Overly Bitter IPA Post-Fermentation

[saulgood88]

So I've been making all grain brews for around a year, not with a lot of frequency, but all of my beers have had one thing in common in that they are overly bitter straight after fermentation. After a couple of weeks they mellow out and become enjoyable beers.

I was hoping to be able to turn brews around within a week using kviek as I'm usually too disorganised to have more kegs ready for the kegerator so any pointers from more experienced brewers on how to avoid the issue would be appreciated.

I've tried to think of the things that may play a part but as I'm fairly new, might be miles off the mark...
I've never used a campden tablet until my latest brew but bad the same issue with using tap water and Tesco Ashbeck bottled water. All brews are IPA/NEIPA style and all have been dry hopped. Sparge water is cold as I don't have a second heater. Wort passes through a mesh before going into the fermenter. All fermented under pressure and dry hopped with a bag/magnet inside the fermentation vessel then oxygen free transferred to keg. Same issue using Verdant, US05, Lutra (all dry) and some liquid yeast I can't remember the name of.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated as it seems pointless using kviek if you stil have to wait 14 days for it to be drinkable which leads me to think my process is the issue. Thanks!

 

[Stu's Brews]

Do you do any water treatment other than a campden tablet?

When I first started out I had similar issues of my beers being too bitter and it definitely seemed to improve once I started treating my water to get the right mash pH and sulphate to chloride balance.

Obviously, the other thing to look at is your boil additions and how many IBUs those are giving you in case you are adding too many hops.

Also watch out for any unexpected IBU additions from flame-out or hop-stand additions. You can add a fair few IBUs if the wort is still close to boiling for a while after those are added.

 

[An Ankoù]

How do you calculate the target IBUs?
What;s your water mineral profile like?

 

[saulgood88]

Do you do any water treatment other than a campden tablet?

When I first started out I had similar issues of my beers being too bitter and it definitely seemed to improve once I started treating my water to get the right mash pH and sulphate to chloride balance.

Obviously, the other thing to look at is your boil additions and how many IBUs those are giving you in case you are adding too many hops.

Also watch out for any unexpected IBU additions from flame-out or hop-stand additions. You can add a fair few IBUs if the wort is still close to boiling for a while after those are added.

I don't do any other water treatments at the moment as it all seems a bit daunting. I think this seems like its the next logical step in learning though if it has that much impact.

I don't think hidden IBUs could be coming from anywhere as I've only bought all grain kits so far and made no adjustments apart from yeast so in theory they should be okay on the bitterness side of things.

One other thing I forgot to add is that I have been no chilling the last few brews but remove the hops from the boil as soon as the timer finishes. I read that no more biterness should be added if the hops are removed but this could be incorrect info? Unfortunately I had the issue when I was chilling though so don't think it's that.

How do you calculate the target IBUs?
What;s your water mineral profile like?

I've not brewed any of my own recipes yet (but have built a couple) so would presume the IBUs in the kits are okay. Also spoke to a fellow member on my introduction post as he lives in the same town and he said the water profile is a good base for most styles but I've not dived into doing any water treatment yet, bar switching tap for bottled water one brew and had the same result.

 

[WonkyDonkey]

I've recently become aware of astringency and how it can be perceived as bitterness, especially in heavily hopped beers. Depending on your process it could be this as I've experienced something similar in the past even though the theoretical IBUs is in the 20-30 range.
I'm by no means an expert but it might be worth meeting up over a pint one night to go over things?

 

[An Ankoù]

I've not brewed any of my own recipes yet (but have built a couple) so would presume the IBUs in the kits are okay. Also spoke to a fellow member on my introduction post as he lives in the same town and he said the water profile is a good base for most styles but I've not dived into doing any water treatment yet, bar switching tap for bottled water one brew and had the same result.

Well the bitterness must be coming from somewhere. Have you let anyone else taste it and do they find it bitter, too?
Forgive my asking, but are you following the kit instructions to the letter? Could you be adding late hops to the boil too early?
Give us an example of one of the kits you're using. The one that came out most bitter would be good.

 

[Cwrw666]

If all your brews are too bitter then the obvious thing to do is reduce the quantity of the first hop addition. Problem solved.

 

[foxy]

Agree with wonkey donkey, if you are dry hopping heavily astringency is a possible factor, and it does diminish with time. Me I have had astringent beers served in breweries, I prefer a bitter beer so doesn't worry me.

 

[The Baron]

Maybe the OP has a low tolerance of IBU's/bitterness, that is probably grasping at straws but just a thought.
I find that large dry hops can give more IBU/Bitterness perception and I tend to do more in whirlpool and less in the dry hop to combat this. Also is that not how most beers are that is more bitter when brewed and need to mellow and condition for a week or two so maybe nothing wrong

 

[saulgood88]

Sorry for the late replies, not had chance to check the forum but appreciate all the advice so far. All the kits are followed to the letter although I've swapped the yeast in the most recent kits (and had the same outcome). I've put one of the kits below though just for reference.

