How did my beer turn out so bitter? Hop dust??

[seanstermatic]

Hello all!

I brewed the following 5 gal pale ale recipe 2 weeks ago:

2.5 kg wheat malt (50%)
2.0 kg pale malt (40%)
0.5 kg dark crystal I (~C-85) (10%)

Mashed at 154F for 1 hour.

Added 0.9 oz of magnum for 60 min (12.5%)

After boiled, reduced temperature to 170F and steeped 1 oz of chinook for 20 min.

Cold crashed. Fermented at ~65F for 9 days with US-05.

Dry hopped with 2 oz of chinook for 5 days.

Carb'ed and kegged.


AND IT'S SUPER BITTER.

Using beersmith, I should get about 32 IBU. This tastes way over. It's a bitterness that focuses on the back of the tongue. Very unpleasant. I've had some high IBU beers (fat tug), and my perception is that this beer is on the same level as that. So that's 2-3x more bitter than anticipated.

One thing that was different about this brew is that I was at the end of my bag of magnum and some of it was dust. I actually had 1.8 oz. I split the 1.8 into two 0.9 oz (trying my best to keep equal amount of pellets vs dust) and used the 0.9 portion for this batch and another for another batch the following week. This other batch uses mosaic hops (in the same fashion as this chinook brew) and has 20% wheat, 70% pale, 10% C-120. This beer is dry hopping right now but definitely tastes less bitter. Still more bitter than I'm used to however which makes me suspect this hop dust.

I have brewed many batches using this same schedule (~1 oz magnum for 60 min, 1 oz hop steep at 170F, 2 oz dry hop) though the bitterness has never been this intense. I understand the beer is a bit young (2 weeks), but I have drank these brews before at this age and have not noticed this intense bitterness.

So what is it?

Does the hop dust contribute more IBU's? I don't see how...It's the same hops, just broken down into dust. Adding pellets or dust to the boil has the same effect - it breaks down. Still, there's something off about these two batches which I can only correlate with the dust hops.

Is chinook evil? Does it have magical alpha acids that isomerize around 170F?

Is there something up with my water? I'm from Vancouver, which apparently has a clean water profile. Low in sulfates. I have not tested it myself. I recall they were doing something with pipe maintenance recently and I noticed my faucet would pour reddish water. I am not sure if this is around the same time I brewed.

So my next issue involves how to repair this.

I would like to let it sit for another week before doing anything that will change the recipe. That will put it at week 3. I understand that time has a funny way of reducing bitterness in beers. I'm wondering how long this will take. Now that the weather is warmer I'd like to put the keg outside where it's hot (~86F or 30C), to speed up this break down. Is this a good idea?


Thank you!

 

[seanstermatic]

PS I had a beer about an hour ago and I still taste the bitterness in the back of my mouth. I think it's time to eat breakfast

 

[azazel1024]

What were your volumes and gravity? Only way I can come up with 38IBU with that is putting in 5 gallon final volume with an OG of 1.075, which seems high of a gravity with that grain bill. But intense bitterness doesn't to me describe 38IBU, or even 48IBU.

I think if you have red water coming out of the tap...you might want to test your water.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

It could be the powdered hops. "shake" from other related plants does contain a fair amount of the active ingredients and is known for being potent. I think warming it up a bit would help the hops mellow faster.
I'm interested to hear what more experienced brewers say.. The water does sound suspect.

 

[Rockn_M]

I'm interested in your red water. I'm not scientist but that doesn't sound right.

 

[j1n]

i calculate 70.23 IBUs with your hop additions.

Used brewers friend and specified pellet hops not whole leaf.

 

[masonsjax]

The reddish water is sending up a big red flag. I wouldn't drink anything made from red water without knowing what you're dealing with. That is likely the problem for one reason or another.

 

[Psylocide]

Red water could = rust, which I have no doubt would impact the flavor of your beer.

But I agree with @j1n that your IBUs are likely higher than what you thought.

That .9 oz of Magnum was probably around 40ish IBU by itself.

 

[seanstermatic]

The water was not red when I brewed. But around that time I did notice red water when pouring a glass of water. This happens from time to time when maintenance does work on the pipes. I think this is copper, or iron or something like this from the plumbing? I guess we can assume I had higher than usual concentrations of this metal, even if the water didn't appear red when brewed.

OG was 1050.

 

[seanstermatic]

Also I boiled the hops in 4 gal, I top up to 5 in the carboy after cooling. This is routine.

 

[phug]

the magnum is about 40 IBU for a 60 minute boil, did you leave it in during chill and 170F steep? If so you'll continue to get some bitterness from that.

an oz of chinook at 13%AA stepped for 20 minutes at 170 might give the same equivalent IBU as from a 10 min boil, call it 15 IBU https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=513160

so taking that together with your magnum and if the magnum stayed in for the steep, then you might be looking at 54 IBU or so. how long did it take to go from boil to 170?

 

[seanstermatic]

Hmmm yes, maybe the 20 min did extract some IBUs from the chinook. Phug, thanks for that link, I'll start accounting for that.

It also takes me about 20 minutes to go from boiling to 170F. Edit: Also, since it takes 20 min to cool down from the boil and is greater than 170F, I should account for that. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!!

I'll also mention that I've used this schedule many times. I have used it on El Dorado hops as well which were 15.3%. By this reasoning I should have gotten the same bitterness compared to the current chinook (at 14.3%) brew, since it was steeped in the same fashion. My beers have been balanced up to this point, using the same ingredients (0.9-1 oz magnum, similar grain bills, same volumes, different aromatic hops). I'm currently testing different aromatic hops to see what I like so I've been reasonably consistent with that. I've tested galaxy, amarillo, el dorado, simcoe, nelson sauvin, centennial and cascade.

Whatever the bitterness actually is I'm not sure matters as I've been happy with the result in the other beers. I have never tasted it as bitter as it is in this current brew. The only thing that i can see different is the potential rusty water, or the dusty hops. But I assume the dusty hops came from the pellets, and not from the supplier who put some dust in the bag. I bought a 1 lb bag which has been in my freezer for about 3 months. And by the end of it there was some dust.

 

[seanstermatic]

My IBU calculations are likely off since I don't think I'm using the right profile in Beersmith. I can see that this changes the IBUs and need to fix this!

I do BIAB and mash in 5 gal. I remove the bag and get about 4 gal which I boil and add bittering hops to. I sparge another gallon or so from the bag and put this gallon back into the pot after it's boiled for an hour. This brings me back up to about 4 gal. Then I steep for 20 min at 170F. Then I cool it, pour it into the carboy, and top it off with 1 gal of water and pitch the yeast. I get about 65% efficiency. Not great but consistent. Not sure what beersmith profile that fits under but I'll look into it because my calculations are definitely off.

Edit: I've updated my profile on Beersmith and am now in the neighborhood for 50 IBUs, which is higher than I certainly intended but this isn't anything I'm not used to.

 

[beerkench]

That's quite a lot of dark crystal if you ask me. It can give an acrid taste if over done in a pale ale, especially when the hop flavour starts to fade. You also used Chinook for you flavour additions. Chinook is very dank and piney and is often overwhelming when used on it's own. I would have used a mellower hop with lower alpha acid content for the later additions.


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