How do I smooth out bitterness?

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Skyhead22

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I'm 4 days into lagering. Fermented for two weeks. My flavor is spot on but I ended up with too much hops bitterness. How can I smooth this out? It's borderline IPA flavor, not at all what I wanted.


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You could brew a low hop version and blend it with the old one to taste. Personally, i'd just drink it, adjust the recipe accordingly, and rebrew it. It's good practice.
 
Time will mute hops to a degree. Is it a beer that will take well to long aging. How long do you plan to lager? Other than blending, as above, the place to adjust bitterness is in the brew kettle.
 
Think about what went wrong while you drink it.

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You can add a little bit of table salt to it. Put a dash in a pint, add a shot of beer, let it foam, and let the salt to dissolve. Now fill the pint. If not enough SLOWLY try adding more until you get it right. Figure out how much per pint and then dissolve that amount in some beer and pour it into the keg.

If you are lucky, the amount you need will be below the taste threshold for salt. This is one of the roles of salt in cooking - to mute bitter flavors. If you want to see how powerful it is, take a drink of straight tonic water, now take a good lick of some salt, and try the tonic water again. With enough salt, it just tastes like sugar water.
 
Are you sure it's from the hops? An 18 day old lager has a long way to go. I wouldn't do anything until you've had a solid 4-6 weeks of lagering and re-evaluate.
 
To 'smooth' out the bitterness in my hoppy beers, I have started First Wort Hopping instead of the 60 minute addition. I also use 10% less on the bittering addition due to FWH (FWH adds 10% more utilization out of the hops). I have experienced a much smoother bitter that has less of a bite than the standard 60 minute addition. Try this on your next batch.
 
I'm with the "tincture of time" group - let it sit. Try it again in a few weeks and see if it has smoothed out enough for your tastes.

If not - barter it to somebody who likes it for something you want. I got some realllly good clam chowder doing just that - beer too bitter for me, he loved it; he makes great clam chowder, I loved it!
 
8 lb 8oz German Pilsner
1 pounded flaked corn
Mashed at 148 for 60 mins
Batch sparged at 168
1.5 oz saaz 60 min
1 whirlfock 15 min
.5oz saaz 15min
.5oz saaz 5min

White labs German lager wlp830

OG was low so I boiled an extra 15 mins.

5 gallon batch



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Hops added directly to wort and strained out when transferred to fermenting bucket
 
I can't let it sit. I made a witbier I'm down to about a 6 pack left and I bottled it 3 weeks ago.


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I argue all the time with the month-long-primary club when it comes to ales, but there's no getting around the lagering requirement for a lager. It's right in the name. If you're about to run dry, either buy some commercial beer or brew something you can turn around quickly like a Hefeweizen.

As for your recipe, Saaz isn't a very powerful hop, so increasing the boil time by 15 minutes shouldn't take you too far off of your intended bitterness. Of course, that's assuming you already had the hops in there. When I have a wort come out a little weak, I like to start the boil and delay the initial addition for the appropriate amount of time to keep the schedule the same.
 
It has lagered for well over a month and is just plain BITTER. It's not even the initial hit that is so bad it's the afterbite of bitterness it grows stronger. It's sitting on the counter waiting to be bottled I'm seriously considering dumping it. Other than the overpowering bitterness the flavor is exactly what I aimed for.
 
Waiting to be bottled and uncarbed is not the time to make a dump judgement. I'm all for dumping ****ty beer unlike the "drink it all cos you made it crew" even I'd say bottle it and wait a while, it will mellow.
 
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