With what everyone is saying I'm thinking it may be astringency that I'm confusing for biterness due to lack of experience as all of the beers have been dry hopped and subsided over a relatively brief time. They all seem to turn into nice brews over time so maybe just a case of needing more patience as suggested by The Baron.

On a side note, I'm up for a pint and homebrew chat sometime in the near future Wonky but struggling to go anywhere at the moment as I've got a 6 week old running my schedule at the moment.

Thanks again for all the input and help.

Gamma Ray Clone
Crisp Extra Pale Maris Otter (4000 grams)
Crisp Caramalt (210 grams)
Crisp CaraGold Malt (120 grams)
Columbus Pellets (15 grams)
Mosaic Pellets (8 grams)
Bravo T90 Pellet (8 grams)
Amarillo Pellets (50 grams)
Citra Pellets (52 grams)
Calypso 100g T90 Hop Pellet (16 grams)
SafAle US-05 11.5g (1 packs)

Method
Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): American-Style Pale Ale
Batch Size: 20L
Original Gravity: 1051
Final Gravity: 1010
ABV %: 5.4%
IBU: 45

Additions and timing:

7 g (39 IBU) — Columbus 15.8% — Boil — 60 min
8 g (1 IBU) — Amarillo 8.4% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Bravo 13.2% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Mosaic 11.8% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C
8 g (2 IBU) — Columbus 15.8% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand @ 80 °C

Secondary additions and timing:

52 g — Citra 13.5% — Dry Hop
42 g — Amarillo 8.4% — Dry Hop
16 g — Calypso 6.2% — Dry Hop

 

[malhal]

I had this problem and the bitterness taste was tannins extracted from the grains during either the mash, sparge or both. Once I used acid to reduce the tap water Ph from 8-9 out my tap to around 5-6 the issue was resolved.

Yeast somehow makes these tannins taste worse.

You can make the beer more enjoyable by avoiding coffee the day you plan to drink it or eat a packet of salty crisps while drinking.

 

[Birdsnestbrewery]

Is that the recipe from the Brewdog book? I made that a couple of years ago and it turned out great, but I always leave my beers to condition for at least a couple of weeks, and they do always improve after that in my experience.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Sounds perfectly normal to me with highly hopped beers. It's hop burn...very astringent initially but does subside. the last one I brewed the wife didn't like it initially as she's not too keen on bitter beers, but after a few weeks she was enjoying it. You need to drink these hoppy beers fresh, but not too fresh. Let it ride and give it time.

 

[saulgood88]

Thanks for all the pointers everyone. Will do some testing based on the comments and try to prove astringency so I know for sure.

 

[Nicks90]

Try adding a single grind of salt to your pint and see if the bitterness subsides.
If it doesn't, then it's astringency and if it does it's bitterness.

 

[The Baron]

Good shout Nick a little salt does balance out the bitterness sometimes

 

[Nicks90]

Which is why a good salty snack is a match made in heaven when you're drinking something suitably robust!

 

[user 49905]

I got to here from searching keywords. Reading this help with the outcome regarding bitterness. The brewdog recipe https://brewdogrecipes.com/recipes/punk-ipa-2010-current says IBU of 40 - using the recipe calculation and choosing any of the formula for IBU gives something like 98. Brewing results in something like this value almost undrinkable. Given the Math and the results I assume it’s the recipe except they indicate a lower IBU. I can scale the recipe but don’t understand why.

 

[Stu's Brews]

I got to here from searching keywords. Reading this help with the outcome regarding bitterness. The brewdog recipe https://brewdogrecipes.com/recipes/punk-ipa-2010-current says IBU of 40 - using the recipe calculation and choosing any of the formula for IBU gives something like 98. Brewing results in something like this value almost undrinkable. Given the Math and the results I assume it’s the recipe except they indicate a lower IBU. I can scale the recipe but don’t understand why.

I have a suspicion that they've only calculated IBUs for the two additions labelled as 'bitter' (Chinook and Ahtanum) and have omitted everything else. Those two additions alone (assuming a 60 minute boil) give ~40IBUs.

Cant for the life of me figure out why they would do that though.

 

[user 49905]

I have a suspicion that they've only calculated IBUs for the two additions labelled as 'bitter' (Chinook and Ahtanum) and have omitted everything else. Those two additions alone (assuming a 60 minute boil) give ~40IBUs.

Cant for the life of me figure out why they would do that though.

Ok - That fits better with the observation. So the wider question is has anyone brewed this with sucess (as in made it drinkable). As the only option seems to be scale it down, or brewing is more art than science.