Has anyone ever experienced a beer that came out much more bitter than the calculated IBUs dictate? I use Brewcipher for every recipe and it is on point. For whatever reason this most recent batch just seems overly bitter. Granted it is a DIPA that is only 21 days old and will be in the keg for another several days before I really start consuming it but I can't figure out what happened and why? My only bittering charge was .25 Columbus @ 30 for a calculated 9 IBUs. Everything else was 10 minutes and under for a 1.077 wort. I usually panic and then my issue becomes a non issue but has anyone experience something similar or do you think the perceived bitterness will fade? TIA
Could be perceived bitterness due to a factor other than iso-AAs...maybe water chemistry, excessive ethanol production (high fermentation/fusels), etc...
I didn't know that ethanol might be a contributing factor. The fermentation temps did get higher than I would have liked the first night.
I've often found that "hot" beers sometimes give off a seemingly bitter taste....can be hard (at least for me) to distinguish between the two while the beer is still conditioning...
maybe/maybe not...just a thought. Assuming your water chemistry has remained unchanged since previous "successful" batches, then I doubt that would be it...although normally that would be my first guess.
Unchanged. unless there were some seasonal factors with the town water supply. I usually don't mind a grain husk or two in the boil but I'm wondering if I may have been more careless than normal. (BIAB)
Did you hop stand or add boatloads at 10 minutes? That contributes to IBUs. If you didn't plug the hop stand data into brewcipher that could be whats throwing it off.
There only a small addition at 10 min. but there was also 8 ounces at FO. I plugged this into brewcipher but my #s could be off a little bit here or there, just a rough guesstimation
There ya go...that makes sense too...if there are still particles floating around...that could provide some bitterness... Give it some time. Might not be worth this level of troubleshooting quite yet
Need to see the whole hop schedule. I'm guessing you also dry hopped big. Sampling the keg early in a majorly hoppy beer will have an exaggerated hop flavor, aroma and bitterness. This is because the yeast pull a bunch of hoppiness as they flocculate. You can avoid this by waiting to sample until the hoppy yeast has stuck to the bottom of the keg. Since that probably won't happen, the early pulls can serve as an indicator of how the recipe might taste after 4-6 weeks in the keg, if you used more hops. The early pull can make some of the hops subtle characteristics more noticeable. So sample a little early for science, but wait until the beer is prime to drink before you demolish it or worry about it.
I've had similar results - the beer tastes considerably more bitter than I had calculated - but I attributed it to two things: 1. it usually happens when I do a double batch (10 gallons rather than 5). Thus I assume that the larger the batch size, the less amount (proportionally) of hops you need to achieve the same level of bitterness; and 2. because the batch contains double the amount of liquid, it takes that much longer to cool down the wort. Because it takes that much longer, the hops sit at the higher temperature for a much longer period of time, thereby lengthening the time they are contributing to bitterness.
The amount of hop particulate in suspension at time of consumption and the "bittering quality" of the hop strain used can definitely be major factors as well.
Hoping that to be the case. Citra, Galaxy, cascade and columbus in the DH. Strangely enough the AA on the Cascade were pretty high on the lot I got.
This was the grain bill; OG: 1.077 10 59% 2-Row Brewer's Malt, Briess 37 3 18% Golden Promise 38 1.5 9% Wheat Malt 38 0.5 3% Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 35 1 6% Flaked Oats 37 0.75 4% Sucrose (Table Sugar) 46 0.1 1% Briess Midnight Wheat 32 Hop Bill: Hop Type (L/P) Ounces Minutes AA% AA% Override IBUs Columbus P 0.25 30 17.7 16.4 9.0 Columbus P 0.5 10 17.7 16.4 8.4 Cascade P 2 3 7.2 9.4 6.6 Citra P 1 3 12 13.4 4.7 Galaxy P 1 3 13 4.6 Flameout/Whirlpool/Hopstand Hops Hop Type (L/P) Ounces Avg Temp Minutes AA% AA% Override +IBUs Cascade P 3 150 60 7.2 9.4 13.8 Galaxy P 2 150 60 13 12.7 Citra P 2 150 60 12 11.7 Columbus P 1 150 60 17.7 16.4 8.0 Calculated IBUs : 68 Dry Hops : 2oz Citra 2oz Cascade 1oz columbus 1oz Cascade
4oz at 3 minutes and 8oz steeped at 150 for an hour? It wouldn't surprise me if the perceived bitterness is higher than the IBU calculation suggests. Perceived bitterness and IBU are different things. The 6oz dry hop adds bitterness and zero IBU. There are no calculators for that. It will probably smooth out once it's fully carbed and the yeast flocculates.
My whirlpool strategy is different to say the least. 150 average temp is probably a little too high. For that batch I took the kettle fill the tub w/ cold water and then got it down to 180 before tossing em in. It probably fell pretty rapidly before stalling hard around 110~ and finished within an hour.
