Persistent bitterness issue - unsolvable, help required! :(

[hetyu]

Hey All,

This topic can be seen as the continuation of my earlier post - Yeast bite - why?

Encountering the very same issue again and again when trying to create a 'hazy IPA'. This time I'm trying to be as detailed as possible since I'm desperate, this is an issue I can not resolve / nor justify what could be the root cause. Frustrating, since I've not encountered such a difficulty for a very long time now.

TL;DR: beers designed with low calculated IBU ends-up overly bitter. The kind of bitterness that covers your tongue and remains for several minutes, masking most of the flavors which are other way very prominent, juicy and delicious for the nose.

Details:
Recipe Specifications (AG)
--------------------------
Boil Size: 24,19 l
Post Boil Volume: 21,35 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 19,00 l
Estimated OG: 1,057 SG
Estimated Color: 10,3 EBC
Estimated IBU: 28,8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68,00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73,4 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name; %/IBU
3,97 kg Pale Malt (Weyermann) (6,5 EBC) - 77,0 %
0,52 kg Oats, Flaked (2,0 EBC) - 10,0 %
0,36 kg Rye Malt (Weyermann) (5,9 EBC) - 7,0 %
0,15 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3,9 EBC) - 3,0 %
0,15 kg Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (3,9 EBC) - 3,0 %
7,00 g Magnum [12,00 %] - Boil 60,0 min - 10,5 IBUs
85,00 g Chinook [13,00 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 13,8 IBUs
25,00 g Amarillo [9,20 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 2,9 IBUs
13,00 g Centennial [10,00 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 1,6 IBUs
2,0 L WLP644 starter w/o decanted
50,00 g Citra [12,00 %] - Dry Hop 13,0 Days - 0,0 IBUs
100,00 g Galaxy [14,00 %] - Dry Hop 1,0 Day - ,0 IBUs
50,00 g Amarillo [9,20 %] - Dry Hop 1,0 Days - 0,0 IBUs

Water: started from RO, salts added based on Bru'n water which works flawlessly for other type of beer as well:

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 5,16 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Mash In Add 16,34 l of water at 67,9 C 62,0 C 2 min
Mash Step Add 0,00 of water and heat to 67,0 C 67,0 C 60 min
Mash Out Add 0,00 l of water and heat to 76,0 C 76,0 C 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 14,00 l water at 75 C

Brewing notes:
Strong fermentation started after 4 hours after adding the fresh starter without decanting it.
Fermentation temp set to 18C.
Day 1 - Citra added at high krausen. (to attach polyphenols and proteins for haze and to have some biotransformation)
Day 6 - Fermentation temp raised to 22C to finish and to have a diacetyl rest.
Day 12 - started to cool back to 15C to dry-hop
Day 13 - Galaxy-Amarillo dry hop
Day 14 - Started to cool back to 2C for cold crash
Day 18 - Bottled. Beer racked from yeast cake (gently) to another bucket used for bottling.

At this point I was a bit surprised as not all of the hops settled out:

As I've continued to move the beer to the bottling bucket more and more hop material started to stick to the fermentation bucket's side:

This time I wanted to play it safe so stopped pulling wort when was closer to the dry-hopped yeast cake, left there a decent amount of beer just to be sure not to pick up too much sediment. Something like this went to the bottles - could not see any hop/yeast sediment at this point:

After 12 days of bottle carbonation I've put a sample to the fridge, was there for 3 days and today I've opened it and tasted it for the first time.
Wonderful aromas for the nose (heavenly peachy) but the taste is again overly / sharp and very bitter...

No floating hop particles in the beer, at the bottom of the bottle there was a thin layer of precipitated yeast, the beer is hazy otherwise seems to be free from sediments.
Though oxidized alpha and beta acids can add some bitterness during dry hops this level of bitterness is - I believe - is something different and worse.

This case is utterly demotivating, as mentioned, one the biggest challenge that I've encountered so far.
I'm looking for every piece of hint / idea / advice that could help me to resolve and step forward.
All the comments are highly appreciated in advance - Cheers!

 

[Upthewazzu]

Hard to say, but you could try getting rid of the 60min hop addition. No point, really. Also, if my conversions are correct, you used roughly 11.5oz of hops post boil. That's gonna leave a ton of oils in suspension for a while. Give it another week or two and taste again.

I've made a few of these, and no matter what anyone says, they still taste better after they've been in the keg for 2 weeks.

 

[shanecb]

I'm somewhat unsure.. is the posted recipe from Beersmith?

