Just not tasting correct

[jritchie111]

I am new to brewing, and now have 9 batches under my belt. 4 of kegged a few weeks ago. I have noticed that each batch has seen a little sweet. In prepping for a party tomorrow night I tapped and tried these 4 kegs and like the others unless I am dry hopping they seem to be sweet to me. I am hitting my gravities and brewing multiple styles. I think I am getting poor hop utilization, especially with the bittering hops. I have used muslin bags for my hops and when I get to a boil I haven't got good hard boils. Could this be screwing up my flavors that much. I tried to do some research and plan to free float hops in the future and get a good hard boil, but I have 25 gallons of beer in the mean time to drink.

 

[Yooper]

I have used muslin bags for my hops and when I get to a boil I haven't got good hard boils. Could this be screwing up my flavors that much.

In short, yes. A boil that isn't vigorous combined with muslin bags if the hops are in there tightly could greatly intefere with hops utilization.

 

[brtisbuck]

What size batches? Are you doing full boils?

 

[jritchie111]

Yes full boils. I do not tie the bags tight to pellet hops, but by the end of the boil my hops bags are balloned and full of wet pellets

 

[RM-MN]

Quit bagging your hops during the boil. Just dump them in and let the wort extract all the bitterness it should from them. If you feel the need you can strain them out when you put your wort into the fermenter or you can just dump everything in and let them have enough time in the fermenter to settle out and get covered with the yeast. Rack above the yeast and you get no hops in you keg.

 

[remman4]

What is your extract addition schedule?

 

[jritchie111]

I have multiple batches that have come out to sweet in my opinion. An Imperial Pale ale, a Hobgoblin Clone- It ends well but starts to sweet, I just finished a red ale that was also on the sweet side. I tapped and tasted a dirty bastard clone-which is still green, and NB caribou slobber, and Black IPA. The black IPA was ok due to dry hopping, the caribou slobber was warm so it was hard to tell, the dirty bastard needs more time. Just trying to correct things before I brew again.

 

[Yooper]

I have multiple batches that have come out to sweet in my opinion. An Imperial Pale ale, a Hobgoblin Clone- It ends well but starts to sweet, I just finished a red ale that was also on the sweet side. I tapped and tasted a dirty bastard clone-which is still green, and NB caribou slobber, and Black IPA. The black IPA was ok due to dry hopping, the caribou slobber was warm so it was hard to tell, the dirty bastard needs more time. Just trying to correct things before I brew again.

You mentioned not having a vigorous boil. You want to make sure you have a "rolling boil"- that is an obvious turning over of bubbles and not just a simmer. That helps with hops utilization also. A good boil will be pretty obvious. You don't need to boil it so hard the pot jumps off the burner, though!

 

[jritchie111]

Yeah I understand that now. Before I would get to a simmer and drop the burner down to save gas.