IPA possibly too bitter

[Jamie02173]

Im brewing 6 months and learning my lessons as i go! I made centennial blonde replica and wasnt bad so this time around i used extra hops and mixed with williamette as i had them to use. I tasted the beer during the gravity reason and it tasted a lot stronger and bitter then i have tasted before. Im reading that centennial is a bittering hop were i added them towards the end thinking it would give a better centennial flavour. If it is too bitter can i help improve with dry hopping as i will not want to raise the IBU further.. also any opinions if i messed up!
6kg pale malt
1kg pilsner malt
0.3kg carapils

37g magnum 60mins
25g centennial 25mins
50g williamette 15mins
75g centennial 5mins
35g tettnang 0mins

 

[NSMikeD]

Hard to lower bitterness. Once in that’s it.
Thus may be a good time for you to start using a brew software like BeerSmith or Brewfather etc to take the guessing game out. Plug in your grain bill and hop schedule (remember to update the hops with the actual AA on the package) and output the IBUs. For example Magnum is a high AA hop and as such will add a lot of bitter at a 60min boil. The software might have indicated this was overpowering and so you might have decided to save them for another brew and feature the centennial. While Centennial is also a high AA (lots of bittering) it’s considered a dual purpose hop as it also has excellent aroma and flavor.

fwiw, I tend to avoid high AA hops. I love bitter but as a home brewer I don’t want a single hop to limit
My use of flavoring hops or mixing hops. High AA hops are important to commercial brewers as hops are an expensive ingredient. I do however brew with magnum often like when I brew a British ale and not using much in the way of flavor and aroma.

 

[marc1]

Im brewing 6 months and learning my lessons as i go! I made centennial blonde replica and wasnt bad so this time around i used extra hops and mixed with williamette as i had them to use. I tasted the beer during the gravity reason and it tasted a lot stronger and bitter then i have tasted before. Im reading that centennial is a bittering hop were i added them towards the end thinking it would give a better centennial flavour. If it is too bitter can i help improve with dry hopping as i will not want to raise the IBU further.. also any opinions if i messed up!
6kg pale malt
1kg pilsner malt
0.3kg carapils

37g magnum 60mins
25g centennial 25mins
50g williamette 15mins
75g centennial 5mins
35g tettnang 0mins

Bitterness will fade some over the course of fermentation. Dry hopping doesn't reduce bitterness that's already there.

 

[Kickass]

That magnum likely contributed more than the centennial, if not more then vary close to. Brewersfriend.com has a good calculator that’s pretty straightforward.

If all else fails, do what I do. Just tell your friends and family that’s what it’s supposed to taste like. Works every time.

 

[RM-MN]

1. All hops are bittering hops if boiled. The alpha acid of the hops tells you how good they are at bittering.
2. Hops give their full bittering by boiling for 60 minutes but most of it is done in 30 minutes. I've read that 30 minutes of boiling gets you about 90% of the bittering. That same 30 minutes can drive off most of the aromatic oils that give the wonderful aroma. 25 minutes is very close to 30 minutes.
3. Even a 15 minute boil leads to quite a bit of bittering and quite a bit of the aromatic oils boiled off.
4. You can't undo the bittering once it happens. What you can do is mix the beer with one that is less bitter or....you can drink small amounts of the really bitter beer until your tastes change.
5. For your next batch, add your flavor/aroma hops late in the boil (like 5 minutes or less) or reserve them for dry hopping.
6. The wonderful hop aroma you seek will dissipate with time and oxygen exposure. It is hard to avoid when bottling so limit the batch size to what you will drink up within 3 months. I often do just a 2 1/2 gallon batch for this reason. I know that my aroma will be mostly gone in 3 months and will be noticeably less in 2 months.

 

[Jamie02173]

I think that is were i went wrong i added to much hops to far from the end but im definatly going to learn from this one. Ive heard citra might add somethibg different when dry hopping and wont raise the IBU to much. I use a corny keg and counter pressure filler for the bottles, im finding this seems to increase the shelf life and reduce risk of oxidisation in comparison to bottles ive made with carbonation drops, they tend to give off a nail varnish aroma over time

 

[Jamie02173]

I used one of the apps and it turns out my ibu is 88.. im wondering am i better off dumping it and starting again with a fresh one and saving myself the hassle of doing the same in a few weeks

 

[Toxxyc]

88 is plenty of bittering, yes. You can try dry hopping with a soft fruity hop to see if the sweetness hides the bitterness, or you can try a pinch of salt in a bit of beer to see if the salt hides some of the bitterness. I hate dumping beer.