I ask because there's a whirlpool hop utilization factor in the settings that you can change. That's one place there may be a discrepancy. What temperature are you doing your whirlpool at? That's a pretty big amount of hops for whirlpool, and you might be actually getting more IBUs out of it than you think.

 

[brew703]

The last NEIPA i brewed i used a total of 12.85 oz hops in a 5.5 gal batch. Of this amt, .85oz warrior used at 20 min, 3 oz at zero, 3 oz Wp (160 degrees) and 6 oz DH. I added all dry hops at day three.

Estimated IBU's for this batch was 55 but it was not bitter at all.
If you are adding your WP hops above 160 then you could be getting some bitterness from that.

Is the yeast you are using a new pack or some that was harvested from a previous brew? Could your starter wort be bad? Yeast nutrient bad if using that? White Labs had some issues with infections a while back. I wouldn't think the yeast you used was infected as i think they resolved the issue.

I would try using different yeast (Conan or 1318) if you can get it and make sure your WP hops are 160 degrees or below. For my process i really do not notice a lot of IBU contribution from the WP hops. Maybe it's because i add that at 160 or below. I let them sit for 30 min then start chilling. Once i get to 78 or 80 (usually the lowest i can get) i remove the hop bag, squeeze and remove.

There is a local brewery that i went to last night. They make a NEIPA that is on the hoppy side. The batch they brewed showed an estimated IBU at 58. it definitely had a little bite but wasn't bad at all.

 

[shanecb]

I would try using different yeast (Conan or 1318) if you can get it and make sure your WP hops are 160 degrees or below. For my process i really do not notice a lot of IBU contribution from the WP hops. Maybe it's because i add that at 160 or below.

I wouldn't say you HAVE to get it to 160 or below. Above that is fine as long as you're accurately taking the IBU contribution into account. Which I kind of suspect is where OP might be getting the additional bitterness from.

Yeah, you're definitely getting little IBU contribution from your 160 and below. Hop utilization at that point is extremely low... something in the single digits % that I can't remember. It's about 45-50% at 194F, and drops down to about 14% at 170F.

 

[brew703]

I wouldn't say you HAVE to get it to 160 or below. Above that is fine as long as you're accurately taking the IBU contribution into account. Which I kind of suspect is where OP might be getting the additional bitterness from.

Yeah, you're definitely getting little IBU contribution from your 160 and below. Hop utilization at that point is extremely low... something in the single digits % that I can't remember. It's about 45-50% at 194F, and drops down to about 14% at 170F.

That's the whole problem. There is no way to accurately determine what the IBU contribution would be at a given temp. It's basically a guesstimate. Probably why i just go with 160. Whatever IBU's i get at that temp are acceptable for me.

Next time i brew this style, I'll increase my WP temps to 170 following the same recipe i previously used and see how it compares.

 

[shanecb]

That's the whole problem. There is no way to accurately determine what the IBU contribution would be at a given temp. It's basically a guesstimate. Probably why i just go with 160. Whatever IBU's i get at that temp are acceptable for me.

Next time i brew this style, I'll increase my WP temps to 170 following the same recipe i previously used and see how it compares.

Yeah it's definitely a guesstimate either way. This is the only comparison experiment I've come across, though there are probably more: https://www.homebrewersassociation....-boilwhirlpool-hop-additions-bitterness-beer/

Even with hop utilization % adjustments, there's still no gauranteed accuracy. You can see even in that experiment they had an unexpected result at 210F.

My best advice to OP would be to either decrease the whirlpool temperature, like you said, or to decrease the amount of hops at the temperature being used. Most likely the real IBU of the beer is higher than calculated.

 

[leonardoreges]

Shane is correct about whirlpool hop addition rising ibu.
Another thing I can think about is that with that much of late hop additions, maybe you actually don’t have a high ibu, but all that aroma may be felt as bitterness, even that it is not.
For the batches you’ve already bottled, wait some time before drinking, with time bitterness tends to fade away a little.

 

[couchsending]

The tongue coating bitterness is not related to whirlpool temperatures. I find it so funny that people automatically default to that being the cause. You can add piles of hops to BOILING wort and not have it perceived as bitter.

You are doing so many things to this beer to keep polyphenols and yeast in suspension. That’s what you are tasting, not boil calculated IBUs. The ridiculous amount of adjuncts, using a poorly floccing yeast and hops with the highest polyphenol out there in Galaxy is what’s causing this “bitterness”. You’re literally tasting yeast and hops.

