Longer boil time, will my beer end up too bitter?

[WeirdPete]

Last night I brewed a Cali Common that got .75 oz NB for 60 min, 1.5oz for 15 min, and 1 oz at flameout. Unfortunately I overestimated my boil off (or maybe had the boil too low) so I ended up removing the hop bags and boiling for at least another 30-45 minutes until the wort was down to about 5 gallons. In the end I hit my 1.056 OG and 5 gal volume almost perfectly, but I'm worried that my beer will be way too bitter due to the longer boil.

Using an IBU calculator I'm guessing that I've increased the bitterness to somewhere between 70-100 IBU, compared to the 40 IBUs I was shooting for. Sound about right? I'm sure it'll still be drinkable, but damn it would suck if it turned out way to bitter.

 

[dbrewski]

I think the ability of wort to absorb more alpha acids decline a great deal over 60 minutes. You've already absorbed most of what you're going to by that time. So I'm guessing you did not ruin it. You can read more about it here.

this is the part I was referring to:

One question that appears on occasion is whether you lose bitterness if you boil the hops for too long, e.g. longer than two hours. According to Glenn Tinseth, multiple studies have shown that alpha acid utilization always increases with boil time, even out to 3 hours of boiling. The reason the tables quit around 60 minutes of boiling, is that little utilization is gained beyond that. In fact, after about 45 minutes the curve becomes quite flat. In other words, beyond that the utilization increase is small compared to the added time involved. It is speculated that commercial brewers found that beyond 45-60 minutes or so, the benefit of the added utilization was more than offset by the cost of the energy to continue the boil as well as the cost of the added time in the process.

 

[WeirdPete]

Okay thanks! According to what you quoted it sounds like my initial 60 min hops probably didn't add much bitterness, but the 1.5 oz of aroma hops probably had all their bitterness extracted, so I'm still looking at a lot more bitterness...hopefully not too much. Should I dry hop to make up for the lost flavor and aroma?

 

[dbrewski]

I don't know...you said you took the hops bag out, so the wort was no longer in contact with them. Having said that, you've pretty much blown out any flavor or aroma effects from the hops. But you can always dry hop and get some of that back. Put at least an ounce in a disposable mesh bag and drop it in...I usually do it in secondary so there's some alcohol in there already.

 

[WeirdPete]

Okay dry hopping in secondary sounds like a good plan. I've also been thinking about boiling some DME and adding that to the fermenter to help balance it out...would 1 gallon be a good addition?

And about the hop bags.. I've been assuming that all of the acids in the hops were already in the wort by the time I took the bags out, so it really didn't make a difference, but maybe not! I need to go pull a sample and taste it before I get all worried about this batch.

 

[dbrewski]

I need to go pull a sample and taste it before I get all worried about this batch.

Let it ferment out...give it three to four weeks. I can't tell you how many batches I wanted to give up for lost when I tried them at two weeks....then somehow became delicious at week 4-6! Time and patience cures a lot of stuff with beer.

 

[Polboy]

i think you will get different hop profile, it could be a little more bitter and very little flavor and aroma as your 15 and 0min additions were effectively changed to 60 and 45min by extra boiling time

 

[WeirdPete]

Well I pulled a hydrometer sample, had a nice 1" layer of krausen and 1.055 exactly. I tasted the sample though, and it was quite bitter. Definitely too bitter. I know the bitterness will mellow with age so I'll just not worry about it for now. But if it still tastes pretty bitter after a while, will I still be able to add some boiled dme to balance it out a bit?

 

[dbrewski]

I am not a big fan of doing what you suggest, but if you are going to do it, I would do it after the wort has fermented partially (has some alcohol) but before the yeast finish fermentation. And cool it beforehand and don't splash.

 

[WeirdPete]

Probably wont do it. But I will definitely be adding dry hops in secondary.

 

[tektonjp]

wondering in hindsight why you didnt just add DME to your boil when you realized the gravity was off.

 

[Polboy]

i know something about mellowing bitternes with time and it requires a long long time, in october i brew rather big beer and i washed grain in mash tune with 2nd 5gal sparge getting 5gal of lower gravity wort (1.05 after boil if remember correctly). After i was done with boil of a big beer i used the same BK with trub and hops leftover and boiled small beer for an hour with minimal addition of fresh hops, i wasnt thinking hops from first beer would add too many ibus but hell they did, small beer is bottled for 3 months and carb at 3 vol of co2 and its still hard to drink, actually i dont think bitternes changed over 3 months in a bottle, i have it once in a while usually as a beer no4 or 5 when i need little hoppy pick me up thingy

 

[WeirdPete]

wondering in hindsight why you didnt just add DME to your boil when you realized the gravity was off.

Last time I brewed, I boiled off too much volume and only ended up with a little over 4 gallons (started with 7 pre-boil). So this time around I cut back on the burner enough to just barely maintain a boil and had a pre-boil vol of 7.5. But after 60 minutes I still had 6.5 gallons and decided to crank up the heat and boil off another gallon or so. It made sense after having a few beers.

Even if it turns out ridiculously bitter, I've brewed worse and still drank it. Much worse.

 

[gordsellar]

I may be quite late to the party, but another way to "fix" the problem would be to blend the beer. You could just brew up another California Common using the same grain bill and underhop it -- put nothing or only a tiny bit at 60 min, and then heavily late-hop it for a ton of flavor and aroma, making sure that the bitterness is still far below what you'd want in a California Common. Then blend the two beers; if you did it right, you might end up with something that not only has the right bitterness, but also is brimming with the aroma and flavor you want.

(I've done this before, to fix over-spicing, rather than over-hopping, as well as just to blend two beers together that go well; in fact, I've also used a very dull beer to bring up the ABV on a flavorful but thin beer. Blending can be a great way to fix problems. I'll admit, it's not guaranteed you'll get two beers that will mix well, but chances are much better if you're using the same grain bill and the same hops.)

And it is possible to get the beer very flavorful hopping heavily but only in the last 15 minutes... but from the results of an experiment my brewclub did a while back, you'll probably want to dry hop anyway. (For some reason, hopping beers exclusively in the last 15 minutes seemed to make the aroma less powerful than we'd thought. No idea why.)

 

[Ultra-Medic]

Wouldn't the extra boil also contribute to excessive melanoids?