Possible to tweak a beer after fermentation?

[Redwiggler]

Example: After you have brewed and fermented and let it sit in carboy for 2 to 3 weeks and say the bitterness is not as high as you want it to be. Can you boil some hops(i.e. 1/2 oz in 1 gallon of water for and hour), let cool and add small amounts to carboy until desired taste is accomplished. Or, not boil it for as long and add instant aroma? Has anyone tried anything like this? Would you have to let the carboy sit longer to mellow? just wondering, it would be nice to have different hop solutions on hand to experiment with.

 

[Captain Damage]

The closest I've come to what you're describing is adding extra hops to a beer that wound up with a much higher OG than expected. I calculated how much hops to add to get the total IBUs I wanted, boiled that in a small ammount of water and added all of that to the primary. It came out very well!

The problem with adding hops by taste is that it will taste much more bitter until all the particulates and insolubles have had time to drop out of solution. Surely you've noticed that wort straight out of the kettle is more bitter than the final beer. So I'd recommend calculating the ammount of hops to add to get the bitterness you want. There are online calculators and brewing softwares that can hrlp you with this.

If you want to add aroma, don't bother boiling the hops at all - just dry hop for a week before you bottle. You can drop the pellets right in the primary fermenter, or put them in a (sanitized) hop bag first.