Problem Stout??

[stldrum]

Having a problem with the taste of this Stout:

Extract
1 Can of Munton's Liquid Dark Malt Extract
2 Pounds Clover Honey

Hops
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings
1 oz (roughly) Eroica (or any other high alpa acid hop)
1 Teacup's worth Espresso

Yeast
WL Irish Ale yeast.

Bring 4 gallons of water to a boil, add bittering hops.
T-20 minutes add half your extract
T-15 minutes add honey
T-10 minutes add rest of extract, add Kent Goldings

Picked up the recipe off another site. After mixing it looked pretty light and is more of a brown ale than a stout. Live and Learn!

My problem is: fermentation is down to a bubble a minute so I did a hydrometer reading last night, that seemed fine, tasted the beer and at first it tastes like a bitters but as I swallow it takes horrid. I can only relate it to putting an aspirin on your tongue and the taste you get as it dissolves before you swallow it. Not sour but nasty.

Will this clear up or have a made a batch of a bad recipe?

Thanks in advance for the help!!

 

[Walker]

that sounds like the impression I had when I tasted my IPA in it's young stages. In my case, it appears that the nasty bitterness came form the fact that I still had a lot of hop residue floating around in the beer when I sampled. After secondary fermentation and conditioning, that aspirin-like flavor was gone and my beer was pretty darn good.

As for it coming out like a brown ale instead of a stout, You probably just needed to add some roasted grains to the recipe to give it that real 'stout' quality.

I would say that you should give the beer some more time to develop. It will probably surprise you.

BTW: what bittering hops did you actually USE in this recipe? The recipe has a suggestion, but I wasn't clear on whether you used that suggestion directly, or selected something different.

-walker

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Did you boil your hops in water without any extract?

 

[Walker]

me or stldrum?

I boiled in water+extact. Stldrum's post says he boiled the bittering hops in pure water (for 40 min?) before adding the first 1/2 of the extract at T minus 20.

-walker

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

stldrum. If he did that, I'd say that's an issue, particularly if he's on city water which typically has a high ph in the 7-8 range. Hop utilization is optimized in that range...too optimized, and bitter tannins can be extracted from hops which will result in a harsh flavor which I think he is describing. I would never add hops to boiling water, particularly for 40 minutes...only wort.

 

[Walker]

wow.. I wasn't aware that there were tannins in hops.

Yeesh! Good thing you said something, because I was going to boil me up some hop tea for the specific purpose of bittering up my porter (pour the beer, add a splash of hop juice, enjoy.)

Maybe I'll throw in some DME when I make the tea or boil for a VERY short time.

-walker

 

[stldrum]

I did not use the Eroica hops but another suggested by my brew shop. Have to check at home for the exact name - can't remeber right now.

I used bottled water and did boil the hops in the water only for 40 min then added the extract.

I am going to put it into the secondary and see if it mellows out over time. It has been an extremely hoppy smelling mixture - originally it smelled like when you ope up the hop pellet packages - very strong.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Don't quote me, but I believe tannins exist in almost all flora. Not all are bad (see tea), but hop tannins are apparently quite astringent. Hop utilization is based on a number of factors, noteably ph and wort density. A low ph and/or low gravity will tend to result in more utilization which is not always good as there are more compounds in hops than a-acids and aromatic oils. Note that lower gravity increasing hop utilization is why one would use less hops when doing a full-wort boil. A boil of bottled water (gravity ~1.000, ph ~7) for an extended period such as 40 minutes would certainly be a ripe situation for extracting tannins.

As far as your hop tea goes, no harm in trying it. If the tea is not astringent I'd think it is fine and you could add it. I think your idea of adding some extract is good, however. Another option might be to do a 'cold' brew of the hop tea...just put some in a jar of water for a day or two with no heat. You could also try lowering the ph of your tea to ~5.2 which would better simulate hop utilization in wort.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Whoops, but back to the original intent of the thread...stldrum, if I were to repeat your recipe, I would add half of the extract at the start of the boil along with the bittering hops, and then proceed with your recipe as normal (obviously omitting the T-20 step which you would have done around T-60).

 

[justbrewit]

i used a hop tea for my last and added hops to the "tea" just like i would to the wort. same times and every thing. this weekend, i'm doing the same recipe this weekend and i'm doing it the regular way of adding to the wort, in about 4 weeks i'll let you guys know what the differance between the 2 of them.