Can't make a hoppy beer

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What's wrong with it? I've just used it for the first time in an English Golden ale because I'd heard it was the best dry yeast to use for British ales!

Bland, boring adds absolutely no character to the beer. Many years ago I used the yeast from White Shield bottles to brew with but they stopped brewing it for a few years. S04 was the only yeast my local shop stocked, pre-internet days, and after a few months of producing bland very ordinary beers I gave up brewing. I wasn't going to spend all that time producing a beer no better than supermarket swill. Several months later the shop owner phoned me to tell me of this new yeast from America, Wyeast. Never looked back. Not a fan of dried yeast in general but at least Nottingham and Windsor make reasonable beer.
 
I have had, and am still having troubles with hop character in light hoppy ales. I've tried dry hopping with/without/bags/pellets/leaves

They always smell really hoppy come bottle day, but then fades. I think my main issue is likely to be oxygenation during (possibly post) bottling. Not sure how to amend, I'm careful during siphoning to bottle bucketing & batch priming and bottle carefully, trying not to splash/bubble.

...so in all, no advice, but maybe think outside just yr hopping process!
 
I don't think priming by secondary fermentation does homebrewers any favours. I would imagine most commercial examples are force carbed, probably inline at packaging.

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I had another taste last night of my latest batch - on thinking about the flavour I did not like I think it's like an acidy flavour and Im now wondering if i'm over sparging..... On casting my tiny brain back to when I first started getting this flavour and lack of hops it would have been around the time I moved from batch to fly sparge - being a scotsman I like to eek that last bit of sugar out and am wondering if I have been overdoing it (Although I always try and stop when it gets to around 1.015).
Anyway, I did another brew last night but this time went back to batch sparge, 5.2Kg of Golden Promise, 280g of CaraMalt and 150g of Wheat then a single 60min addition of Columbus, 88g of hops (Mixed flavour hops as this is also an attempt to use up a few open packets) and I will dry hop with around 100g of Nelson, 30g of Citra and maybe 15-20g of Galaxy (But Im not sure about Galaxy, find it quite heavy and overpowering).
Fingers crossed this turns out OK or I will seriously consider giving up!
 
I don't think priming by secondary fermentation does homebrewers any favours. I would imagine most commercial examples are force carbed, probably inline at packaging.

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Yeah quite likely. But I know that some commercial (small scale, basically very busy homebrewers!) breweries do batch prime and still manage to end up with great, hoppy beers (damn them :))
 
Providing you don't sparge to hot and don't go under 1012 sparging won't be the problem.
I still think you should look more closely at your water treatment. "Burton salts" are a one size fits all solution that may not be suitable for what your brewing. Strange-Steve's excellent guide is worth a read.
 
I had another taste last night of my latest batch - on thinking about the flavour I did not like I think it's like an acidy flavour and Im now wondering if i'm over sparging..... On casting my tiny brain back to when I first started getting this flavour and lack of hops it would have been around the time I moved from batch to fly sparge - being a scotsman I like to eek that last bit of sugar out and am wondering if I have been overdoing it (Although I always try and stop when it gets to around 1.015).
Anyway, I did another brew last night but this time went back to batch sparge, 5.2Kg of Golden Promise, 280g of CaraMalt and 150g of Wheat then a single 60min addition of Columbus, 88g of hops (Mixed flavour hops as this is also an attempt to use up a few open packets) and I will dry hop with around 100g of Nelson, 30g of Citra and maybe 15-20g of Galaxy (But Im not sure about Galaxy, find it quite heavy and overpowering).
Fingers crossed this turns out OK or I will seriously consider giving up!

I live in West Lothian and get my water from Balerno. I have just started dabbling with water treatment as I also felt the hop aroma and taste a bit underwhelming. I also used various methods with leaf and pellet. This is my first water additions based on the latest water report from August last year.
00856227-C6C8-4D3E-9011-75928EB2D6B7.jpg

Although it's a raspberry wheat I'm hoping for some hop presence too.
 
That's a hell of a complicated looking spreadsheet! My thinking with the sparge is that I might have been going too hot and also inadvertently going below the 1012 so the batch sparge is an attempt to rule this out. Tbh it was a lot easier and quicker and I never lost that much efficiency so will be doing it this way from now on I think.
 
Have you thought about a visit to the doctors there must be something wrong with your taste and senses. 200g of dry hops is massive over kill and in my opinion would ruin any decent beer. If you cant smell or taste it, in a 200g dry hopped ale then as i said i would get your self looked at. :whistle:
Have you checked out any of James Mortons recipes? He uses up to 700g of hops in one but most are 300-500g

DSC_1187.jpg
 
Have you checked out any of James Mortons recipes? He uses up to 700g of hops in one but most are 300-500g

No i havent, i dont like beer that tastes like antiseptic mouth wash , Personally this mega hopped craft beer is just a stupid craze , i cant see how it can be enjoyed, its took over from the i can eat a hotter curry than you craze that was around in the 80s-90s. Most of this craft beer is crap, and this mega hopped stuff is unnecessary and to be honest stupid, This is only my opinion.
 
No i havent, i dont like beer that tastes like antiseptic mouth wash , Personally this mega hopped craft beer is just a stupid craze , i cant see how it can be enjoyed, its took over from the i can eat a hotter curry than you craze that was around in the 80s-90s. Most of this craft beer is crap, and this mega hopped stuff is unnecessary and to be honest stupid, This is only my opinion.
What sort of **** jumps on a thread by someone asking for advice on improving hoppiness in their beer, to say that they don't like hoppy beer and it's all rubbish?

Sad!

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That's a hell of a complicated looking spreadsheet! My thinking with the sparge is that I might have been going too hot and also inadvertently going below the 1012 so the batch sparge is an attempt to rule this out. Tbh it was a lot easier and quicker and I never lost that much efficiency so will be doing it this way from now on I think.

It's not as bad as it looks. If you want to look into it further it's called the EZ water calculator and works everything out for you. Just add required data from here

http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/you-and-your-home/water-quality/waterqualitysearch

and here

http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/-/media/Domestic/Files/You-and-Your-Home/Water-Quality/ScottishWaterHardnessData2015.pdf?la=en

Then change your additions so everything turns green. I'm hoping it improves my next few batches.
 
Having brewed Dennis King's Galaxy Delight several times I have found galaxy to be very "sharp" when young but settles down and is a cracking hop if given time.
 
Yeah the hops smelled good and I have found the same with galaxy, after a few months it settles down to give some nice fruitiness but until then it has a strange taste to it.
Will go take a look at that water calculator and see how I get on...
 
That's a hell of a complicated looking spreadsheet! My thinking with the sparge is that I might have been going too hot and also inadvertently going below the 1012 so the batch sparge is an attempt to rule this out. Tbh it was a lot easier and quicker and I never lost that much efficiency so will be doing it this way from now on I think.

Should never go over 75 degrees on sparging. I've gone down to runnings at 1.005 before with no issues.
 
It's not as bad as it looks. If you want to look into it further it's called the EZ water calculator and works everything out for you. Just add required data from here

http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/you-and-your-home/water-quality/waterqualitysearch

and here

http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/-/me...ality/ScottishWaterHardnessData2015.pdf?la=en

Then change your additions so everything turns green. I'm hoping it improves my next few batches.

Be careful using the analysis that Scottish Water publishes. I've recently had my tap water analysed and it is notably different than what Scottish Water have published online for my supply from Glencorse 'A' reservoir in Edinburgh.
 

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