Extreme Bitterness, Have I Created Poison?

[jiesu]

Just fired up the brewpot today to lay day the pots second brew. I decided to go with just sticking the wort in a cube and letting the thing no chill itself (first time)
Being so hoppy and delightful in aroma (neill's centrenillo) I couldn't help but have a quick taste.







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****! Neill are you trying to kill me?
I am unable to taste anything in the beer other then an intense bitterness, sourness. I am not sure how to describe the taste except to say that I had a very similar reaction from inadvertingly tasting a poisonous chemical in the past.

Immediatly I thought back to the process to find the issue but other then forgetting to spray star san on the outside of the siphon I can't fault my process or deduce where the flavour could be coming from.
I decided to check the brew I fired up on Sunday to see if It had a similar characteristic.(i had not sampled it yet)
The Sunday beer seemed to be pallatable although still having the off flavour although much much less intense. The Sunday beer is fermenting at 18 c so I wonder if the flavour could be intensified by heat?
I will have to try my Sunday beer again tomorrow as the taste is still in my mouth and the flavour could still be residule.


WTF?

I better have a doctors number on stand by................. Just in case.

 

[manticle]

Bitterness when beer is just made is different to when beer is fermented.

You certainly won't get poisoned but expect a much more intensely bitter and/or intensely sweet brew (depending on malt and hops in recipe) before/when you pitch yeast.

You will not die.

 

[C_west]

I also find Carbonation in the finished product helps balance flavour well for some styles. I certainly wouldnt be judging the taste of beer on what it tastes like in the cube haha

 

[jiesu]

No I understand that the flavours will melow and change with time and fermentation but this is something else. This is completely unpallatable I wasn't able to taste any sweetness or hoppyness purely a bitter sting like a poison. Surely that is not normal? Particularly with a 25minute boil with 90grams of hops. Spread at 25, 15, 5mins.

 

[Nick JD]

I don't like beer over 40IBU.

 

[bum]

Tell us how you did your boil and what was in it. Volume, gravity, addition, amounts, AA%, times, etc.
[EDIT: oh yeah, and how did you cool it after boiling and how long did that take?]

 

[chappo1970]

No I understand that the flavours will melow and change with time and fermentation but this is something else. This is completely unpallatable I wasn't able to taste any sweetness or hoppyness purely a bitter sting like a poison. Surely that is not normal? Particularly with a 25minute boil with 90grams of hops. Spread at 25, 15, 5mins.

90grs of hops

As Bum said more information please Daft.

Chap Chap

 

[manticle]

No I understand that the flavours will melow and change with time and fermentation but this is something else. This is completely unpallatable I wasn't able to taste any sweetness or hoppyness purely a bitter sting like a poison. Surely that is not normal? Particularly with a 25minute boil with 90grams of hops. Spread at 25, 15, 5mins.

It's pretty hard to know what you're tasting but assuming you brewed in clean gear using malt of some description, potable water and purchased hops then I doubt there is any way you could have made poison unless you confused ratsak with dex.

If you're really worried I guess you'd be calling an ambulance rather than posting here.
High aa bitterness post boil can be pretty intense. Have you ever made a high aa hop brew like this before?

 

[jiesu]

Ok a quick run down of my brew process.

Fire up the stove top and boil up 15litres of water,
I let the water boil for about 10 minutes then added 1600 grams of LDME (i did notice a browning of the pot where the water was touching the aluminium)
boil for another 10 minutes or so.
Added 20grams of centenial and started 25minute countdown.
after about 5 minutes I noticed that the Boil had thrown a good pile of the hops onto the wall of the pot so i poured a bit of the boil onto the walls to get it back into the water (wrong?!)
after 10 mins added 35grams of Amarillo
after 20 mins Add another 35grams of Amarillo and the remaining 900grams of LDME.
after 5 mins flame out.
Stirred in 500grams of Dextrose.
threw some star san in the cube and the same with the siphon tubing.
drained the star san.
Whirlpooled the pot.
Siphoned from pot to cube leaving about a litre of wort in the pot as well as most of the hops.
Topped the cube up from roughly 14litres to 22-23l with warm boiled water.


Amarillo aa 8.6%
Centennial aa 9.7%
2.5kg of LDME
500grms Dextrose.

Predicted O.G 1.049

belive the IBU was about 36-37 roughly.


EDIT:
Cube Has not been chilled it Was sitting at about 45 deg when I tasted
It is probably down to about 35 now.

