IPA bitter aftertaste

[ChrisMoss]

Hey guys,

Another IPA aftertaste question. I used this recipe (http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2013/11/bertus-ipa.html?m=1).

I won't detail the recipe/process but it's all grain, should be 60IBU, the aroma is good, hop flavour is great and bitterness (similar to a standard ipa) follows the main flavours and is about right.

After that, once you've swallowed, I get a really unpleasant bitter aftertaste. It's actually like a much milder version of a taste I've had in 3 old batches that I think we're skunked (I have brewed an ipa which was great in between).

At 2 weeks in the bottle it tasted grim. At 4 weeks (today) it was about half, but still very much there. It's also pretty heavily carbonated seeing as I only carbed to 2.2-2.3 and it hit final gravity. Obviously I'll leave it another 4-6 weeks, but wondered what could have caused it - seeing as my last ipa turned out great!

Would appreciate any advice!

Cheers

Chris

 

[TheHopfather]

I had a similar problem a while back with my hop forward beers. The problem ended up being a bottle infection. If I left the bottles long enough I ended up with slow gushers, you might notice the color of the beer get darker and murky, almost muddy looking.

I ended up replacing my auto-siphon and tubing and giving my bottles a nice long PBW bath and a good rinse. The batch after that turned out great. My $0.02.

 

[masaba]

I know exactly what you are talking about, but I have no answer. I also really wish that I knew why some IPAs have a crisp bitterness and some have a lingering bitterness. You find the lingering bitterness in commercial beers often as well. I had a Stone Delicious IPA on draft for the first time a few days ago and it had a really long lingering bitterness.

Edit: I think you are talking about something different here (infection) than I was thinking of when I posted this.

 

[TheHopfather]

I've seen people recommend taking a gravity reading of the finished beer now that its carb'd. Let the beer sit out and swirl it around to get the CO2 out if it and then take a gravity reading. A bottle infection should have eaten some of the sugars in the beer and your gravity will be lower. I've never done it myself but enough other people have suggested it that it must work.

Cheers!

 

[Psylocide]

Hey guys,

Another IPA aftertaste question. I used this recipe (http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2013/11/bertus-ipa.html?m=1).

I won't detail the recipe/process but it's all grain, should be 60IBU, the aroma is good, hop flavour is great and bitterness (similar to a standard ipa) follows the main flavours and is about right.

After that, once you've swallowed, I get a really unpleasant bitter aftertaste. It's actually like a much milder version of a taste I've had in 3 old batches that I think we're skunked (I have brewed an ipa which was great in between).

At 2 weeks in the bottle it tasted grim. At 4 weeks (today) it was about half, but still very much there. It's also pretty heavily carbonated seeing as I only carbed to 2.2-2.3 and it hit final gravity. Obviously I'll leave it another 4-6 weeks, but wondered what could have caused it - seeing as my last ipa turned out great!

Would appreciate any advice!

Cheers

Chris

Curious, what makes waiting another 4-6 weeks obvious?

Also, can you explain the bitterness? Does it dry out your mouth (astringency)?

Do you use tap water? Treat for chlorine/chlorimines? Not really bitter, but definitely off flavors result from not treating chlorinated water.

 

[ejf063]

Plus one to Psylocide. Water. Gotta me the water. Do you know it's makeup?

 

[ChrisMoss]

Thought I'd wait longer in case it's that the beer needs to come together and it still a bit green.

The bitterness is like a slightly bad taste, rather than an IPA/pale ale hop bitterness. I don't know whether it matches the astringent flavour.

Water here is fine - I've made a few good batches all with tap water (Manchester UK) and treat with a small amount of gypsum each time.

Re: the bottles, I used a starsan solution to clean them, but perhaps I'll soak them a little longer. I'll definitely take a gravity reading with one soon and report back.

Really hope I don't have another gushing infected batch!

 

[beerkench]

Here are some of my pitfalls resulting in bitterness on the road to IPA:

Infection. Brett or lacto infection, or even a slight infection can make your beer slight sour tasting, stripping hop character, body and unbalancing the bitterness. Your beer will be very dry and fizzy, almost champagne like but with that nasty lingering bitterness.
A thorough clean is essential before sanitizing. If your bottles have dried up dregs stuck to the bottom there's gonna be wild yeast growing on them so when bottling you're just gonna be passing that yeast about. Throw out or boil your tubes as well.

Oxidation. Hoppy beers oxidize very quickly if exposed to any oxygen. Even the headspace in the bottle is bad for IPA's so purge the bottles if you can. I read that the beta acids in hops oxidize and become bitter tasting. The flavour and aroma will also drop off very quickly resulting in a very bitter flavourless beer.

