. I knew I wasn't going to win but I wanted to know how to make my beer better.

I have city water and was able to find a helpful person at my water company to email me the water profile for my street address, here are the numbers:

Calcium - 12.8
Mag - 2.9
Sodium - 17.6
Chloride - 22.9
Sulfate - 18.8
Hardness - 43.9
Alkalinity - 16

I've played around with the EZ water calculator and came up with some water additions and didn't like the results. Then I cut back the additions and didn't like the results either. I've gone back and forth a few times and then for this recipe I thought maybe I would cut my city water with spring water and that would be the "magic" solve I was looking for. It seems like all my IPAs taste the same to me no matter what different hops i use.

I made this recipe but with more DME for a higher alc % and that's why I have the LB of dextrose in, to dry it out. After I brewed this I thought to myself, I should have left it out. I personally don't really taste the hotness from the alcohol or anything boozy. This recipe is 74 IBUs.

 

[Pelican521]

Ok, so I'm drinking one now and I can honestly say the judges are correct. I think I was suffering from "ugly baby" syndrome and just wanted to like it cause I made it, but knew in the back of my mind it had some off flavors.

It is bitter, with an upfront sweetness and is hot. I just needed someone to tell me what I'm tasting because it's hard for me to distinguish the off flavors.

What do you think of my water profile in my previous post?

Could my 10 minute dunk sparge be causing the astringency? What I do is dunk the grain bag a few times, let it sit for 10 minutes and during that time, give it a dunk once in a while.

Another major issue I've had with my IPAs is they are nice and straw colored at the time I transfer to my secondary and by the time I bottle, it's turned to almost and amber color. Thinking it was oxidation from racking, I decided to forgo the secondary for this batch. I think it helped a bit in keeping the intended color, but not the overall taste.

I hear people saying how there beer is just as good or better than commercial beers but mine isn't even close.

 

[IslandLizard]

Join a homebrew club. You can get lots of feedback and talk to your peers, some maybe judges, some maybe long time home brewers. Tons of experience there.

 

[Yooper]

used 3 gal tap water (water is good according to people on the forum here), and added 3 gal spring water and added 1/8 campden tablet and 2 tsp Gypsum, 1/2 tsp calc chloride and 1/4 tsp non iodized salt.

It is bitter, with an upfront sweetness and is hot. I just needed someone to tell me what I'm tasting because it's hard for me to distinguish the off flavors.

What do you think of my water profile in my previous post?

Could my 10 minute dunk sparge be causing the astringency? What I do is dunk the grain bag a few times, let it sit for 10 minutes and during that time, give it a dunk once in a while.

Another major issue I've had with my IPAs is they are nice and straw colored at the time I transfer to my secondary and by the time I bottle, it's turned to almost and amber color. Thinking it was oxidation from racking, I decided to forgo the secondary for this batch. I think it helped a bit in keeping the intended color, but not the overall taste.

Lots of points here, so I'll try to take them one by one.

First, let's talk about the color change. That is almost always due to oxidation, so I think you pegged that.

The taste, however, seems to be due to water chemistry issues. The water profile you posted, if accurate, seems fine. But I have no idea what is in 'spring water' so that could be an issue. Does your water supplier add chlorine, especially in the way of chloromines? That would be something that needs fixing right away.

Lastly, if the beer tastes 'minerally'- that is almost always due to too many minerals in the brewing water. Have you ever brewed this beer with your own tap water, or 100% distilled or RO (reverse osmosis) water? 2 teaspoons of gypsum (10 grams) can be alot. What is the cacl2 and NaCl2 added for? If you don't know, don't add it!

"Hot" is tough if the beer never got above 65 degrees. Was that also the pitching temperature?

 

[simnick]

Re: commercial beers:
Years ago, I think that was an easy statement. But IPAs have become so competitive, with so much late hop flavor, that commercial examples are hard (not impossible) to beat. Source of hops, freshness of hops, whirlpool techniques, and oxygen pickup control are critical variables in making a great IPA nowadays.

Having grown up in Pliney's backyard, where I could get fresh bottles, I don't think I can make a better beer. But I can get really close, and a 5 gallon keg for $45, rather than $8/22 oz.

Some folks might disagree, but at least the best commercial versions are not going to be easy to beat.

 

[strauseman55]

Use more hops @60 min. 1oz or more.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Brew beer that tastes good to you, Don't worry about judges until you are brewing something you like to drink.