All grain is bitter

[Jimmy1]

I've been making my all grains with the "no-chill" method and they have been turning out quite bitter, and I'm wondering if this is extracting the bitterness out of my late addition hops.
Or is it the biab method I'm using... or am I expecting too much from my shitty brewing capabilities.

[maheel]

Jimmy

bitterness is normally from the early hops in the boil
you will get some bitterness from late hops but
maybe you could swap those late hops for dry hopping in the fermenter.. to get more aroma instead of the bitterness


whats the recipe ?

[Jimmy1]

The first one I did was a fat tyre amber ale which was;
Pale Ale 4.12kg
Munich Light 0.26kg
Cara pils 0.26kg
Pale caramalt 0.26kg
Dingemans biscuit 0.26kg
Chocolate malt 0.26kg
68degC mash
78degC sparge
with no squeeze at all

Hops
Willamette USA 41g @90min
Fuggles UK 14g @20 min
Fuggles Uk @1min

Safale US-05


and the other standout was a James Squire Sundown Lager clone made with the similar no squeeze no chill method.

[Sam.]

With the no chill method a lot of people change their schedule by 20 minutes to take into account the hops sitting on the hot wort for a lot longer.

i.e. if boiling usually for 60 minutes make it 40

For your 20 minutes add at flameout and the one at 1 minute dry hop.

If it is still too bitter probably drop the 90 minute boil back or less hops at 90

Hope this helps

[crozdog]

What Sam & Liv says about pulling your additions back is right - but i think your big problem is the 90 minute addition. pull it back to 60 mins & i reckon you'll notice it.

what was the AA% of the willamette? do you have beer smith or some other brew software? If so fire it up, enter your recipe & simply change the addition times to see the effect.

[maheel]

pretty good free program for beer is
http://www.brewmate.net/

+1 on below,good info there :)

What Sam & Liv says about pulling your additions back is right - but i think your big problem is the 90 minute addition. pull it back to 60 mins & i reckon you'll notice it. what was the AA% of the willamette?

edit: thats good not god info :laughing-rolling:

[Jimmy1]

The AA% of the willamette is 4.34.
I think I will make the same recipe but change the hop addition time like sam&liv said to see if it makes any difference.
The 90min boil was to clarify the beer so I think I will boil it for 30 mins before adding the hops for 60mins.
Would it be beneficial to knock up an imersion chiller out of 3/8 copper tubing to just cool the beer down faster?

[R-sole]

Download brewmate. it's free and it works really well.

[crozdog]

The AA% of the willamette is 4.34.
I think I will make the same recipe but change the hop addition time like sam&liv said to see if it makes any difference.
The 90min boil was to clarify the beer so I think I will boil it for 30 mins before adding the hops for 60mins.
Would it be beneficial to knock up an imersion chiller out of 3/8 copper tubing to just cool the beer down faster?

There are large arguments around the benefits of 60 vs 90 minute boils..... personally I don't think 90 mins is warranted.

try making 1 brew with a 60 min boil & hop addition & another with a 90 minute boil & 60 minute addition then do a side by side comparison - especially if you can get a couple of other experienced brewers around to do a blind tasting.

BTW, I just entered your recipe in beer smith & got 18.4 ibu for a 60 min boil & 19.4 for a 90 min boil - I guessed the fugues were 4.5% & you did a 30l batch ending up with 25l using mainly Joe white malt. So yes there is a difference - but not something that would make the beer super bitter. Either the AA% is wrong or something was weighed incorrectly or you're sensitive to bitterness.... how do you find BIG AIPA's? Too OTT?

Have a read of the no chill info on AHB - there is a lot of good info there. Maybe post this question there too.

[Jimmy1]

Crozzdog, I really like bitter beers but the style of beer was more than what I was expecting. Maybe I was expecting too much straight up.
Mark at my local HBS said it could be traces of the bleach I'm using in the beer which can apparently throw an off-taste which can be read as bitter...ish, so he gave me some sodium percarbinate to see if that makes a difference.
5Star I've now got brewmate and still just working my head around all of the different malts and hops :shock: will need to make more beer just to test them all out. :D

[maheel]

imo i reckon those 90 min hops would have really made the bog impact

i got to get some mash happening for xmas...