Over carbonation.
Hoppy beers are very delicate so should be lightly carbonated to keep in the flavour and keep out the carbonic bite. When I first started kegging I kept over carbonating as I wasn't reading charts and even though the beer was nice and effervescent, the flavour would go after a week in the keg and leave a bitter beer with that nasty bite.
IPA's are usually bitter so the perception of the bitterness when over carbed will increase and take over.

I was scratching my head for ages ironing all this stuff out with IPA's. I think less hoppy and darker beers are usually more forgivable as they are more robust.



Sent from hell
using Home Brew

 

[beerkench]

Oh yeah by the way Star San isn't any good as a cleaner only as a sanitizer.


Sent from hell
using Home Brew

 

[ChrisMoss]

Beerkench great advice thank you. Your description of infection from wild yeast definitely fits a few of my previous batches. I had reused bottled for all of them (and they had skunked in transparent fermenters too!) so that will have been part of it.

With this beer, the only light it saw was for about 2 hours whilst priming in the bottling bucket (letting sediment settle), however I have just opened another bottle of this which doesn't have the unpleasant bitterness of the other one (that made me write this post), although it is pretty carbonated. This one still tastes a bit green, and at the end has a harsh bitterness, but it's a 70IBU beer so it may be that. It's had 2 weeks in primary (inc dry hop) and 4 weeks in bottle.

I've been sanitising with starsan ONLY, so I'm pretty sure reusing bottles that haven't been thoroughly cleaned is an issue. I will now hot soak my bottles in VWP (similar to PBW) and then rinse and sanitise with starsan this time. I'm also going to run really hot vwp through siphoning tubes and then starsan them before bottling next batch. Do you need a bottle brush to clean bottles or is hot soaking vwp and a good shake enough? I don't have a bottle brush in time for this batch.

I did check and when it's flat, this beer has gone from 1.011 to 1.008 in 4 weeks in the bottle. I'm hoping this could be something other than wild yearst, but I guess it could still be a slightly unclean bottle. 1.011 was the intended terminal gravity for that brew.

Finally, I have a question about bottling. I brewed a porter (and bumped up the grain bill to avoid my under efficiency leading to a weak batch) and in the end, under pitched my yeast. This has meant that a beer which started at 1.073 and had a target FG of 1.017 ended up at 1.024. So I'm bottling this tomorrow and have seen tables that suggest 1.7-2.3vols of co2. I'm thinking go for 1.7 in case the priming sugar reactivates yeast and ferments the remaining sugars in this batch?

Someone on another forum said if the yeast are dead and the fermentation is finished, the priming shouldn't mean the rest ferments in the bottle, but given I'm leaving this 3 months until Xmas I don't want bottle bombs!

Thanks again guys

 

[TheHopfather]

If your gravity is dropping in the bottle it is one of two things. Either the batch wasn't finished when you bottled it or something got into the beer from the siphon equipment or dirty bottles. Make sure you are cleaning and sanitizing your bottling equipment and bottles for the next batch and see if it fixes the issue.

Water plays a large role in the final taste of the beer. If your cleaning/sanitation is up to snuff and the next batch still tastes off you should investigate your water. Tap water should be treated for chlorine (filter or campden). You may also have a high sulfate content which would accentuate the bitterness. I'd try a batch with RO water and salts (read the water primer!).

As for your porter question. Provided no wild yeast or bacteria are getting into the beer when you bottle the yeast should be done with the beer. You could have mashed a littler higher than you thought or maybe you had a little more unfermentables in the beer but 1.024 isn't that far off from 1.017 that I'd think you had a stalled batch. Adding in priming sugar wakes the yeast up, they eat that sugar to make CO2 but they shouldn't have anything left to eat in the beer itself.

 

[brewcat]

I kind of wonder about your water and possibly extracting more tannins.

 

[ChrisMoss]

I'm cleaning the hell out of the bottles, siphoning and bottling bucket before sanitising with star San, hoping this solves the issue.

Thinking dirty bottles might have been the cause for that last batch.

Water wise I've had other beers come out great, all using tap water, so I don't think it's that.

Thanks for the heads up about the porter too - the mash temp was higher than I intended so it could be that in part. Will carb to 1.7 and see what happens.

Cheers again!

 

[ChrisMoss]

Hi again guys. So I've just tasted this beer at 6 weeks. Sadly, it tastes a bit worse and has lost its aroma.

The aroma and flavour it now has is almost exactly like batches I've had before where they were terribly over carbed.

This was still a batch where I didn't sterilise bottles, I just sanitised. So that could have contributed.

I guess my question now is whether other people recognise this taste/smell from overcarbonation? The caps really hiss as you open it, even though it's not a gusher.

I've bottled a porter recently (as above) and will be bottling a pale ale in a few weeks - going overboard on sterilising and sanitising everything now so will report back re whether it makes the difference!

Thanks as always guys