 

[Jag75]

I used one of the apps and it turns out my ibu is 88.. im wondering am i better off dumping it and starting again with a fresh one and saving myself the hassle of doing the same in a few weeks

Whats the abv ? I wouldn't dump . You never know

 

[Brews and Blues]

88 is plenty of bittering, yes. You can try dry hopping with a soft fruity hop to see if the sweetness hides the bitterness, or you can try a pinch of salt in a bit of beer to see if the salt hides some of the bitterness. I hate dumping beer.

It hurts my soul to dump a beer, either mine or store bought.

 

[odie]

too bitter? call it "alimony ale"...well that's Buffalo Bills ESB... just call it a DIPA and drink it...

 

[Jamie02173]

The abv is about 5% i dont have to chuck it i was just going to speed up my next batch and free the fermenter but im guessing it would be no harm to experiment with this one i could add a little salt and find some dry hops.. i was also wondering could i add extra sugar, honey or maple syrup as the abv is not very high

 

[Barbarossa]

"possibly"

 

[marc1]

Wait until it's done fermenting to decide it's too bitter to drink.

 

[jrgtr42]

don't judge any beer before it's fully fermented, conditioned and carbonated - those factors will often change the taste of the beer.
Time will also mellow things out somewhat - not always the bittering additions, but sometimes.
|That said, you may want to cut back on the bittering additions - the 60 minute addition - next time.
Depending on style, bittring additions will normally be about an ounce (28G) for a 5 gallon batch. |You;re about a third more than that.

 

[wetmk]

Don't dump it. You might find you like it after a little time passes. And if you don't, you could make another batch with much less bitterness and blend the two.

 

[Steveruch]

Hop bitterness does fade which is why it's strongly recommended to drink IPAs fresh. Bottle it and let it set for a while.

 

[RM-MN]

Don't dump it. You might find you like it after a little time passes. And if you don't, you could make another batch with much less bitterness and blend the two.

Search for "lupulin shift" .

 

[Beenym88]

Agrees with the don’t dump it you never know. I’m a fan of low bitterness beers. You do not have to add hops all throughout the boil. When I’m making NEIPAs or IPAs just to fit my taste I typically is a a very tiny amount of buttering hops or none at all. The majority of my hops are usually after flameout at this point unless I’m making a bitter bomb for someone else.

 

[NSMikeD]

While we are on the topic of hops;

The learning curve on hops can be endless. The 3 basics of bitter, flavor & aroma will do a new brewer fine, but I keep coming across articles and posts all,the time with new (at least to me) information on hops and the chemical reactions that affect the 3 characteristics (more so aroma and flavor) and brewers that change things up.

Fortunately bittering is straight forward. Published AA amounts and software and the stability of the isomers once boiled make that straight forward. Flavor and aroma are far more varied, subjective and unstable making for many more ways to mix up hops and techniques to create wonderful results.

It used to 60 minutes for bitter, 15 minutes for flavor and dry hop for aroma. Now we have mash, first wort, flameout, hop stand, whirlpool, and 85 different ways to dry hop, lest we not forget different strains of yeast and how fermentation temperature and pressure change things up.

Enjoy the journey, keep, it simple for now and don’t let your head explode trying to figure out hops. Follow recipes for now and for each brew, read the hop labels for their AA content and their characteristics and understand what the brewer was trying to accomplish with each hop step when he/she wrote the recipe.

 

[dwhite60]

Agrees with the don’t dump it you never know. I’m a fan of low bitterness beers. You do not have to add hops all throughout the boil. When I’m making NEIPAs or IPAs just to fit my taste I typically is a a very tiny amount of buttering hops or none at all. The majority of my hops are usually after flameout at this point unless I’m making a bitter bomb for someone else.

That one Magnum addition was a whole bunch of bitterness. The current lot of Centennial I have is 10%AA so it was a bunch too. You could make a very low ibu beer and blend the two batches but you'll still have pretty hoppy beer.

I'm well past the "hop bomb" beers. Most everything I do now is 30ibu or less. I generally do one hop addition at 10 minutes and that's it. Sometimes I will add a bit at flameout.

I recently read that some people that consume a lot of high ibu beers are developing hop sensitivity which is a step before an actual full blown allergy.