ipa recipe was a little sweeter than I expected

[Hoochin'Fool]

83.3% 2-row
8.3% munich 10L
2.1% caramel 40L
2.1% flaked barley
4.2% sugar

cascade @60 for 20 ibu
cascade @15 for 10 ibu
citra @15 for 16 ibu
dry-hopped with an ounce of citra for 5 days

og: 1057, fg: 1007 (woops, mashed at 149F)

abv: 6.5%
ibu: 45

Taste: really nice, but it's got just a bit more sweetness than I expected. I want to brew this again, but would like a bit less sweetness. Should I cut back on the munich? or the caramel? If I would have mashed in at the temperature that I meant to, FG should have been more like 1.011, so maybe there's some sweetness from the extra abv?

 

[worlddivides]

I just did an IPA with 18% Munich, 7% Crystal 60L, and with a final gravity of 1.010 that I don't think is sweet at all (I also mashed at 149F) but I actually feel is pretty dry. With your grain bill having only 8% Munich and 2% Caramel 40L, I seriously doubt they are making it sweet, especially with an FG as low as 1.007. I would wonder if maybe you're getting sweetness from the Citra? I'd be interested in hearing from people more experienced than me, though.

 

[Bobby_M]

A beer that has a 1.007 FG and tastes too sweet can be caused by one or more.

1. IBUs are too low.
2. Diacetyl.
3. Oxidation

 

[day_trippr]

I agree, neither grain bill nor FG suggest a sweeter than "normal for an IPA" character. And while I do find that Citra can (somehow) convey sweetness, it's a secondary character easily dominated by FG, and isn't going to turn an otherwise dry beer cloying.

A picture of a fresh pour might yield a clue...

Cheers!

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

I agree, neither grain bill nor FG suggest a sweeter than "normal for an IPA" character. And while I do find that Citra can (somehow) convey sweetness, it's a secondary character easily dominated by FG, and isn't going to turn an otherwise dry beer cloying.

A picture of a fresh pour might yield a clue...

Cheers!

Well shoot, I don't have any more cold, and I'm already fallin' asleep. Tomorrow, I promise! (just put 2 in the fridge)

As to cloying, and @Bobby_M's comment:
While this beer did have some buttery notes when first tasted (7+ days ago), the bottles I've had the last couple of days had zero butter, fantastic flavor and aroma (so I don't think it's oxidized), it was just a little bit sweeter than I wanted. Definitely not "ugh, way too sweet", more of a "huh, was it the 8% munich, or is caramel40L that much sweeter than caramel60L is?".

 

[Bobby_M]

Ruling out oxidation (which can add a Marzipan almond sweetness) and diacetyl, it's got to be the IBUs. The water might be overly chloride heavy which could dull some of the sharpness of the bitterness, but it's all leaning toward IBU. An IPA that is otherwise well bittered should come across as a little too bitter with an attenuation like that.

Hops lose alpha acids as they age so if they are not 2024 harvest, the IBU calculations can be way off. If the packs you used didn't have any harvest dates or lot codes, who knows.

Use of bags or hop baskets can also reduce efficacy.

A side note you didn't ask about. There were two things that yielded that low FG. The 149 mash temp and the 4.2% sugar addition. I would ditch the sugar (compensate the gravity with extra 2 row) and just bump the mash to 150F.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

IBU's aren't really what you calculated, like Bobby said.

 

[redrocker652002]

I was thinking the sugar might have had something to do with it as well. Being a novice, and that is really overstating my ability, I have never tried adding any sugar to my IPA's so I don't have any experience there. That just kinda struck me that I don't think I have seen any recipe's with added sugar. Again, not being as experienced as others, that is just my two cents worth, and believe me that is about all it is worth. LOL

 

[day_trippr]

Unless the yeast are overwhelmed with an ABV above their tolerance, plain sugar will totally ferment out into alcohol and CO2, leaving no flavor behind...

Cheers!

 

[redrocker652002]

Unless the yeast are overwhelmed with an ABV above their tolerance, plain sugar will totally ferment out into alcohol and CO2, leaving no flavor behind...

Cheers!

And there you have it, so disregard my post. LOL.

 

[day_trippr]

It's pretty much the same reason why using real honey is kind of a waste as an addition to beer as it also tends to ferment out into nothingness...

Cheers!

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

@day_trippr

It's definitely delicious, no butter or almond (/marzipan). I'm going to see if I can drop off a bottle at a brewpub where I vaguely know the brewer/owner, and ask his opinion. My personal leaning for a re-brew is: skip the (2.1%) caramel 40L completely and double the flaked barley, but don't change anything else.

 

[day_trippr]

Hard to say, lighting isn't optimal. But BeerSmith3 figures your recipe to result in SRM 6.5 for color, and ^that^ could be in the ballpark...

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Shoot, I'm out of Cascade hops to re-brew (this time with no caramel malt)... Centennial for bittering / Citra for flav-aroma should be nice, probably?
Although, with as much as I enjoyed the slightly-too-sweet ipa, maybe that's a dumb idea.
Anyways, here's the Citra hops I've had in my freezer since mid January (came from Ritebrew): is there any way to tell what year it was harvested?

