Very bitter beer

[natural]

Hello,

I recently made an ale using orange and lemon zest and it's been in my primary for almost 10 days now and I wanted to give it a taste an it's extremely bitter. I wouldn't drink it. Is there anything I could do to lower the bitterness? Or will time take care of that?

 

[marubozo]

10 days is way too early to tell. As long as there wasn't a major error in your recipe the bitterness will usually mellow out over time.

 

[natural]

According to the recipe it should be bottled at 13 days if I bottle it things should still mellow out right?

 

[dotnetdotcom]

I recently made a pale ale that had honey wheat, lemon zest and corriander in it. At first I was really disappointed and thought I messed something up because it had a bad bitter taste. It's been bottled for a month now and it's starting to taste pretty good. I can't really taste any lemon, but the bitterness really mellowed. It's weird, but it now reminds me of an alt beer I made.
I'm impatient and drink my beer too soon, but I'm finding that about a month in the bottle is best. My batches have been good and drinkable after 2 weeks, but after a month the flavors really mellow and the body is better. I've noticed a slight flavor improvement after 2 months only in a raspberry wheat, but very few of my beers make it that long.

 

[marubozo]

According to the recipe it should be bottled at 13 days if I bottle it things should still mellow out right?

Well, keep in mind that recipes from kits (assuming that's what you're going by in this case) are written for quantity, not quality. The times listed are almost always far shorter than what you'd really want to do.

That being said, the beer does condition and come together quite a bit during the aging process in the bottles, so after three weeks or so you should start to have a better idea of what the final product is like.

 

[dogma9]

According to the recipe it should be bottled at 13 days if I bottle it things should still mellow out right?

yea most people bottle between 2-3 weeks some even longer depends on the beer, but if its that bitter i would at least wait 3 weeks

 

[jfr1111]

You zested until you arrived to the white part of the skin didn't you ?

 

[lumpher]

i bet you know the zest is just the orange- or yellow-colored part of the orange and lemon. if you add the white stuff, it's pure bitter.

 

[natural]

Haha yeah I know I use line zest in a lot of things I cook. But lime zest is much harder to get off I wouldn't be surprised if some of the white pith had gotten in. I'll give it another week and bottle it and give it at least a month before trying one. The final gravity still has a bit to drop on this as well.