IIPA... Lingering Bitterness

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

petrolSpice

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2013
Messages
833
Reaction score
101
I brewed a IIPA (recipe below) 11 days ago and tasted it for the first time tonight while dry hopping. It tastes pretty good but there is a lingering bitterness that lasts for several minutes after tasting. I'm 90% sure it's due to the amount of hops. My question is whether or not it will mellow out with time. I'm considering watering it down since it also over attenuated so it would help with two potential issues.

This is also the first time I dabbled wit water chemistry. I had m water tested and I added lots of gypsum, and a little calcium chloride and table salt as well as lactic acid to target Bru'n Water's Pale Ale profile and a 5.4 mash pH. Also used a campden tablet.

:tank:

IIPA Double Jack Clone
Method: BIAB
Batch side: 8 gallons
Yeast WLP090
OG: 1.088
FG: 1.012
ABV: 10.48%
IBU: 95 predicted

23.75 lb 2-row
3.25 lb Munich
1/2 lb Crystal 10

1.25 oz Warrior 90 mins
2 oz Chinook 90 mins
1.3oz Centennial 30 mins
1.3oz Cascade 30 mins
1.3oz Chinook 30 mins
3.3oz Centennial Flame-out
3.3oz Cascade Flame-out

Lots of dry hops
 
That's a lot of back end hops in a 90 minute boil but not over the top. I think a 10.5% IIPA should have lingering bitterness.
 
At 10.5% I'd be more concerned with the lingering hangover.

I started paying attention to my water chemistry recently as well. I think the consesus is that you can nudge the hop perception a bit by fooling around with the dreaded SO4/Cl ratio so you may want to post your water profile and AJ or Martin chime in.

Todd
 
Give it time. I've found that most of my beers have a lingering bitterness that has something to do with the suspended yeast still in them. It always clears up after carbonation and a few days of cold conditioning.

That being said, I've never seen a beer with that much high AA hops in it.. especially at 90 and 30 minutes... that's an insane amount of bittering hops man.
 
Agree with the above. a slight lingering bitterness, give it a few weeks to a single month..
 
I think the mistake I made was in scaling the hops, especially the 90 minutes ones. The original recipe, which was for 6 gallon, called for 2oz of Warrior at 90 and was supposed to be around 100 IBU. When I put the recipe into my calculator is was much less than 100, so I added hops to get back to 100 (ended up at 95). Then scaled up from there. I didn't have enough Warrior so I supplemented with Chinook.

I ended up adding 63% more 90min hops for a batch size that was only 33% larger because I was trying to match IBU's that the recipe indicated using a lower %AA hop. I should have only scaled the hops up proportionally and ignored the new IBU since the IBU calculations vary from one recipe builder to another anyways.
 
"Lots of gypsum" is the biggest clue to me. Sulfate enhances the dryness of the beer, and hence really brings forth a very lingering (sometimes harsh) bitterness.

How much gypsum did you use?

A high sulfate level combined with 7+ ounces of bittering hops would definitely have a very firm lingering bitterness!
 
"Lots of gypsum" is the biggest clue to me. Sulfate enhances the dryness of the beer, and hence really brings forth a very lingering (sometimes harsh) bitterness.

How much gypsum did you use?

A high sulfate level combined with 7+ ounces of bittering hops would definitely have a very firm lingering bitterness!

The targeted profile is...

Calcium: 140
Magnesium: 18
Sodium: 25
Sulfate: 300
Chloride: 55
Bicarbonate: 110

I didn't hit it exactly, but I got very close. The gypsum addition was around 18 grams. The mash water volume was 11.5 gallons. I used Bru'n Water for these calcs.
 
The targeted profile is...

Calcium: 140
Magnesium: 18
Sodium: 25
Sulfate: 300
Chloride: 55
Bicarbonate: 110

I didn't hit it exactly, but I got very close. The gypsum addition was around 18 grams. The mash water volume was 11.5 gallons. I used Bru'n Water for these calcs.

Yeah, that's a lot of sulfate!

My preference is usually more like 150 ppm of sulfate for most of my recipes, but I know other people like the firmer more intense bitterness with the 300 ppm of sulfate.

You have 7+ ounces of bittering hops in an 8 gallon batch- that's a lot, and warrior and chinook both can be harshly firm.

It's most likely a combination of both of those factors.
 
Dang! Well Hopefully it will mellow out with time. This was one expensive batch and I hope it's drinkable.

This is also my 2nd attempt at this beer... The first time the bottom of the glass carboy broke out (on its own 2 days into fermentation) and dumped the entire batch. Never using glass again!
 
Quick update... after 6 weeks in the bottle (trying to get it to carbonate) the lingering bitterness tasted in the primary is essentially non-existent. It's tasting really good and the carbonation is helping a lot in this regard.
 
excellent! at 10.x it's going to take some time to carbonate, what temperature are the bottles at?
 
excellent! at 10.x it's going to take some time to carbonate, what temperature are the bottles at?

For the first 4 weeks they were in the house which averages around 65F in the winter, basically zero carbonation. I moved them out into my fermentation chamber (chest freezer) and have 2 fermwraps in there with an STC-1000 controller to keep it at 76F. After 1 week and some agitation they finally started carbonating, 2 weeks in there now and they are probably 90% carbonated. Probably going to keep them in there for another 1-2 weeks then move them inside so I can brew another batch.
 
Back
Top