First taste extremelly bitter....

Gledison

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hi everyone.
just brew an attempt of getting a similar beer to brewdog´s Gamma ray. So far so good with all targets But..
after tasting before adding to the fermenter, the "pre beer" tastes extremelly bitter. is it normal for a planned hoppy beer to taste soo bitter in the begining? i hope it will reduce a lot during fermentation , conditioning..etc..
any comments? thanks a lot
recipe link:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/504174/insanity-and-genius
 
Looks like a lot of hops in the boil, but the weights of the hops are in squirrel... er uh metric. (J/K)

As long as you hit your numbers and marks, you should be fine. Not surprised it's that bitter with that many hops. It will blend and mellow. See how it tastes when you take your first gravity reading in a few days. It should taste a lot different and that will continue to change throughout fermentation.
 
Looks like a lot of hops in the boil, but the weights of the hops are in squirrel... er uh metric. (J/K)

As long as you hit your numbers and marks, you should be fine. Not surprised it's that bitter with that many hops. It will blend and mellow. See how it tastes when you take your first gravity reading in a few days. It should taste a lot different and that will continue to change throughout fermentation.
I hope soo..
yeah, its a lot of hops, and I will see how it ends up. My last attempt wasn't that hoppy and no much aroma..
 
the bitterness will mellow out over time, you can get whats called carbonation bite at first from carbonation building up in the fermentation vessel, also your water can be harsh with too much alkalinity that makes higher ibu's seem even worse
 
the bitterness will mellow out over time, you can get whats called carbonation bite at first from carbonation building up in the fermentation vessel, also your water can be harsh with too much alkalinity that makes higher ibu's seem even worse
I hope so. The mash pH was OK (ca. 5.6) so I'm not sure about alkalinity, I'm using bottled water with can. 90 ppm Can and 50 ppm Mg.
Let's see. Its the first time (3rd brew) that I noticed such intense bitterness.
What u think about the hops amount? Too much?
Thanks
 
50ppm of magnesium? not good but not related for bitterness just excessive farting
 
I hope so. The mash pH was OK (ca. 5.6) so I'm not sure about alkalinity, I'm using bottled water with can. 90 ppm Can and 50 ppm Mg.
Let's see. Its the first time (3rd brew) that I noticed such intense bitterness.
What u think about the hops amount? Too much?
Thanks
Never too much hops!!!! Seriously though, it'll mellow, try it a week from today and you'll be much happier.
 
You have a BU/GU ratio of 1.26...yeah it's going to be bitter. It's way out of style for a pale ale and it's low-gravity for an IPA. Unless you keep pretty good residual sweetness and body, it'll stay very heavily balanced toward the hops. It'll mellow some, but it's going to stay more bitter than the average Pale Ale.
 
So... wouldn't that be a nice sessionable IPA. Admittedly, I'm more of a hop head then most.
 
So... wouldn't that be a nice sessionable IPA. Admittedly, I'm more of a hop head then most.
+1 :)
Im not sure about the labeling..but with i´ve seen around a session IPA should be max 4% ABV...
I believe it would be a very hoppy Pale ale :p . i just hope that this bitterness mellows...a lot :)
 
I believe it would be a very hoppy Pale ale :p . i just hope that this bitterness mellows...a lot :)
Yeah, it's an extra hoppy Pale, with IBUs at the top of the range for an IPA style. You'd have trouble if you were entering a competition being too light for style as an IPA and way overboard for an APA.
Again, you've just got a shit-ton of hops in it and it's going to be bitter. It's not likely to change a lot, but after several weeks, it'll mellow at least a little. The saving grace is that you seem to be getting quite a contribution from the whirlpool hops and that, I think, will tend to mellow more than the 70 minute bittering addition.
Also, I find that even relatively low-hopped beers have quite a bite before any fermentation. The action of the fermenting and the addition of the yeast flavors changes things a lot.
 
so..after conditioning and priming I decided to taste it. It tases surprisingly good. The bitterness mellowed however no much aroma. Altought I had ca 25 grams of hops during dry hopping.
its a kind of constant now after 5 brews. Im adding the hops in a teebag. Do you think that it reduces the proper mixing of the oils? anyone with experience in using tee bag or muslim bag for dry hopping with good success?
thanks
 
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I just recently started dry hopping with this canister. Aroma seems better but not sure how much better because the recipe I used it for I haven't brewed before. Before the canister I was using a hop bag felt there wasn't enough room for the hops to expand.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MA6T34A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Interesting. Do you think that if the hops are compressed in the bag they cant deliver the oils? I thought that during the 5 days an equilibrium would be reached and not even agitation would be needed.
I got also something similar , but a cheapo version from China 1$, a stainless steel tee infuser. I hope it will help next time..
 
I just recently started dry hopping with this canister. Aroma seems better but not sure how much better because the recipe I used it for I haven't brewed before. Before the canister I was using a hop bag felt there wasn't enough room for the hops to expand.

I’ve tried several products like that which use screens to filter and I've found they are primarily for whole hops because pellet hops will easily clock the screen, it will work but sometimes you need to raise the screen up and let it down to clear the screen from clogging, now that’s just based on my use years ago, they may work for you today and I hope it does, good luck with it
 
Interesting. Do you think that if the hops are compressed in the bag they cant deliver the oils? I thought that during the 5 days an equilibrium would be reached and not even agitation would be needed.
I got also something similar , but a cheapo version from China 1$, a stainless steel tee infuser. I hope it will help next time..

I don't have any data to back it up but where they were in the bag they were all compressed so that was my thinking.
 
I’ve tried several products like that which use screens to filter and I've found they are primarily for whole hops because pellet hops will easily clock the screen, it will work but sometimes you need to raise the screen up and let it down to clear the screen from clogging, now that’s just based on my use years ago, they may work for you today and I hope it does, good luck with it

I could see this being an issue. I have a pretty big canister and I am only doing 3 gallon batches so not using a ton of hops. It seemed to work pretty good but I have only used it once.
 
I just dump my hops in the fermenter and it works great. However, 25 gr hops for 5 liters is a stretch.

My latest IPAs used something like 2-250 gr for 20 liters. They are pungent and real grapefruit bombs. They would not have turned the same with only 100 gr of hops.

Also, I would try to dump the hops in the fermenter. They will soak and most likely settle to the bottom, if not, simply cold crush.
 

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