My beer is too bitter / astringent!

[ProjectBeer]

Hey All,

Just looking for some advice. I brewed this recipe at the end of June. It tastes and smells amazing, but I’m realising that it’s got a really bitter after taste.

Calculated IBUs are around 65 IBU, which I realise is a bit on the bitter side, but I’ve had double IPAs that claim to be 90-100 IBU and they don’t taste as bitter as mine. It’s mainly in the aftertaste – it really dries out the mouth and after a couple of glasses, if I lick my lips I can taste the bitterness.

Process was:

Measure out 26L water in boil kettle and treat with campden tab and gypsum
Remove 3L for sparge water
Add 1.5kg DME to boil kettle and heat water to 68C
Steep grains for 30 mins, swirling grain bag and gently lifting the bag up and down in the water
Remove grain bag and add to pot of sparge water that has been heated to 71C and soak for 10 mins
Add sparge water to kettle, add the rest of DME and bring to boil.
Add hops as per schedule
Hop Stand at <80C for 30 min
Cool & whirlpool
Rack to FV and pitch yeast

The only thing in my process that I can pinpoint is the fact that I steeped 750g of grains in 23L of water. I did add 1.5kg of DME to the water to increase the SG as I read somewhere that doing this should avoid any problems with tannin extraction, but I have a suspicion that it didn’t work.

I’ve done some googling and it seems that steeping grains in a lot of water can raise the pH of the water and result in tannin extraction and astringency in the final beer. Could this be what caused the overly bitter taste?

I also swirl the grain bag around and gently lift it up and down in the steeping water – or is this overkill?

edit: changed hop stand to say it was <80C for 30 mins

 

[clibit]

I think it's down to the large quantity of late hops with high alpha acids sitting in hot wort for quite a long time after switch off.

 

[ProjectBeer]

Sorry I should have said that I let the wort naturally cool to <80C before adding the flame out additions, then I moved it to my ice bath to chill. Maybe there was still some utilisation, but even then it should be very minimal.

I read that you should allow between 5-15% utilisation for hop stands between 88-100C and that a hop stand in the 71–77 °C range will basically shut down the alpha acid isomerization reaction and the lower temperatures will reduce the vaporization of the essential oils (to quote this article).

 

[clibit]

Ah ok. But you still had a lot of hops already in there with high acid content while the wort was naturally cooling.

 

[ProjectBeer]

Ah ok. But you still had a lot of hops already in there with high acid content while the wort was naturally cooling.

Hmm...that's a very very good point! I hadn't even thought of that. That would seem to explain it and the lack of malt vs say a double IPA would mean that there was nothing to balance the bitterness with.

Strange thing is that the brew before was a black IPA and I added the hop stand hops at flameout, then left it 30 mins before chilling (identical recipe to this one but with added carafa spIII, chocolate and black malt) and that tasted fine, if a little bitter, but no where as much as this batch.

Lesson learned. I have an immersion chiller now so will be chilling wort down as soon as the boil is up. I might still steep in less water anyway just to cover all bases.

Thanks for pointing that out, it's been bugging me for days!

 

[clibit]

Strange that two similar beers have come out very differently. But I think it's likely to be the hops, the rate of cooling etc, and the malt balance. And maybe different yeasts could have contributed?

 

[ProjectBeer]

The yeasts were the same for the black IPA and this beer - the type of hops were slightly different, but it shouldn't have made a difference. That being said, the black IPA did have a more roasty flavour which may have counteracted or even masked the bitterness a bit. I think I'm learning to pick up differences in tastes since I started brewing (and have purposefully been trying as many different beers as possible!) so it may be more noticeable to me now.

I'll just chalk this one up to experience and hope that the adjustments I make for the next brew solve the problem.

 

[simon12]

No idea if its what made the difference (likely not) but the darker malt would also decrease the PH.