You need to be either cold crashing or fining your beers somewhat to to get rid of this. I would suggest putting a few bottles somewhere at 32* and wait a week or two then slowly pour the first part out, I guarantee you it won’t be bitter (or as bitter as it was). Then pour the last bit out and see how much sludge comes with it or gets left in the bottom. That sludge is proteins/yeast/hops and I guarantee it’ll be bitter. You can still use finings and have awesome hazy beer, just done use as much. The top producers of this style are using centrifuges to get polyphenols snd yeast out of suspension and their beers are still hazy AF.

Use a higher floccing yeast strain, might be the easiest solution.

Also save your money for a kegging system. Sorry but you can’t make awesome hoppy beers without one. Literally any exposure to O2 crushes Hop aroma. Beer needs to be in a completely sealed environment with as close to zero PPB O2 to truely have Hop aroma and flavor shine. It’s a pain on the homebrew scale but it can be accomplished.

 

[Yooper]

The thing that comes to mind for me is the water profile. I know others love that, but in my experience the excess mineralization comes across as weirdly minerally bitter to me.

 

[couchsending]

Agreed.. 200ppm Cl through CaCl additions is always really harsh and minerally to me.

To quote Noonan:

Chloride accentuates bitterness, but also increases mellowness; it increases the stability of any solution and improves clarity. The “salt” taste of Chloride generally enhances beer flavor and palate fullness, but the salt flavor is reduced by the presence of calcium and magnesium.

 

[Smellyglove]

I had certified judges miss my sour-twang in an infected hefeweizen for bitterness.

 

[hetyu]

Thanks to all, you are great - was definitely helpful so far!

try getting rid of the 60min hop addition. No point, really. .

Good point, I was already thinking on to skip the 60m boil.

I ask because there's a whirlpool hop utilization factor in the settings that you can change.

Thanks for the hint with the hop utilization setting in Beersmith, great one as I've not yet changed/checked this setting so far! By default it is set to 50% for 90C/194F wort. This time the whirlpool was at just right after the boiling at 99C/210F for 4-5mins so indeed the calculated IBU should be higher. Next time for whirlpool will cool back to at least 90C/194F or probably still better to do a hop stand just below 70C/158F.

You are doing so many things to this beer to keep polyphenols and yeast in suspension.

I tend to accept this reasoning as well, thank you! Never though that building up hazyness actually can be overdone...If I would add gelatin, wouldn't that drop fully the haziness?

in my experience the excess mineralization comes across as weirdly minerally bitter to me.

thanks, will consider tuning down the amount of salts as well. Yet, as you indicated as well, a lot of others using this amount of salt, so not 100% confident with the idea it this plays a role here.

 

[couchsending]

There is a reason for a 60 minute addition... there are reasons for 30 minute and 15 minute additions as well. Your small 60 minute addition is not causing your bitterness, trust me... it’s yeast/polyphenol bite.

That layer you’re seeing on the bottom of the glass is what’s causing the bitterness.

The best breweries who make this style have a centrifuge, they are essentially doing what a small amount of finings will do, get rid of the yeast and all the negative stuff and yes still leave the beer hazy.. Trillium uses a centrifuge, their beers are opaque. Other Half has a Centrifuge, their beers are pretty much opaque. You don’t have a fuge, using a reduced amount of gelatin or isinglass, or any of the finings, or lager the beer for a few days. You need to get the excess polyphenols/yeast out of suspension. Trust me it will eliminate your issue. Doing what you’re doing and not adding any hops until the wort is 140 will still result in the same “bitterness”.

Do your own experiments when it comes to minerals. Brew a beer with say 50ppm Ca split equally between CaSo4 and CaCl then dose your finished beer with amounts of each mineral. I guarantee you you’ll find the CaCl dosing one rather terrible.

 

[kcinpdx]

The tongue coating bitterness is not related to whirlpool temperatures. I find it so funny that people automatically default to that being the cause. You can add piles of hops to BOILING wort and not have it perceived as bitter.

You are doing so many things to this beer to keep polyphenols and yeast in suspension. That’s what you are tasting, not boil calculated IBUs. The ridiculous amount of adjuncts, using a poorly floccing yeast and hops with the highest polyphenol out there in Galaxy is what’s causing this “bitterness”. You’re literally tasting yeast and hops.

You need to be either cold crashing or fining your beers somewhat to to get rid of this. I would suggest putting a few bottles somewhere at 32* and wait a week or two then slowly pour the first part out, I guarantee you it won’t be bitter (or as bitter as it was). Then pour the last bit out and see how much sludge comes with it or gets left in the bottom. That sludge is proteins/yeast/hops and I guarantee it’ll be bitter. You can still use finings and have awesome hazy beer, just done use as much. The top producers of this style are using centrifuges to get polyphenols snd yeast out of suspension and their beers are still hazy AF.

