Hey all, I made a NE IPA a few weeks back that utilized 2-row, wheat malt, and honey malt. It was bittered with a hopshot and then no hop additions until whirlpool and dry hop (mosaic, amarillo, citra both additions). The smell was awesome and the hydrometer samples were all delicious throughout fermentation. I bottled it up about 11 days ago with sucrose to condition. I drank a bottle at the 6 day mark and it was amazing..easily one of the best NE IPA I had ever tasted. I just tried two more at the 10 day mark and I am getting an overwhelming grapefruit bitterness now instead of the sweet citrus balanced flavors that existed a few days earlier. I am going to assume that there was still residual sugar that hadn't been eaten up by the yeast at day 6 which would explain the slight sweetness when I drank it but where do I go from here? Is this grapefruit flavor due to bottle conditioning? Because it wasn't there at the hydrometer samples. Will it go away? How can I make sure to purposefully add that sweetness to my next batch to balance the bitterness? To clarify it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet like sugar water, it was a very mild sweetness that complemented the overall flavor profile Thanks in advance!
Isn't a grapefruit smell/flavor to be expected with those hops? As far as a change in flavor goes I'd start with the usual checklist: 1. How did you clean and sanitize the bottles? 2. How did you transfer the beer into the bottles? Was it done gently and in a sanitary manner? 3. Have you had a few more bottles since then? Are they all showing the same signs? When I brewed the Perfectly Average NEIPA my hydrometer samples tasted sweet but by the time the CO2 had absorbed into the beer, there was a little more perceived bitterness to it. Your post very much reminds me of what I experienced with my batch. Could the change just be due to carbonation kicking in? Where do you go from here? I guess you could let them sit for a week or two more and maybe that grapefruit will mellow out. Not sure. I wonder if others will chime in with Malt bill variations/balance (using oats, flour, etc), water profile (Sulfate/Chloride ratio), etc.
@Curmudgeon Thank you for the feedback. I am extremely careful regarding sanitation so I don't believe this is an issue on that side. The first bottle I had was carbed for sure and didn't have that flavor. There was a minimal lingering bitterness on the back of the tongue but nothing to the degree that it is at now. I was going for more of a tangerine / orange type citrus profile. I know from a past experiment that just citra hops gives this type of grapefruit bitterness (or at least it did for me) so I used maybe an ounce of citra compared to several ounces of the other 2 varieties. I am probably going to go the route of letting them sit and seeing what happens in a couple weeks but it is just disappointing because I thought I hit nirvana on that first bottle and have been let down since.
This sometimes happened to me as well when I would bottle my IPA's and Pales. The beer is still young and likely needs additional time to condition. More likely than not, it will come around and be where you expect it to be in few more weeks. I would suggest letting it condition for another 2-3 weeks, then putting one in the fridge for 3 days and giving it another sample. Also, if you are using 12 oz bottles, based on my experience, bulk conditioning in larger formats (bombers or 750's) generally produced a better end result.
This makes me feel better...just kind of odd that it happened when it did. Maybe the addition of sugar roused the yeast in a bad way? Not much perceptible difference to me between the two
Carb level can drastically affect beer flavor perceptions...especially on something like a NEIPA. I'm sure it will be fine...just different. Cheers
