Save the beer!!

[Pogierob]

Hi guys, I need some advice, I got my
Mate into homebrew and he put down an extract brew today without a recipe,
I just put it in beer smith and it came out with 7.8 ibu.
Is it possible to do a late addition of bittering?
Troy has some cascade on hand, can he do a small wort, say 1 lt to gain bittering and add it to the main batch..

Brewed today and yeast has been pitched.

[CrookedFingers]

Wow, I love his style ! No recipe ! What a maverick ! Haha !
I'm no master brewer but I wouldn't add anything as now the fermentation may have begun...
...But, maybe get it done asap if you think its his only option, it could ferment out like normal !?
Possibly pitching extra yeast also if your adding more fermentables.

I am keen to hear some other responses in case I bugger up one day too !

[Oliver]

Assuming a fairly standard OG of, say, 1.040 to 1.045 I think the beer will be undrinkable with 7.8 IBUs. There will not be enough bitterness to balance the residual sweetness of the malt and make it pleasant drinking, IMO, particularly if it was all malt extract.

You will need to get the IBUs into the 20s at least if it's a regular pale ale, lager, etc, and aim for the high end of this range probably. BeerSmith will tell you the IBUs for the style.

I would definitely do a mini boil with some hops, cool it and add it to the fermenter, strained. Use BeerSmith to work out your volumes and IBUs. I am not sure if you can use BeerSmith to do the calculations about what the mini boil will do to the IBUs of the total brew, so you may need to do some manual calculations. Unless someone can tell me that it can be done in BeerSmith??

What was the recipe? Tell your mate to download the BrewMate recipe designer, which is free, so he can avoid such a situation in future.

Oliver

[earle]

A hop boil like oliver has outlined will add bitterness. Another option could be some hop extract if you can get some, grain and grape may have some.

[weizgei]

G&G definitely have hop extract, I saw it there when I dropped in on Monday.

I'm struggling a bit with the math, but from what I can tell...If he wants to try a boil, 100 grams of DME in 1 litre of water, bring to the boil, add 20 grams of Cascade and boil for 60 minutes, should add maybe 12 IBU when added to 20 litres of wort. But with such a small volume of wort on the boil that's a big maybe.

He could just dry hop the crap out of it...I mean I've made hefeweizen's with 13 IBU that have tasted fine, so 8 IBU may not be a complete disaster. Get 50 grams of Cascade in there for 5 days after it's reached final gravity, could be interesting.

[Pogierob]

ok, I have had a couple of beers and I need to know the best way to export from beersmith so you guys can read it. I put Troys recipe in beer smith, I cant' see it working, as Oliver said, too sweet.

I'll look into the extract.

Weizgei, have you found that dry hopping the shit out of it adds bitterness or counter acts the sweetness? or just blast it into tomorrow?

[Pogierob]

Troys POR American Amber Ale Type: All Grain Batch Size (fermenter): 18.93 l Boil Size: 10.67 l Boil Time: 60 min End of Boil Volume 9.84 l Final Bottling Volume: 17.41 l Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Notes:
Amt 1000.00 g 1500.00 g 500.00 g 15.00 g 12.00 g
Date: 5/08/2013 Brewer: Rob Asst Brewer: Equipment: Pot ( 3 Gal/11.4 L) - Extract Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 % Est Mash Efficiency 0.0 % Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Ingredients Ingredients

Name Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Pale Liquid Extract (15.8 EBC) Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 EBC) Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Beer Profile Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SGMeasured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.007 SGMeasured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.0 %Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 % Bitterness: 7.8 IBUsCalories: 427.1 kcal/l Est Color: 12.3 EBC Mash Profile Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Total Grain Weight: 3000.00 g Body, No Mash Out Sparge Water: 3.39 lGrain Temperature: 22.2 C Sparge Temperature: 75.6 CTun Temperature: 22.2 C Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUEMash PH: 5.20 Mash Steps Step NameDescription TemperatureTime Mash InAdd 11.83 l of water at 72.5 C65.6 C75 min Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 3.39 l water at 75.6 C Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time). Carbonation and Storage Carbonation Type: BottleVolumes of CO2: 2.3 Pressure/Weight: 102.42 gCarbonation Used: Bottle with 102.42 g Corn Sugar Keg/Bottling Temperature: 21.1 CAge for: 30.00 days Fermentation: Ale, Two StageStorage Temperature: 18.3 C Notes Created with BeerSmith

[emnpaul]

You can still save the beer. Bonus. Now you have Brew Mate it shouldn't be too hard either.

Assume you're going to raise the final volume to 18.41 litres with a 1 litre mini boil. Input this to brew mate. Your IBU's will drop slightly along with EBC but no biggie, as you're going to correct them anyway.

As this is an American style I'd use cascade for bittering if your mate has any left, otherwise POR will do in a pinch. Add some cascade pellets to your recipe. Boiled. Forty minutes should do. Adjust the weight of pellets until the bitterness of your WHOLE RECIPE is where you want it. This is how much hops you need to add.

In order for the calculation to be accurate (in reality approximate is the best you can hope for but that's beside the point right now) you need to make the adjustment wort to the same gravity as the recipe. You won't need different malts, just aim for about the same gravity. As a rule of thumb 100g dry extract to 1 litre of water will yield a SG of 1010. Allow an extra 150ml for boil off which should leave you with approximately 1 litre post boil.

Boil wort and hops for the 40 minutes then let it cool for a while before straining it into your fermentor with a sanitised (rinsed with boiling water from kettle) strainer. It doesn't need to be at ferment temp when you add it, the thermal mass of the existing beer will far outweigh the additional wort meaning if you let it stand for a while to cool the effect on temperature will be minimal.

[weizgei]

Weizgei, have you found that dry hopping the shit out of it adds bitterness or counter acts the sweetness? or just blast it into tomorrow?

Can't say I've ever dry hopped a beer to cover up flaws, so not sure. I can't see dry hopping adding bitterness...but it will add 'hoppiness' which might cover up the main fault. But I'm just spitballing here.....in reality he's probably better off dumping it and doing a new one, following an actual recipe!

[hyjak]

You can still save the beer. Bonus. Now you have Brew Mate it shouldn't be too hard either.

Assume you're going to raise the final volume to 18.41 litres with a 1 litre mini boil. Input this to brew mate. Your IBU's will drop slightly along with EBC but no biggie, as you're going to correct them anyway.

As this is an American style I'd use cascade for bittering if your mate has any left, otherwise POR will do in a pinch. Add some cascade pellets to your recipe. Boiled. Forty minutes should do. Adjust the weight of pellets until the bitterness of your WHOLE RECIPE is where you want it. This is how much hops you need to add.

In order for the calculation to be accurate (in reality approximate is the best you can hope for but that's beside the point right now) you need to make the adjustment wort to the same gravity as the recipe. You won't need different malts, just aim for about the same gravity. As a rule of thumb 100g dry extract to 1 litre of water will yield a SG of 1010. Allow an extra 150ml for boil off which should leave you with approximately 1 litre post boil.

Boil wort and hops for the 40 minutes then let it cool for a while before straining it into your fermentor with a sanitised (rinsed with boiling water from kettle) strainer. It doesn't need to be at ferment temp when you add it, the thermal mass of the existing beer will far outweigh the additional wort meaning if you let it stand for a while to cool the effect on temperature will be minimal.

^^This is the advice to follow, can be saved without too much drama

[Pogierob]

I forwarded the advice to my mate, he sort of listened, he only had 12g of hops so boiled that up.
Not enough but at least I'm not the one that has to drink it.
You can lead a horse to water.....