Use a higher floccing yeast strain, might be the easiest solution.

Also save your money for a kegging system. Sorry but you can’t make awesome hoppy beers without one. Literally any exposure to O2 crushes Hop aroma. Beer needs to be in a completely sealed environment with as close to zero PPB O2 to truely have Hop aroma and flavor shine. It’s a pain on the homebrew scale but it can be accomplished.

This. Is. It. Hops and yeast in suspension. Drop the yeast before dry hop unless you are shooting for biotransformation. Keep the dry hop short then cold crash and fine.

 

[kcinpdx]

There is a reason for a 60 minute addition... there are reasons for 30 minute and 15 minute additions as well. Your small 60 minute addition is not causing your bitterness, trust me... it’s yeast/polyphenol bite.

That layer you’re seeing on the bottom of the glass is what’s causing the bitterness.

The best breweries who make this style have a centrifuge, they are essentially doing what a small amount of finings will do, get rid of the yeast and all the negative stuff and yes still leave the beer hazy.. Trillium uses a centrifuge, their beers are opaque. Other Half has a Centrifuge, their beers are pretty much opaque. You don’t have a fuge, using a reduced amount of gelatin or isinglass, or any of the finings, or lager the beer for a few days. You need to get the excess polyphenols/yeast out of suspension. Trust me it will eliminate your issue. Doing what you’re doing and not adding any hops until the wort is 140 will still result in the same “bitterness”.

Do your own experiments when it comes to minerals. Brew a beer with say 50ppm Ca split equally between CaSo4 and CaCl then dose your finished beer with amounts of each mineral. I guarantee you you’ll find the CaCl dosing one rather terrible.

I had the same exact issue. I bought a ph meter. I got a water analysis. I changed mashing temps. I bought a stainless mesh hop spider. Nada. Here is the key: are your non hoppy beers (esb, marzen, Porter, stout ) or anything you are not dry hopping coming out fine? Im betting so. Get that stuff out of suspension

 

[adixon3]

Change the yeast that's not a typical yeast strain used for a NEIPA, WLP644 is used for wild yeast fermentation which makes the beer naturally bitter. wlp007 or wyeast 1318

 

[couchsending]

Wlp644 is not a wild yeast, it’s Sacch. You can make incredibly clean yet fruity beer with it. It just doesn’t flocc at all so you either need to fine it somewhat or cold crash it for a while to get it to drop.

 

[adixon3]

Wlp644 is not a wild yeast, it’s Sacch. You can make incredibly clean yet fruity beer with it. It just doesn’t flocc at all so you either need to fine it somewhat or cold crash it for a while to get it to drop.

Wlp644 is not a wild yeast, it’s Sacch. You can make incredibly clean yet fruity beer with it. It just doesn’t flocc at all so you either need to fine it somewhat or cold crash it for a while to get it to drop.

Wlp644 is not a wild yeast, it’s Sacch. You can make incredibly clean yet fruity beer with it. It just doesn’t flocc at all so you either need to fine it somewhat or cold crash it for a while to get it to drop.

Straight from the White Labs website:
This Belgian strain, traditionally used for wild yeast fermentations, produces a slightly tart beer with delicate mango and pineapple characteristics. It can also be used to produce effervescence when bottle-conditioning. Ferments quicker than typical Brettanomyces strains.

 

[hezagenius]

@couchsending What is your recommended temp to crash to for this style? As close to freezing as possible, or something like 34/35F? Do you recommend slowly dropping the temp or hitting it as fast as possible?

 

[couchsending]

@couchsending What is your recommended temp to crash to for this style? As close to freezing as possible, or something like 34/35F? Do you recommend slowly dropping the temp or hitting it as fast as possible?

I think it depends on the grain bill, yeast, how you hopped, and the hops used.

I would suggest at the minimum a few days of temps at 35... some beers might require lower temps.

 

[divrack]

everything has largely been said here but I would emphasise that dry hopping in late amounts can add significant bitterness from oxidised beta acids. Scott jansh got 30 ibus from about that amount of dry hops only.
also in assume you are not removing the Whirlpool hops after the 5 mins? this will mean the ibus are higher than stated.

but the biggest factor by far is you have some hop residue still in suspension. you won't necessarily be able to see it but it's there. it is that that coats the tongue and is like eating a hop pellet. you could filter with a fine filter in or leave it at .5c for a week or so more. that should do it.

