Beer Forum

OK...so I brewed this recipe:

1.0 lb 40L crystal malt
8.0 oz biscuit
9.9 lbs light LME
1.8 oz centennial (60 min)
0.5 oz centennial (10 min)
1.0 oz centennial (dry hop)
pitched w/ WY#1272

Primary fermentation for 12 days
Secondary fermentation for 11 days

My IPA looks like a VERY dark amber, and has that burnt porter taste to it...which doesn't fit the amazing hop aroma you get when you pour the beer. And the aftertaste isn't too pleasant either

Here is my ideas as to what happened....
I used straight tap water...too much chlorine around here
I forgot to pull the pot from the burner when I was brewing and I carmelized/burned the LME
During transfer to the secondary, I did too much splashing around causing some oxidation.

Any other ideas or remedies would be helpful!

Thanks,
Nater

LimaLima113 wrote:I forgot to pull the pot from the burner when I was brewing and I carmelized/burned the LME

That's my guess. If you had a slug of burnt mess on the bottom of your kettle when you were done, that is almost certainly where the darkening and burnt flavor comes from. I know of no way to recitfy that other than blending to dilute - and of course, don't do that again!

DannyW wrote:

LimaLima113 wrote:I forgot to pull the pot from the burner when I was brewing and I carmelized/burned the LME

That's my guess. If you had a slug of burnt mess on the bottom of your kettle when you were done, that is almost certainly where the darkening and burnt flavor comes from. I know of no way to recitfy that other than blending to dilute - and of course, don't do that again!

+1

Also that hop schedule seems to me like it would lend to mostly hop bitterness and not as much hop flavor which could increase the perception of any burnt flavor that may exist.

I think DannyW is right about the burnt-ness that you've got going on. The transfer from Primary to Secondary wouldn't cause something like that. That being said... unless you're doing some aging or oaking - something like that - you don't really need to transfer to secondary. That was something I learned early on (that's to the BN Army).

If you're only gonna ferment for 3 weeks - keep it in primary. It will still settle out and clarify like it would in secondary, plus you're giving the yeast a chance to clean the beer up a little more and try to eliminate some slight off flavors. Yeast is good at cleaning up after itself.

Yeah, +1 on all of the above. All that Centennial at 60 will be guaranteed to make it IPA-bitter.

+1 on previous replies.

Few questions...

What was your batch size? That's an awful lot of malt for a 5 gallon batch, it makes me think you were aiming for a 6.5 gallon. My calculations say your target OG (on a 6.5g) was 1.064. What was your target & actual OG?

Your hop schedule (assuming 1.064, a 6.5g batch & a 60 minute boil) comes out to 61.4 IBU's (at 8.4% AA), which sounds pretty good, but over half of your hops were thrown in at 60 which is going to result in a harsher bitterness considering the cohumulone levels in Centennial hops (also a loss in flavor/aroma).

If all my assumptions are correct, here are 2 possible solutions (after the general suggestions listed before)

#1 - Keeping with a Centennial single hop beer (again, assuming 8.4% AA)
1.25 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1.25 oz @ 10
1 oz @ dry

#2
@60 -
.75 oz Simcoe (12.2%)
.5 oz Centennial (8.4%)
@20
.5 oz Simcoe
.5 oz Centennial
@10
.5 oz Centennial
@Dry
1 oz Centennial

Personally, I'd use #2 with a few modifications for complexity as well as a few minor tweaks to the malt bill. Hope this helps!

This was a 5.0 gallon batch...If I recall correctly (since I'm at work and I don't have my notes) my OG was 1.058, the FG ended up being 1.016. I do appreciate the suggestions on the hop schedule, I will try that next time and see how things turn out. Just FYI, this was a predetermined recipe put together as a kit from the LHBS, I'm definately open to any and all suggestions and tweaks to this to turn this into a very enjoyable hoppy IPA...I'm shooting for a strong IPA but not an imperial with a strong but balanced hop bitterness throughout the palate. Thanks again folks!

I think your hops are fine, as I brew with Centennial quite a bit.

When you're using that much LME, however, you need to add it very slowly while stirring very thoroughly. It should take a while to add that much liquid, and I would break the process into three separate stages and update your recipe accordingly. If you're adding 9 or 10 lbs of LME all at once, then I would say that the bulk of the LME hitting the bottom of the kettle is part of your problem, because it doesn't float. But I'd drop your steeping grains to 0.5 lb of Crystal and 0.25 lb of Biscuit to let the Centennials come through a little bit more.

Try 3 bags of DME instead of 3 cans of LME.. the dry stuff floats a bit better. Just watch for boil over while you're adding it.