EDIT: I need to stop saying it was slightly-too-sweet, it was (still is) lovely. Just a bit sweeter than I expected.

 

[day_trippr]

That was harvested in 2023.
You will find all the info for your bag of citra here:
https://tools.yakimachief.com/lookup?lots[]=P91-IUCIT8500

Lot lookup tool: https://tools.yakimachief.com/

Cheers!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Shoot, I'm out of Cascade hops to re-brew (this time with no caramel malt)... Centennial for bittering / Citra for flav-aroma should be nice, probably?

IMO & IME, Centennial is a good substitution for Cascade as a bittering hop (adjust the amount of hops based on AA)

Anyways, here's the Citra hops I've had in my freezer since mid January (came from Ritebrew): is there any way to tell what year it was harvested?

In addition to what @day_trippr mentioned ...

... on the back side of the package, in the lower right corner, there may be a UPC code -- and just right of the UPC code there may be a "best buy" date.

 

[day_trippr]

That info is also found in their lot lookup:

Cheers!

 

[worlddivides]

Shoot, I'm out of Cascade hops to re-brew (this time with no caramel malt)...

EDIT: I need to stop saying it was slightly-too-sweet, it was (still is) lovely. Just a bit sweeter than I expected.

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but even if it was "too sweet," I seriously doubt 2.1% of the grain bill being a light caramel malt was the reason, especially with a 1.007 FG. If that were the case, then all the commercial West Coast IPAs that use a much higher percentage of caramel/crystal malts would be a lot sweeter instead of what they actually are: very dry and crisp. For example, I believe Stone IPA is around 10% Crystal 60L.

I still kind of suspect the Citra. Either that or maybe it didn't have enough gypsum to get the crispness? Or the hops were older than you thought and you got a lower IBU (from decreased alpha acids over time)?

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

If my walmart scale that purports to measure accurately to 0.1 grams really IS accurate, my MASH water SHOULD have been:
(brewer's friend recipe editor screengrab)

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Question for the experts...

Do bittering hops, in their original vacuum-packed bags, (mfr: either Yakima Chief or LDCarlson) and stored unopened in a freezer, lose any actual bittering properties? I would think nothing could possibly "age" them other than the occasional cosmic ray that passes through. Am I wrong?


Just trying to gauge whether my palate is unusual, or something to do with my brewing process.

 

[mac_1103]

I'm not an expert, but I do know that Yakima Chief hops are packaged in nitrogen flushed pouches, which I am led to believe is even better than vacuum. According to this hop freshness calculator, your Citra pack will lose 0.1% of its AA per month if stored in the freezer.

 

[worlddivides]

I'm not an expert, but I do know that Yakima Chief hops are packaged in nitrogen flushed pouches, which I am led to believe is even better than vacuum. According to this hop freshness calculator, your Citra pack will lose 0.1% of its AA per month if stored in the freezer.

That's what I've read as well. And it's one of the reasons I've always stored hops in the freezer. While storing hops in the freezer will drastically extend how long you can reliably use them as opposed to room temperature where you can lose 20% to 50% of the alpha acids in a year, you're still going to lose a noticeable amount of bitterness potential over the span of 2-3 years. They'll still be "fresh," but as more time goes on, you'll get bigger divergences where you could estimate 40 IBUs and end up with 25 IBUs or lower.



EDIT: I played around with that hop freshness calculator and it really represents what I mean. Amarillo with 11% AA at harvest will lose 78.4% of its alpha acids if stored at 68F for 3 years and go from 11% AA to just 2.4% AA. Storing it in a typical freezer at 0F will drastically lower that from a 78.4% loss to a 45.6% loss (and that's with it being vacuum sealed in the freezer), but you'll still go from 11% AA to 6.0% AA after 3 years in the freezer.

 

[jerrylotto]

Warm it slowly to fermentation temp and let it sit for a few weeks. The sweetness should disappear as yeasties chew up sugars.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Rebrewed this evening, with minor changes:

90% 2-row
9% munich 10L
1% flaked wheat

Same hopping, for what brewer's friend tells me should give me 46 ibu (bu/gu of .84)

OG: 1.055 (via refractometer, it's still chilling out in my cold-assed Minnesnowta garage). I'll have an actual hydrometer reading tomorrow morning.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Beer hasn't budged from 1.014 in over a week (I used S-04 instead of US-05, forgot to mention that change). Gonna dry-hop tomorrow with 1 ounce of Citra (2.75 gal batch) and bottle on Friday. The drip off the hydrometer I tasted was not as delicious as I think I remember the first version being, but it certainly wasn't bad. Already planning to rebrew the original in another week or two, but this time with some better practices (ascorbic acid at bottling, condition warm for 1 week, then straight into the fridge) for aroma preservation.

