Recipe Over Hopped?

[McCraggen]

G'day again, just checked the FG of my latest recipe 1015, good good what i expected, then i had a little taste.

The initial taste was great but then it had an interesting aftertaste very dry/bitter/tanniny

Heres the method i used:

500g grain boiled for about 5 minutes and turned off heat, 35g hops boiled with 1.25kg malt for 45 mins, then hops added hops for last 10 minutes of the boil.

Im just wondering if i have screwed anything majorly and if so will bottle conditioning help?

Cheers n Beers

 

[brendo]

G'day again, just checked the FG of my latest recipe 1015, good good what i expected, then i had a little taste.

The initial taste was great but then it had an interesting aftertaste very dry/bitter/tanniny

Heres the method i used:

500g grain boiled for about 5 minutes and turned off heat, 35g hops boiled with 1.25kg malt for 45 mins, then hops added hops for last 10 minutes of the boil.

Im just wondering if i have screwed anything majorly and if so will bottle conditioning help?

Cheers n Beers

Bottle conditioning will probably help, however I would say that boiling your grains is probably where the problem lies.

Boiling the grains tends to extract tannins from the husk, leaving you with some astringency in your brew. Hopefully this will diminsh with time - never done it so can't really say.

next time, steep the grains in hot water (between 60-70 degrees) for about 30 mins or so. Remove the grains (either put them in a grain bag in the first place or put them through a seive) to leave you with just the extracted wort. I tend to also rinse my grains (once sieved) to wash off any residual sugar with another litre or so of similar temp water.

Then you should boil this wort for at least 20 mins to kill off any nasties that may come from the grain. I tend to use this wort as a basis for my hopping - kills two birds with one stone.

As to how to fix your current problem - it probably depends on what style you made. You may be able to make a 'hop tea' to add some extra aroma to help mask it - but if you have already bottled, you may just have to chalk this one up to experience.

Cheers,

Brendo

PS welcome to the forum...

 

[Fermented]

+1 on boiling the grain as the probable cause.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[Bribie G]

What grains did you use? Some grains need to be mashed in hot water at a specified temperature for an hour or so, whilst others such as Crystal Malt have already been mashed in the husk for you already and just require steeping in hot but not boiling water to release the sugars etc that are in them. Either way, boiling them can release tannins etc. If you go to this sponsor's page there's a huge list of available grains and whether they need to be steeped or given the full mash.

CraftBrewer grain list

If you boil one of the 'mashing' grains, for example a standard ale or lager malt, then nothing is really going to happen except extracting tannins and some starch that could be a problem as well.

Better luck next time.

 

[razz]

I'm interested to know why you boiled the grain McCraggen? Did you read that or did someone tell you to brew that way? You could try Polyclar after the ferment is done.

 

[brendo]

I'm interested to know why you boiled the grain McCraggen? Did you read that or did someone tell you to brew that way? You could try Polyclar after the ferment is done.

Interesting... McCraggen posted for recipe advice and a number of posters advised against boiling the grain, so not sure why he went this way.

I guess he now has a case study as to why he shouldn't go with this method in the future...

Brendo

 

[warra48]

It's surprising how much misleading or just plain wrong information is out there. The following is one source.

The brewing kits released by Brewcraft also contains a book "Brewing Crafts" by Mike Rodgers-Wilson. The book is, no doubt, a source of a lot of potential mistakes.

The book is primarily aimed at K&K brewing, but also briefly discusses adding some grains to recipes. He recommends boiling the grains for 20 minutes, and then adding the strained liquid to the fermenter!

So, let's not be too hard on McCraggen. I'll bet this is one mistake he won't make again. And surely, all of us have made some cock-ups somewhere in our brewing journey. It's usually a powerful incentive to do better next time and not repeat the same mistake.

 

[McCraggen]

Yup i heard that you have to boil them for a bit to kill bugs or something along those lines, but who knows maybe after some bottle conditioning the beer will mellow out a bit and be at least drinkable.

Cheers.

 

[warra48]

Yup i heard that you have to boil them for a bit to kill bugs or something along those lines, but who knows maybe after some bottle conditioning the beer will mellow out a bit and be at least drinkable.

Cheers.

The boiling is correct, but that's for the strained off liquid (wort), not the grains themselves.

It's a bit like boiling 3 or 4 teabags in, say, a litre of water. It will be mouthpuckeringly bitter. Same with boiling grains.

 

[buttersd70]

Yup i heard that you have to boil them for a bit to kill bugs or something along those lines, but who knows maybe after some bottle conditioning the beer will mellow out a bit and be at least drinkable.

Cheers.

Any liquor produced by grain will need to be boiled. Grain is full of bugs.