 

[glaab]

the problem aint with Niells recipe, I've made it and even added a few IBUs to his recipe and it was a bloody marvellous!

 

[manticle]

Pitch the yeast, give it three days after it fires and taste it again. While it won't taste like the final product nor even necessarily taste great, I'll wager you 40 grams of your favourite hop that it doesn't taste like it does now and that some of the bitterness will have subsided. If it does, give it another week and if it still tastes like poison, I'll throw in another 40g.

If it's finished and conditioned and matured and still tastes like bitter poison (and you're not dead) I'll throw in another 40 but this time I'll need a bottle sent to my address to check (all postage of all items to be paid by me).

The above offers are negated by any kind of infection so treat it nicely.

 

[bcp]

Were there any items, metal or otherwise, anywhere in your system that may have contaminated the batch?

Taste is a useful warning system. If you're game to drink, try small doses and see what your body says.

 

[chappo1970]

Did you use a hop sock?

With 90grs of hop pellets I am betting you would have a lot of hop dust/break suspended in there and that could be what you are tasting.

Cheers

Chap Chap

 

[manticle]

(i did notice a browning of the pot where the water was touching the aluminium)

Worth a question - what does this mean? If the water was touching the aluminium and assuming the pot is an aluminium pot, does this mean the entire pot submerged beneath the liquid was turning brown?

I will withdraw my offer if your entire pot changes colour on contact with water. Is it new? Old? Have you brewed with it before? Cooked with it before?

 

[Bribie G]

Last week I entered an American Amber in a comp with 120g of hops of various sorts (Centennial etc, the usual suspects) and it was judged way too bitter for style. And like yours they were mostly late additions. I think what is happening with your brew is that a moderately hopped beer wort will taste highly hopped and a highly hopped beer wort will be over the top.

Example: about this time last year I did a Cerveza for my son in law Corona fan and used 20g of Chinook. End of story, just 20 of Chinook for a 90 min boil. Yet when I tasted the wort it was more bitter than VB. But the eventual finished beer was bang on style for Cerveza bitterness.

Just ferment your batch and you'll be in for a surprise

 

[bum]

Excluding the possibility of mistakenly adding a much smaller amount of LDME initially I can't really see any reason for it to be much more bitter than one might expect from this recipe. I guess I'll echo manticle's question about brews with high AA% hops - have you done one before?

I guess another question that needs exploring is the "sourness" detected. Was it a proper sourness or a strong unpleasantness from the bitterness? Sourness might be reason for concern (however I can't see how it'd be infection right out of the boil). Hmmm...

Be sure to keep us up to date as things move along.

 

[bum]

Wait, do any no-chillers think this might be a combination of the high AA% hops and the plasticy taste some report from virgin cubes? I can see how that might make one think 'poison'.

 

[jiesu]

Were there any items, metal or otherwise, anywhere in your system that may have contaminated the batch?

Only 4 things touched the wort.
Pot.
Spoon.
Siphon
Cube.

I tasted the brew with a syringe out of the pot after siphoning and It also had the bitternasties. So that rules out the cube and siphon.
The spoon is made of some plastic material (came with a fermenter kit) designed for brewing so that is doubtful.
Although I wouldn't rule out the pot it is very cheap aluminium from the markets, The pot is also no longer silver under the 15litre mark.
I assume it is from the acidity of the wort? Could it be dissolved aluminium I am tasting? I certainly didn't sure the pot before use.

Did you use a hop sock?

With 90grs of hop pellets I am betting you would have a lot of hop dust/break suspended in there and that could be what you are tasting.

Cheers

Chap Chap

No hop sock. I hope you are right!

 

[bum]

I tasted the brew with a syringe out of the pot after siphoning and It also had the bitternasties.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. There's a good chance what you drank here was about 20% hop material (assuming you're using pellets) - it is gonna be pretty bitter.

 

[jiesu]

The /sourness I put in the original post is because I wasn't sure how to describe the flavour or sensation I was experiencing. It may not even be a bitterness but it is the only way I can articulate it. Maybe an acidic taste would be a better desciption.


I have only used the pot once before today and that was sundays brew. read above post.
Anyone else have browning of their aluminium pots?


No I have never done a high AA brew before this is my 4th brew actually.

I hope you are all right and it will disapate with age.


EDIT:

Photo of the discoloration to the pot.