Bitterness

Hi all,

I brewed a blonde ale last week in accordance to the Exmoor Gold credentials according to Graham Wheeler British Real Ale (3rd edition) brewing book.

The Exmoor Gold beer is supposed to be:
OG: 1045
Colour: 8 EBC
Bitterness: 40 EBU

I pumped the brew details into brewsmith 2 and the information for bitterness for a blonde ale is rated between 15-28 IBU.

Anyway I plunged for the book target of 40 and completed the brew. Everything came out on target (OG, colour, Bitt).

The brew has now completed its primary fermentation and is now ageing (well sat in the same primary FV) - However it is very bitter. Two other people have tasted and commented on the bitterness too so I am very nervous.

The beer is only 8 days old so may change - hopefully mellow out. Will this be the case?

Should I have ignored the recipe valve and worked with the beersmith 2 beer values for the given beer type? Will the bitterness subside? Can these books be trusted for accurate recipes?

I feel a bit deflated about this brew. I have done some great brews in the past and just used beer smith to work with. Now Ive tried a clone I feel another disastrous brew is looming.

Can anyone advise regards this brew, using beer smith and following book recipes.

Cheers

I always look at the water profile first.
High sulfates accentuate bitterness.
What type of water are you using?

timtoos said:

The Exmoor Gold beer is supposed to be:
OG: 1045
Colour: 8 EBC
Bitterness: 40 EBU

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Did you use "known IBU" hops and did anything change with this brew that may have extracted more bitterness than usual? 

If the brew came out as planned, you are approx. 80% more bitter than 1.045 blonde would likely be.  Using midpoints of OG and IBU, I get 1.046 and 22. 

You brewed 1.045 and 40, so significantly more bitter than most blondes.  Bittering may soften over time, but possibly not that much or quickly. 

Brew a malt-bomb and blend? 

Hi there,

Many thanks for your replies.

I do not know the full water make up.  Im on a private spring - I do know that the ph is 5.19 but thats about it.  I don't think its hard (looking in the kettle) so I usually add burton water salts and gypsum - I think the water salts would bring out the bitterness.

When using beer smith I base the efficiency at 80%.  This gives me the required OG.

Have I brewed another drink for the drains?

I guess using beer smith to calculate bitterness and other beer credentials is safer than relying on the books!  However if this is the case then the books with clone bee recipes are a waste of time so how do you clone a brew?

I personally rarely clone a commercial beer.  I've cloned Brews Brothers Porter, but I got the recipe straight from the brew Master at Brews Brothers.

I do sometimes brew a beer that has won an award.  However, I only make it one time, then I change the recipe to fit my tastes.  I've yet to brew someone else's recipe twice.

But this is just how I do things.  It doesn't make what I do right or wrong. 

I can say that the reason I only brew award winning recipes, or recipes that I have gotten straight from the designer of a recipe, is because if it's won an award, it's probably a pretty solid recipe. 

There are thousands upon thousands of homebrew recipes available on the internet, but the only way to know if they are good recipes, is if they've been judged in a competition and won and award...or...if you've tasted it and like it enough to brew it and the designer of that beer gives you the recipe.

timtoos said:

how do you clone a brew?

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I typically plug the recipe into BS and tweak the quantities until the numbers come close to those listed in the book, then go to the store and pick everything I need up.  I've definitely found that the recipes are often a bit off.

I anticipate the bitterness will subside with time... don't dump it, please!!  ;D

I 2nd jtoots , don't dump it yet. 1st off 9-10 days in is nothing, for a beer. its just a baby yet. even if its a dumb blonde.
If read your post right you are on a private well and that is fine but it makes it harder to find out the water profile. you need to know what kind of water your using before you add any thing such as salts to your beers. Especially Burton Water Salts!!.
  I'm not going to tell you to get a wards water test done but it is a good thing to do. what I will say is take a 1/2 -1 cup of your water and put it in a stainless steel sauce pan, boil it till its gone and look to see what is left in the pan. If the is a lot of white stuff in the dry pan then you have hard water. If there is vary little or no white stuff left you have soft water. As a reference you can boil some distilled water witch will leave nothing in the pan but what was in the pan already.(a small pan is best to use).
    Another cheap and easy way to get an idea of what your water is made up of is to get 5 in 1 water test strips. (they should cost 10 -14$ for 25 of them) spendy but cheap compared to 5 gal of bad beer. these test strip should test for PH , total  hardness, alkalinity, and 2 things that are less important witch are nitrite and nitrate. (these last two should come up 0).
  I feel that your brew will mellow some with time. I just made a kolsch that has been 30 days since I pitched the yeast and cold crashed for 8 days now and yesterday was the first time it tasted like beer.
  Oh I almost forgot what was your recipe and what hops did you use? 
PS!! Make sure you are not using water that has been ran though a water softener, ion exchanging softeners are bad bad bad for beer and brewing.

   

all grain said:

its just a baby yet. even if its a dumb blonde.

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HA!!

glad the humor was taken the right way. I was by no means calling some ones beer dumb.

Hi all,

LOL it is indeed a dumb blonde at present.

Sounds like the water test would be a good move.  Yes I am on a private spring and Im pretty sure its light water with minimal salts due to the lack of scale in the kitchen kettle - not a good way to tell Im sure  :

I have attached the recipe - 50Litre brew.  Ignore the salts totals, I did not add the amounts specified as I had run out. 

Is adding burton salts bad?  What about gypsum?  Am I better off not adding any salts?

Whoooa... do I read that correctly at 40 grams of gypsum?
If so, there's your bitterness problem.

I think I ran out of gypsum - more like 10g.

Is that too much for a 50 litre brew?

timtoos said:

I think I ran out of gypsum - more like 10g.

Is that too much for a 50 litre brew?

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10g gypsum might be more in line, as long as it was not all added to the mash.
However it all depends on the water you're starting with.
I just brewed a med hopped IPA with 53 IBU.
5.5 gal. batch -  called for 2.8g gypsum in the mash and 3.2g in the sparge. But I use RO water.

Hmmm,

I think this is definitely one issue using these salts.  Think I might refrain from now on - like you mention I have no idea of my water make up but Im fairly sure its soft - fingers crossed!

I had all the salts to the dry grist pre mashing in.  Is this the wrong time to add - should I split between processes e.g. mash, HLT, boil.

timtoos said:

I had all the salts to the dry grist pre mashing in.  Is this the wrong time to add - should I split between processes e.g. mash, HLT, boil.

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Mineral additions should be added to the heated water in proportion to the mash/ sparge ratio.
In my example above, I added 2.8g gypsum (among other additions) while heating the mash water to 163F for a 152F mash.
I then added 3.2g gypsum (among other things) while heating the sparge water to 168.

I think the best thing you can do is send a sample on your spring water to Ward Labs and find out your water profile before adding anything to your water.
Then use a water spreadsheet to adjust the water profile for the beer that's your brewing. If not your just guessing. 10 grams seems like a lot of Gypsum.

116G for 90 mins of hops seems a lot to me - I make 150 IBU beers and put half that into a 60 min boil for 40L (10 gal). Is the AA% correct for the first 2 additions?

Also is the bitterness clawing at the throat - if so I think the addition is too early and maybe the pH is out! I experienced this when I did mash additionas and lots of early boil additions - it didnt seem bitter in the normal way!!!

I came up with 111 IBU's in a 6 gal batch. That's a lot of Bitterness for a dumb blonde. Must be my ex wife.

ihikeut said:

I came up with 111 IBU's in a 6 gal batch. That's a lot of Bitterness for a dumb blonde. Must be my ex wife.

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he he he he he lol. got me rolling.

I have to agree that 90 min boil for the hops is long but what do I know I have never boiled hops for more then 60 min. Yet.