The alpha of hops fluctuates a fair bit, and lately I have seen willamette as low as 4.6 and as high as 7.1....which would make a big whack o difference to the hopping.

If you post up the alpha of the willamette and amarillo you plan to use, we can advise you much better on the bittering.....Otherwise it's all stab in the dark.

h34r:
Maybe I should have included the bold, italicised version in the recipe thread instead of using normal text.
As others have said, its the liquor (strained off liquid) that needs to be boiled. But, too late now. Don't stress. Give it time in the bottle. The other issue as I see it is the hopping...the alphas never were posted, so the weights used are meaningless as far as knowing how bitter it will be. But, live and learn. Again, give it time in the bottle, it will mellow out to a degree. Many a time I've had one that I thought was a write off when it was bottled, that turned out OK with a bit of age.

So my advice would be to bottle it, and leave it. Take the lessons learned and move on to the next batch. If worse comes to worse, and it's still bitter and harsh after 12 weeks in the bottle, you can always use it to blend into another, less flavoursome beer to give you a 'alf and 'half.

 

[jonocarroll]

I'm going to put this question in here rather than an AG thread out of shame - maybe it won't get seen by anyone who was looking forward to this recipe h34r: Don't worry - my question is on topic.

The backstory; I brewed my all-grain dunkelweizen yesterday. Mash schedule was a little tricky with the size of my mash tun and it ended up pretty thick. I had added a few handfulls of rice hulls, but alas - 10L to boiler then stuck sparge (copper manifold). After a considerable time trying to unstick, I abandoned all hope and disassembled the tap assembly on the mashtun, and managed to uncouple the manifold. With a lot of mixing, managed to pour straight from the mashtun to the boiler through a strainer as much as possible and ended up getting my volume, but also a large amount of grain. Pulled out as much grain as possible with a strainer, then decided to soldier on.

60 min boil, racked to cube, then took a peek at what was left - lots of break material, and about 2-3 litres of grain.

So - my questions; Do the tannins fade over time in the bottle? Can the tannins be hidden behind a large malt flavour (this was likely to be a sweetish malty dunkel if it had gone right)? Is there anything I can add to try to mask the tannins or even remove them?

Cheers, and I'll not be using such a thick mash for quite a while methinks.

 

[pint of lager]

Hi McCRaggen, your recipe is lacking a few details.

What sort of grain were you using? And yes, boiling grains will extract tannins.

What sort of hops and what alpha acid rating were they?

What volume of water did you boil?

Did you add a kit as well?

What was the final volume in the fermenter?

35 gms of hops is going to contribute a significant amount of bittering, if you have used something like POR, cluster or others, and depending on the boil volume, it may or may not be bitter.

Once you fill in some more blanks, we can also suggest some ideas for your next brew.

Using hops, malt and grains, you are well on the path to making great beer, just needs a bit of work on your methods.

 

[pint of lager]

Quantumbrewer, wheat mashes are very prone to sticking. Next time, use a kilo of rice hulls. I have in the past mashed in a separate vessel, placed a layer of rice hulls over the manifold, then added the mash on top of the rice hulls.

You can try tasting the wort. Being a dunkel, the dark grains may disguise any tannins, but I would suspect that you will have also exracted a fair amount of tannins.

Tannins don't fade with age.

 

[jonocarroll]

Quantumbrewer, wheat mashes are very prone to sticking. Next time, use a kilo of rice hulls. I have in the past mashed in a separate vessel, placed a layer of rice hulls over the manifold, then added the mash on top of the rice hulls.

You can try tasting the wort. Being a dunkel, the dark grains may disguise any tannins, but I would suspect that you will have also exracted a fair amount of tannins.

Tannins don't fade with age.

Dang. I wasn't sure quite how much rice hulls I needed, I guess I didn't use enough. Next time I'll build up a decent amount on top of the manifold before I mash. Only 3 AGs in and I'm already considering a larger mashtun.

I'll be sure to taste the wort - it's in a cube for now.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Jakechan]

I also over hopped my first AG. Its still in the keg and I haven't been able to drink it yet (although it does seem to have mellowed a little in the last few weeks).

Ive just ordered some more MO to make up another batch without hops and blend the two, hopefully to achieve a good result.

Is there any other way to repair a bitter over-hopped brew?

Cheers,
Jake

 

[peas_and_corn]

Dang. I wasn't sure quite how much rice hulls I needed, I guess I didn't use enough. Next time I'll build up a decent amount on top of the manifold before I mash. Only 3 AGs in and I'm already considering a larger mashtun.

I'll be sure to taste the wort - it's in a cube for now.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

When I have a lot of what I tend to do a 50C rest, that reduces the chances of a stuck sparge.