 

[worlddivides]

Kind of an odd choice to use a yeast with a lower attenuation that is known for leaving more residual sugars if your complaint with your previous IPA was that it was too sweet. It's one of the reasons why I tend to use S-04 for stouts, porters, brown ales, and so on. I generally only use S-04 for IPAs or pale ales when I want it to have more residual sweetness (Nottingham would probably be a better choice for a drier English IPA). I have occasionally gotten 80% or even 82% attenuation with S-04 before, but it's usually been closer to 68-75% attenuation, whereas with US-05, I tend to get 78% to 86% attenuation. Just talking averages here, though. The beer I currently have fermenting with S-04 will probably have pretty high attenuation because of the low mash temp.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Sigh. Bad choice of title. I expected a beer with only 2.1% caramel 40L, 8.3% munich 10L, bittered to 0.6 bu/gu would have almost zero sweetness. It turned out being the tastiest IPA that I've made so far (sad how fast it faded, tho). Probably just my newb-ness as a brewer. I figured this second-go-around would be at least drinkable (and hopefully, the dry-hop improves what I've had so far), but more importantly, will give me a nice big yeast-cake for a big imperial stout I'm planning for christmas.

But that said, I was thinking that with ZERO caramel malt, but the higher FG to be expected from S-04, would be a good data point for comparison.
No doubt too many moving parts, but I like to extrapolate wildly all the time anyways.

(Doh, just realized that I could change the original thread title)

 

[worlddivides]

Sigh. Bad choice of title. I expected a beer with only 2.1% caramel 40L, 8.3% munich 10L, bittered to 0.6 bu/gu would have almost zero sweetness. It turned out being the tastiest IPA that I've made so far (sad how fast it faded, tho). Probably just my newb-ness as a brewer. I figured this second-go-around would be at least drinkable (and hopefully, the dry-hop improves what I've had so far), but more importantly, will give me a nice big yeast-cake for a big imperial stout I'm planning for christmas.

But that said, I was thinking that with ZERO caramel malt, but the higher FG to be expected from S-04, would be a good data point for comparison.
No doubt too many moving parts, but I like to extrapolate wildly all the time anyways.

(Doh, just realized that I could change the original thread title)

I mean, "sweetness" depends on a lot of things. You can have a final gravity of 1.002 and still have "sweetness" there. Or you can have a final gravity of 1.016 and not perceive it as being at all sweet. Final gravity isn't the sole factor. You've got water chemistry, IBUs, grains and hops used, yeast used, and on and on. The sweetest IPAs I've ever had didn't even include any caramel/crystal malt.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

this time with some better practices (ascorbic acid at bottling, condition warm for 1 week, then straight into the fridge) for aroma preservation.

If you are setup to split the bottles into two groups, consider part for one week and part for two.

 

[MaxStout]

Hop creep from dry hops?

 

[Yooper]

Rebrewed this evening, with minor changes:

90% 2-row
9% munich 10L
1% flaked wheat

Same hopping, for what brewer's friend tells me should give me 46 ibu (bu/gu of .84)

OG: 1.055 (via refractometer, it's still chilling out in my cold-assed Minnesnowta garage). I'll have an actual hydrometer reading tomorrow morning.

In my opinion, 46 IBUs is pretty low. I usually go a lot higher for my IPAs.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

In my opinion, 46 IBUs is pretty low. I usually go a lot higher for my IPAs.

Yes, I was definitely aiming at the very lower end of the bitterness range for the style. And I'm gonna do it again, cuz it was pretty awesome (unless the S-04 and zero caramel version turns out better)!

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Beer hasn't budged from 1.014 in over a week (I used S-04 instead of US-05, forgot to mention that change). Gonna dry-hop tomorrow with 1 ounce of Citra (2.75 gal batch) and bottle on Friday. The drip off the hydrometer I tasted was not as delicious as I think I remember the first version being, but it certainly wasn't bad. Already planning to rebrew the original in another week or two, but this time with some better practices (ascorbic acid at bottling, condition warm for 1 week, then straight into the fridge) for aroma preservation.

Just tried first bottle of this batch, tasted great! Definitely less sweet than the first go-round, not sure if I have a preference either way, both very guzzleable.

90% 2-row
9% munich 10L
1% flaked wheat
cascade @60 for 20 ibu
cascade @15 for 10 ibu
citra @15 for 16 ibu
dry-hopped with an ounce of citra for 5 days
S-04
OG: 1055, FG: 1014

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

I've made 5 different small-batch variants of this beer, and my main conclusions are:

• Citra hops taste sweet (to me, anyways), no matter what else is going on.
• LODO techniques (yeast+sugar in the strike water, dry-hopping without opening the fermenter, ascorbic acid/k-meta at bottling, and filling the bottle to the very top) make a big difference in how long the hop flavor/aroma lasts.

 

[worlddivides]

I've made 5 different small-batch variants of this beer, and my main conclusions are:

• Citra hops taste sweet (to me, anyways), no matter what else is going on.

As the first person who responded to this thread, I do think that assumption was probably correct (and yes, I do mean to toot my own horn! HAHAHA). And it's not that Citra is at all "sweet," but just that it can give a flavor that can bring sweetness to mind.

I would wonder if maybe you're getting sweetness from the Citra?