Is there any way to bitter post-boil?

[BetterSense]

Suppose you have made a miscalculation and it looks like your beer is going to turn out to be underhopped. For me, this happened because the hops bags I was using had too fine of a mesh and the hops utilization was being affected.

Is there anything I can do?

 

[stamandster]

Yes you can as long as you haven't bottled it already. It's called dry hopping and is usually done in the secondary (the yeast will take a bit of the good stuff away if you do it in primary).

How exactly did the mesh affect utilization?

 

[mr_bell]

Confused, I thought dry hopping added flavor and aroma, but did not bitter (?)

 

[gcdowd]

Don't think you get any bitterness from dry hopping. You could make a hop tea and add it to the fermenter

 

[BFB]

Dry hopping does typically only add to aroma.

While there is no real way to add bitterness after the boil, I have heard of people using tea to bitter. Sure it will kill the flavor profile you are shooting for but it will make it more bitter.

I'd say leave it as is. I don't see how too fine a mesh would really hurt hop utilization unless it was water tight.

 

[Hang Glider]

Not confused.
You are correct, dry hopping is aroma and flavor. However, it may help fool the nose into sensing more bitterness than is actually there.

There really is no other alternative for this batch.

I use hop bags all the time - the trick is to tie them very loosely, so the wort can flow freely through. If you tie them tight, you restrict passage of wort. And...the fine bags do clog up a bit. I've moved to a 5-gallon paint strainer bag that I hang in the wort and just toss my hops into. - look for hop spider in the DIY

 

[BetterSense]

I'd say leave it as is. I don't see how too fine a mesh would really hurt hop utilization unless it was water tight.

Once the hop pellets clogged the material it was effectively water tight. I literally could not get the water out of the bag when I went to remove the hops bags from the wort at the end of the boil.

Most hops bags are much coarser mesh than the stuff that I was using, which is a very fine mesh good for grain bags but not, as it turns out, for hops.

 

[daksin]

I liked the idea of making a strong hop tea and adding that to the fermenter. Any reason that wouldn't work?

 

[davefleck]

Make a hop tea or add hop extract. Neither are tough to do

 

[stamandster]

Ahh sorry thought I had mentioned only aroma, flavoring... yes no bitterness