Troubleshooting recipe / water treatment

[JRTurner1234]

Hi,

I recently brewed a pale ale, but it has come out more bitter than I expected and the bitterness is quite harsh. I've never brewed a pale ale that I've been completely happy with, so would like to get some feedback on this recipe.

Recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/976138/pale-ale
My water:
https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/docs/water-quality/AF088.pdf
Process: BIAB and kegged

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
JT

 

[foxy]

Hi,

I recently brewed a pale ale, but it has come out more bitter than I expected and the bitterness is quite harsh. I've never brewed a pale ale that I've been completely happy with, so would like to get some feedback on this recipe.

Recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/976138/pale-ale
My water:
https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/docs/water-quality/AF088.pdf
Process: BIAB and kegged

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
JT

If you have a harsh bitterness it sounds like astringency, most likely source from the hops, your not wringing out the dry hop bags if you are using bags?

 

[JRTurner1234]

If you have a harsh bitterness it sounds like astringency, most likely source from the hops, your not wringing out the dry hop bags if you are using bags?

It could be astringency, but I don’t squeeze the hops.

 

[strange-steve]

Your alkalinity is very high at 340 ppm bicarbonate, which might explain why you've had problems with pale beers. Get yourself some CRS to reduce that down to about 30 ppm or so and you'll see a big difference.

 

[JRTurner1234]

Your alkalinity is very high at 340 ppm bicarbonate, which might explain why you've had problems with pale beers. Get yourself some CRS to reduce that down to about 30 ppm or so and you'll see a big difference.

Yup, this is what I thought the problem was with my pales.

In this recipe I used 25.6l of water and 27.13ml of CRS - which I would have thought would fix the pH problems.

Maybe this was the wrong dose, or I'm missing something else on the water treatment side of things?

 

[strange-steve]

That's probably not enough CRS to be honest, that would bring your alkalinity down to about 95 ppm bicarbonate which is still high for a pale ale. Did you make any other water adjustments?

 

[JRTurner1234]

no other water additions.

Ah, that’s interesting. I used the brewersfriend calculator, so will have another look to see if I missed any other inputs.

 

[trueblue]

When you look at that report it looks like it taken over a one year period so would only have a mean average and may not represent the water coming out of your tap. I would get your water tested, I use phoenix analytical which cost around £25. Because of your high alkalinity I would definitely go for a salifert testing kit and test before each brew. Brewers friend is American and in my opinion I don't think they quite understand water treatment for British beers so look for a UK based calculator. I use Graham Wheelers one but I have noticed Strange Steve of this parish has produced one here Please test my Simple Water Calculator