Disaster Rescue

[Wardhog]

Made a beer on the weekend, everything looks lovely up until I taste the wort.

Forgot that Millennium is around 14.5%AA, and overdid it a little bit. 51 IBU is a bit more than I wanted, I was looking for somewhere above 20. This'll teach me to dream up recipes on the fly in the LHBS.

I was pretty down at first, the beer is undrinkable to me. However, through the moping, I had an AHA! moment. I'm figuring I can whip up another 23 litres with little or no hops (will have to be an extract job) and blend the two together, for 46 litres of beer rather than 23 litres of tears.

I ask this question assuming that my plan will in fact work and I actually have averted the crisis :

When have you snatched victory from the jaws of defeat? What nifty tricks have you pulled to avoid wasting all your hard brewing work?

 

[reviled]

What was your OG? How long has it been in the bottle/keg?

 

[Wardhog]

What was your OG? How long has it been in the bottle/keg?

OG is 1.050.

It's still wort at the moment. I only made it yesterday.


Perhaps you could get away with 51 IBU if there's a fair whack of crystal malts, but this beer is only Maris Otter + Munich.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Even easier.
1. Boil 3kg of extract for 10 minutes in 20 litres (or there abouts), and cool.
2. Tap off 10 litres of your current wort to a 2nd fermenter. Drop in 10 litres of your new malt extract.
3. Sterilise like mad, and top up the old fermenter with 10litres of the new wort.
Voila!
40 litres of much lower IBU beer.

Remember, Next time.. measure twice, cut once.

 

[reviled]

OG is 1.050.

It's still wort at the moment. I only made it yesterday.


Perhaps you could get away with 51 IBU if there's a fair whack of crystal malts, but this beer is only Maris Otter + Munich.

It all comes down to taste really... My Pale Ales are normally around 60-70 IBU's, with an OG of about 1045, so what youve got there sounds nice and easy to drink for me :lol:

Ferment it and try, it will be a good beer! If its not, leave it in the bottle for a few months, the hoppiness will smooth out a bit...

 

[raven19]

leave it in the bottle for a few months, the hoppiness will smooth out a bit...

+1.

Write down everything for future reference, and learn from this recipe.

 

[Bribie G]

Why not make up a beer kit that has virtually no flavour such as a Coopers Canadian, using LDME and dex and the same yeast you used for the AG, and maybe put in some crystal as well for the colour. Ferment, fine and polyclar it to buggery so you end up with a clear, clean neutral alcoholic 'base stock', bottle separately and do a 'half n half' at drinking time?

I once did something similar when I produced a virtually undrinkable Scottish Strong Ale by chucking in far too many Newport hops (well they were on special). Fortunately I had a very gutless tasting light mild 3% that I was disappointed with. Mixed together, the flavours blended well, wouldn't have won any prizes but it all got drunk eventually.

Poms do it all the time with their black n tans and longboats (Guinness and Lager) and in the old days it was common to order a pint of mild or bitter cut with a brown ale or a strong like in Cardiff: "Point er strong n daaark, wuss" :icon_drunk: