Bitterness

[wiredcharlie]

To experienced brewers this observation is going to seem obvious, but here I write the post I wish I'd read a few years ago when I first got into kit brewing.

I like bitter. But not very bitter. The first kits I made tended to be too bitter for my taste - but I drank my mistakes and I persevered. I discovered Coopers Australian Pale Ale - and made many of these one after the other. Experimentation lead me to use a whole Kg of malt instead of enhancer. Suddenly I had beer not bitter enough - the penny dropped.

If you like your bitter less bitter use all malt instead of sugar or enhancer!
This edges the balance of the beer away from bitterness. I did a Coopers English Bitter with a Kg of Muntons dark malt and it was great.

Next I did a John Bull Traditional English Ale with a Kg of medium malt and 400ish g of brewing sugar and added extra water so that it was half a gallon too long. This was supposed to be my Christmas brew and its almost gone!
So, if you like your bitter even less bitter, dilute it!
I bought 3 cheap Wherrys from Wilkinsons when they had their £15 offer on and I've mad them up to about 5½ gallons with 500g Muntons medium malt. First taste is very promising.

So to summarize, the bitterness of the beer is determined by the balance of hops which add the bitterness and the malt which adds the sweetness. The hops are already in the kit, so you can tweak the balance away from bitter by adding malt or by diluting more, or preferably a bit of both.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Tony

[Perun]

Nice to know this as I am one of the people who did not drink beer because of bitterness. Now that I am brewing my own I go for less bitter kits such as Coopers Wheat. I was thinking to brew Ausie Pale Ale as it looks mouth watering but was worried about the bitterness level. I am now slowly learning that extra malt offsets bitterness. This might make a whole lot of kits available for my taste.

Was wanting to make a porter or stout some day but am afraid of bitterness. I am glad to know that one can enjoy a traditional ale without bitterness making me gag!!!

Very helpful Tony

Thanks!!!

[orlando]

A useful tool is to look at the bitterness ratio of your recipe dividing IBU's and SG so e.g. a 1.040 beer with 20 IBU's has a ratio of .50 a 1.048 with 31 IBU's approx .65 so you can begin to see the affect of more hops over malt in the ratio. Look back at some of your brews and if you have the approx IBU of the hops used you should get an indication of what you liked and then be able to fine tune your additions. Difficult with kits I suppose but if you are tinkering with them with hops and extra malt it might at least get you near.

[orlando]

A useful tool is to look at the bitterness ratio of your recipe dividing IBU's and SG so e.g. a 1.040 beer with 20 IBU's has a ratio of .50 a 1.048 with 31 IBU's approx .65 so you can begin to see the affect of more hops over malt in the ratio. Look back at some of your brews and if you have the approx IBU of the hops used you should get an indication of what you liked and then be able to fine tune your additions. Difficult with kits I suppose but if you are tinkering with them with hops and extra malt it might at least get you near.