 

[rhys333]

Hey All,

This topic can be seen as the continuation of my earlier post - Yeast bite - why?

Encountering the very same issue again and again when trying to create a 'hazy IPA'. This time I'm trying to be as detailed as possible since I'm desperate, this is an issue I can not resolve / nor justify what could be the root cause. Frustrating, since I've not encountered such a difficulty for a very long time now.

TL;DR: beers designed with low calculated IBU ends-up overly bitter. The kind of bitterness that covers your tongue and remains for several minutes, masking most of the flavors which are other way very prominent, juicy and delicious for the nose.

Details:
Recipe Specifications (AG)
--------------------------
Boil Size: 24,19 l
Post Boil Volume: 21,35 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 19,00 l
Estimated OG: 1,057 SG
Estimated Color: 10,3 EBC
Estimated IBU: 28,8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68,00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73,4 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name; %/IBU
3,97 kg Pale Malt (Weyermann) (6,5 EBC) - 77,0 %
0,52 kg Oats, Flaked (2,0 EBC) - 10,0 %
0,36 kg Rye Malt (Weyermann) (5,9 EBC) - 7,0 %
0,15 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3,9 EBC) - 3,0 %
0,15 kg Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (3,9 EBC) - 3,0 %
7,00 g Magnum [12,00 %] - Boil 60,0 min - 10,5 IBUs
85,00 g Chinook [13,00 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 13,8 IBUs
25,00 g Amarillo [9,20 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 2,9 IBUs
13,00 g Centennial [10,00 %] - Whirlpool 5mins - 1,6 IBUs
2,0 L WLP644 starter w/o decanted
50,00 g Citra [12,00 %] - Dry Hop 13,0 Days - 0,0 IBUs
100,00 g Galaxy [14,00 %] - Dry Hop 1,0 Day - ,0 IBUs
50,00 g Amarillo [9,20 %] - Dry Hop 1,0 Days - 0,0 IBUs

Water: started from RO, salts added based on Bru'n water which works flawlessly for other type of beer as well:

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 5,16 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Mash In Add 16,34 l of water at 67,9 C 62,0 C 2 min
Mash Step Add 0,00 of water and heat to 67,0 C 67,0 C 60 min
Mash Out Add 0,00 l of water and heat to 76,0 C 76,0 C 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 14,00 l water at 75 C

Brewing notes:
Strong fermentation started after 4 hours after adding the fresh starter without decanting it.
Fermentation temp set to 18C.
Day 1 - Citra added at high krausen. (to attach polyphenols and proteins for haze and to have some biotransformation)
Day 6 - Fermentation temp raised to 22C to finish and to have a diacetyl rest.
Day 12 - started to cool back to 15C to dry-hop
Day 13 - Galaxy-Amarillo dry hop
Day 14 - Started to cool back to 2C for cold crash
Day 18 - Bottled. Beer racked from yeast cake (gently) to another bucket used for bottling.

At this point I was a bit surprised as not all of the hops settled out:

As I've continued to move the beer to the bottling bucket more and more hop material started to stick to the fermentation bucket's side:

This time I wanted to play it safe so stopped pulling wort when was closer to the dry-hopped yeast cake, left there a decent amount of beer just to be sure not to pick up too much sediment. Something like this went to the bottles - could not see any hop/yeast sediment at this point:

After 12 days of bottle carbonation I've put a sample to the fridge, was there for 3 days and today I've opened it and tasted it for the first time.
Wonderful aromas for the nose (heavenly peachy) but the taste is again overly / sharp and very bitter...

No floating hop particles in the beer, at the bottom of the bottle there was a thin layer of precipitated yeast, the beer is hazy otherwise seems to be free from sediments.
Though oxidized alpha and beta acids can add some bitterness during dry hops this level of bitterness is - I believe - is something different and worse.

This case is utterly demotivating, as mentioned, one the biggest challenge that I've encountered so far.
I'm looking for every piece of hint / idea / advice that could help me to resolve and step forward.
All the comments are highly appreciated in advance - Cheers!

I read your original post but not the replies, so I may be repeating some stuff here. If it's not grain particles making it through to the boil, then I'm betting it's your mash pH. If you don't have a decent pH meter already, then I suggest getting one. Due to grain source, water and other variables, the spreadsheets predictions can be way off. For example, if your 5.27 pH prediction undershot by 0.4, then there's a good chance you're extracting harsh tannins which produce exactly the flavors your describe. This is the meter I use:

https://www.thermoworks.com/High-Accuracy-pH-Meter-8689