My IIPA tastes like malt liquor

[hallucinaut]

Hello everybody.

So I've been working on my second batch, it's an IIPA. The original gravity was 1.084 and the gravity as of yesterday was 1.013. The brew is at 21 days now. First 20 days were in the primary and yesterday I transferred to secondary carboy and dry hopped.

My first brew was nice and hoppy, also a IIPA, but this second batch I didn't leave the hop pellets in while fermenting, where as during the first batch, I did.

Yesterday I also made a hop tea from 2 bags of amarillo hops and added that to the brew and stirred it around before I tested it.

It tasted a lot like old english. You can't really smell any hops and can't taste any. Just alcohol and a strong malty taste.



Since the tea didn't really do much, what else can I do to add the hop taste in? Do I need to make another tea with more hops?

I should also mention, it's dry hopping for the next 10 days with 2 bags of citra.


Thanks for the advice.

 

[user 108580]

Is this your own recipe?

Post the following:
Grain bill
Hop schedule
Fermentation schedule
Fermentation temp(s)
Any additives

 

[BlackGoat]

Its green, give it time. You have a relatively high gravity beer with a healthy hop addition, it will take a good amount of time for this beer to mellow out. Also it looks like you got some really high attenuation. It is expected that it would have a strong alcohol taste ("hot"), and that the hops flavors aren't exactly where you want them. Relax have a homebrew, bottle or keg it, give it time to condition then revisit it. You'll be surprised at the difference.

 

[BlackGoat]

also, just to be clear, flavor hops additions are done during the boil. Typically hops are added somewhere within the last 5-to-20 minutes of the boil for flavor. Aroma additions are added at the very end or post-boil. So, your hop tea and dry hopping will usually not contribute nearly as much to the flavor as it will to the aroma.

 

[TahoeRy]

Dont leave the dry hops on that long. 10 days is a very long time and you going to get grassy off flavors if kept on that long. I would recommend 3-4 days then siphon off and dry hop again 3-4 days. Its called a double dry hop (I believe) and you will get the best flavors that way. If you haven't dry hopped yet, add one hop package for 3-4 days then get it off of that and do it again right before you keg or bottle. Post the recipe and I am sure you will find out if the beer is green or maybe the recipe wasn't balance with the grain bill.

 

[hallucinaut]

Is this your own recipe?

Post the following:
Grain bill
Hop schedule
Fermentation schedule
Fermentation temp(s)
Any additives

I'm not sure all of those. The recipe came from a local brewery. My first brew was their IIPA kit, and this time, I just bought the same ingredients, except I changed the hops and I filtered the hops out of the wort before adding to the additional carboy.

So grain bill : ?? not sure, but it is the same as the iipa kit I bought had
hop schedule was after :30, after :45 and after :60
Fermentation was 20 days in primary, then I transferred to secondary, added the hop tea + dry hops and it's been in there for 2 days.
fermentation temps have been from 65f-70f
No additives, I followed the same recipe/schedule as the IIPA kit I bought, essentially the brew is the same, except with different tasting hops and I thought it would be a better idea to only boil the hops and not let them sit in the fermenting beer.


I've heard about bittering drops that I can add to the beer.
Anyone know if that stuff would work?

 

[bleme]

The bittering hops are added at the beginning of the boil, which you don't seem to have. You can make an IIPA without a bittering addition but is requires a lot more hops, all added later in the boil. That is known as hop bursting.

The other possible issue I see is what the hops started as and what you changed them to. Every hop has an AA% value which will tell you how much bittering you get from them. If you exchanged Magnum hops for an equal amount of Saaz, you are going to get nearly as much flavor.

 

[hallucinaut]

Can I fix it?

 

[bleme]

It is theoretically possible to fix by boiling some bittering hops for an hour and adding that in. I'd have to know what hops were in there originally and what hops you exchanged them for to calculate the correct amount of hops needed though.

 

[hallucinaut]

Ok, Like I said, I already did that a few days ago, maybe it wasn't enough?
I used 2 oz of cascade and 1 of centinel in the intitial boil
then the other day I added 2 oz of boiled amarillo and I added 2 oz of citra as a dry hop

 

[hallucinaut]

bump

 

[BlackGoat]

I'm not completely clear on this "hop schedule was after :30, after :45 and after :60". Did you add hops with 60 minutes left int he boil, then again with 45 mins left and again with 30 minutes left?

In any case, I stand by what I said before - relax, its a green beer. All of the flavors will come together much more once it has been bottled, carbonated, and conditioned. Right now it just isn't going to taste all that great, that is often part of the process.

 

[DSorenson]

Well it seems my post what eaten by the internet gods, so I'll make a new one.

BlackGoat has a point. Waiting can really pay off. It's really easy to add to beer, but impossible to remove things from it. I'd wait. Or brew another beer to mix it with. I've heard that can help salvage a beer and make a new wonderful unexpected beer.