bitterness

[ashbyp]

What is it that causes the mouth puckering bitterness?
I have 35 bottles of IPA which isn't too great

[steve_flack]

Is it bitterness or astringency?

[ashbyp]

it was extract, no mashing. i didn't add gypsum or use a filter. I did pre-boil the night before, no campden tablet.

what's the diff between bitterness or astringency? i just know it makes me screw my mouth up once i get the bitterness...

i'll get through them alright but they don't taste too great.

[steve_flack]

They are quite similar until you realise the difference (it's hard to describe the difference). As it's extract it's less likely to be astringency anyway.

Did you add you extract early or late? What was the alpha of the hops and how much?

[ashbyp]

well i added LME early and DME late, The bittering hop was target at 12% (as far as i recall). 23l brew, pretty sure the I added 60g

[ashbyp]

really? oh bollox. i'll have to check but i'm sure the recipe called for 2oz of galena at 11% so thought i wasn't far off.

[delboy]

really? oh bollox. i'll have to check but i'm sure the recipe called for 2oz of galena at 11% so thought i wasn't far off.

It probably did but target is known for having somewhat of a harsh bitterness.
Im sure it'll be great in six months time though

[ashbyp]

fine. i'll stick this somewhere and forget about it. it's bleeding horrible to be honest.

[mysterio]

I would describe astringency, when referring to brewing, as a kind of raspy dryness between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. It's tannins from the grain husk which cause it (usually from oversparging or sparge water that is too hot). Some red wines have the same sensation.

81 IBUs is obviously your problem though. I've done it a couple of times in my first few all-grain IPAs. It's always best to calculate IBUs with a calculator IMO before you follow a recipe.

[ashbyp]

Having thought about it now, it's actually a bit worse than I thought.

The recipe called for 2oz of 11%AA hops at 60mins. That works out around 70. But the recipe also said put all the extract in at the beginning of the boil too.

My changes were 60g of 12% (no doubt a few grams for good luck), and I put half the extract in at the beginning of the boil and the other half at the end. So I think I'd get better hop utilisation from the lower gravity boil too. I reckon over 100 IBUs then. oops.

[ashbyp]

I used the bottom calculator here, supposedly based on Tinsteth.
http://www.rooftopbrew.net/ibu.php

2oz, 12%, 60mins at 1.025 (the recipe was for 1.050 and I added the last half of the extract right at the end).

That calc comes back with 103.8 IBUs. But I left the volume as 5 (US) gallons, which is wrong..

[ashbyp]

indeed. lessons learned.

are there tools to measure IBUs properly? that would be useful.