bittering

Pluralbitterings

1. 1
   adjective

   Producing or adding a bitter taste or smell to something.

   Brewers prize certain hops for their strong bittering effect on the finished ale.

   The bittering oils in the rind made the marmalade unpleasantly harsh.

   Note

   Mostly found in set pairings before a noun: a bittering agent, bittering potential. A bittering agent is put into antifreeze and similar products to discourage swallowing. A 2006 record of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce doubts that such agents work. The adjective is not comparable, so nothing is "more bittering." To express intensity, qualify the noun instead: a strong bittering effect.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bitter.

   The cold winters were slowly bittering the old man's temper.

   Adding too many hops is bittering the brew beyond recovery.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is bitter, "to make bitter," and it takes a direct object, as when winters are bittering a temper. That object is the quickest way to tell it from the adjective, which sits before a noun, as in a bittering agent. The gerund shades into the noun for the process. If an object follows, it is still the verb.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of making something bitter, or of something becoming bitter.

   The bittering of the wort is a key step in traditional brewing.

   Prolonged storage caused a slow bittering of the cooking oil.

   Oppositesweetening

   Note

   Here the word names a process, and the process can be wanted or unwanted. Brewers do it on purpose: John J. Palmer's How to Brew (2001) speaks of using aroma hops "for bittering." In wine it is a fault. Franz Lafar's Technical Mycology (1898) notes that bittering is almost confined to red wines, which carry more tannin. The process is distinct from the bitter compound itself.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A bitter compound, such as one used to adulterate beer or one removed from coffee.

   Unscrupulous brewers slipped a bittering into the barrels to mask weak ale.

   Several bitterings can be drawn off from coffee to reduce its harshness.

   Note

   The word has worked in two trades. A patent granted in 1839 to David Dear of Salina, New York, was for separating bitterings from salt kettles and boilers and cleaning them out. In the Encyclopaedia of Brewing (2013), bitterings are additions to beer, some made after fermentation. It is a countable noun, often met in the plural, formed simply from bitter plus -ing.

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