 

[McCraggen]

Okay here a few more details as to what i did.

Grain was crystal malt (500g), boiled in a volume of maybe 4-6 litres for about 5-10 minutes and left to sit after that
2.5KG of dlme were used i split it into halves because i didnt have anough water volume (so i thought) would have been about 4-6 litres each as well.
I boiled the wiliamette hops with an alpha content of 4-6% for about 45 minutes total (35g in each), then i boiled the amarillo hops (12-14% alpha) for about 15 minutes total, perhaps a bit less.

I did check the FG before again to see if its steady (yes) and had a little taste, perhaps i was a little over zealous with the description of the after-taste, wasnt quite as bad as first time around. Think this one might turn out to be quite drinkable in time.

But lesson(s) learned, the next brew i do using the same method will be godly i can tell, who knows maybe an AG brew in the future.

Cheers.

 

[mckenry]

It's surprising how much misleading or just plain wrong information is out there. The following is one source.

The brewing kits released by Brewcraft also contains a book "Brewing Crafts" by Mike Rodgers-Wilson. The book is, no doubt, a source of a lot of potential mistakes.

The book is primarily aimed at K&K brewing, but also briefly discusses adding some grains to recipes. He recommends boiling the grains for 20 minutes, and then adding the strained liquid to the fermenter!

So, let's not be too hard on McCraggen. I'll bet this is one mistake he won't make again. And surely, all of us have made some cock-ups somewhere in our brewing journey. It's usually a powerful incentive to do better next time and not repeat the same mistake.

+1. When I first got into tweeking kits, I bought a Country Brewer 'Wet Pack'. The instuctions actually said to boil the grains. Maybe they thought the buyer understood that you are to boil the resultant liquid, but it did not specify in the instructions. I guarantee someone with no knowledge would have boiled it, grain and all, just going from instructions. Dont worry McCraggan - there are plenty more mistakes to be made along the way :lol: Its all experience.
EDIT: And some mistakes WONT be your fault. I know they're never my fault.

 

[jonocarroll]

When I have a lot of what I tend to do a 50C rest, that reduces the chances of a stuck sparge.

Sorry that I'm piggybacking this thread. h34r:

I did a 60*C rest, and was planning for a 70*C rest, but to do that I needed the former to be quite stiff.

Just to bring it back on topic, McCraggen - check out How To Brew or better yet, buy the book of the same name. It's loaded with info and it goes over exactly WHY you want to keep the grains between 60-70*C and what effect the different temperatures will have on your brew in terms of the enzymes that are most active at those temps.

A related question - shouldn't alpha amylase be denatured if boiling the grain? If so, what's doing the conversion? Change in gravity points suggests about 3.3% abv.

 

[buttersd70]

so 1 boil was about 6L with 1.25kg ldm, 35g willamette for 45 total, and 25g amarillo for 15min, and the other was 1.25kg ldm, 35g willamette for 45 total...then made to 21L. Is this right?

If thats the case, I get that the BG for each would have been ~1.078, and the hopping would have come in somewhere in the region of 37IBU (all numbers subject to a big ish factor.)

So, yeah, thats pretty hoppy...but not ridiculously so. It should mellow out a bit in time.

Personally, if I have to do a split boil, I still do all the hops in the one vessel. Probably one of the biggest things that will improve your brews (particularly in relation to improving your consistancy), is to use hops of a known alpha, not just a range. Any good supplier will tell you the exact alpha for the batch.

(I worked the hopping on this based on 5 and 13. But as an example, just changing the williamette alpha changes the numbers significantly. At 4%, it changes to 31IBU, at 6% its 42IBU. So a whole 11IBU difference, just in that 2% difference on the williamette alpha. )


Edit...QB, apart from tannin issues, the temp is irrelevant for mcgraggen....he wasn't doing a mash, he was steeping crystal. A totaly differant ball game, with no relation to mashing at all. Crystal doesn't have any converson done, in a steep or a mash, because it's already been fully converted during the manufacturing process. All that needs to be done is to rinse the sugars off.

Steeping crystal and doing a mash are chalk and cheese. The only real similarity is one of pure coincidence...mash temp just happens to be an effectctive temperature for rinsing the crystal without getting it too hot. It could just as effectively been done at 78C, or at ambient temperature for a longer period of time, such as overnight.

Edit2: Jakechan, I would still hop the batch....just under hop it. Blending is the best option imho to fix an overhopped batch. You could add lactose, which is unfermentable and would add some sweetness to it, but that would change the body and character of the beer pretty drastically. If its 10ibu (as an example) over, do the next one 10IBU under. Then blend them.