Does any other brewers go through phases of the beers being brewed are not want they wany anymore?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
No oxidation issue my process is my normal that I have done not changed anything but I will completely reset. I think it is the hop mix and the yeast maybe.
I will take extra care though with any possible oxygen ingress (to make sure it is not)and change the yeast too.
Just to add some of the hops are 2020 but bought from a reputable supplier
 
No oxidation issue my process is my normal that I have done not changed anything but I will completely reset. I think it is the hop mix and the yeast maybe.
I will take extra care though with any possible oxygen ingress (to make sure it is not)and change the yeast too.
Just to add some of the hops are 2020 but bought from a reputable supplier

How are you storing them?
 
Either Fridge or freezer once opened so should not be too much of a issue and some have been used with in a week or 2 of buying them.
I think that with the reset I will also drop IPA's at the moment and do single hop pales so that i can then see if it is any of the hops and change the yeast.
It is most strange and the lagers I have made have been ok and I would expect any water issues to show up in them as there is nowhere to hide with a lager.
I kegged one Friday and the wife said it was disgusting to her and over bitter that was a wheat beer made with Banana split yeast and the Motueka @ 100g 7.4AA in the whirlpool so around 12 IBU's and for the second use of this yeast no banana taste or smell.
I have even thought it could be a infection but I have used different FV's.
I will clean everything scrupulously for the next brew and just pale with a single hop so no more than 150g in the whirlpool.
I will also give the hops I use a extra smell and probably crumble some in hot water and taste. before use
 
Last edited:
Either Fridge or freezer once opened so should not be too much of a issue and some have been used with in a week or 2 of buying them.
I think that with the reset I will also drop IPA's at the moment and do single hop pales so that i can then see if it is any of the hops and change the yeast.
It is most strange and the lagers I have made have been ok and I would expect any water issues to show up in them as there is nowhere to hide with a lager.
I kegged one Friday and the wife said it was disgusting to her and over bitter that was a wheat beer made with Banana split yeast and the Motueka @ 100g 7.4AA in the whirlpool so around 12 IBU's and for the second use of this yeast no banana taste or smell.
I have even thought it could be a infection but I have used different FV's.
I will clean everything scrupulously for the next brew and just pale with a single hop so no more than 150g in the whirlpool.
I will also give the hops I use a extra smell and probably crumble some in hot water and taste. before use

I've just brewed with this yeast and haven't found it particularly strong on the banana. That was using methods to boost the isoamyl acetate. It's definitely got better after a couple of weeks in the keg though. Got more banana in the past using wb-06. 100g whirlpool in a Hefeweizen is a lot though!

Those aroma of those hops varieties you're using should burst out of the packaging when you open them.
 
I am more thinking it is the hops so I will double check and double check before using them athumb.. .
Sometimes a reset to basics is good no matter how long and experience we have
 
and this is the thing. I'm now on my third brew of Dark Rock - Hazy Daze. I really like it.
But I also want to experiment.

When there's only me drinking, and I probably drink 6-8 pints a week, it takes a while to get through things.
I've currently got 14 bottles of the wheat beer, 20 bottles of the really bitter NEIPA (I threw most of it, but I know that NEIPAs tend to lose their flavour after a while), 20 litres of Duvel clone, I'm struggling to justify doing something different.

I'm toying with doing a really heavy Imperial Stout. Thing about those is that they'll last forever.

I've got around 120 bottles and 2 corny kegs. So I'm not short of storage.
And herein lies the rub. I love my beer, and cider, too, but drinking and brewing are two different experiences. Brewing for me is a mixture of art and science. I love brewing and I brew far more than I can drink. The only thing that holds back my experimenting, now that I have the time and resources to do what I want, is getting rid of the stuff at the end of the process. You can only give so much away. And those who return the bottles tend not to rinse them properly so I don't bother with that very much. There are only so many beer festivals you can have without becoming a complete alchie.
Ah. So many recipes and so little time.
I've had two South African hood in the fridge for over a year now. I wonder when I'll get round to trying them. Talking at which, I started doing 6 litre batches, but that resulted in lots of open packets of hops in the freezer.
 
Last edited:
I kegged one Friday and the wife said it was disgusting to her and over bitter that was a wheat beer made with Banana split yeast and the Motueka @ 100g 7.4AA in the whirlpool so around 12 IBU's and for the second use of this yeast no banana taste or smell.

Each to their own, but to me that's the wrong hopping regime for the style of beer. Big whirlpool additions are never going to replicate a small 60 minute addition and minimal late addition, traditional to the style. Do that with a new world hop and I'm not surprised any balance and subtle yeast esters are lost. Same IBU's, but way more hop flavour and aroma. Plus, whirlpool IBU's are much more tricky to calculate and control. Process is everything.

Is it that your Lagers technique is more style appropriate?
 
Last edited:
The lagers are done standard style with brew hops
I do agree with the Wheat beer I would not normally whirlpool it was more of a experiment to launch a lime taste in it but it didn't work
I have another packet of Motueka I may open it and give it a really good smell and rub some in my hand to see if it is the hops in that particular brew
 
As a historical brewer the British IPA is actually a tasty brew when done in a English Style other that Golden Ales, Special and extra Special bitter I find the problems most people have when cloning West Coast or NEIPA are too many different hops in both the boil, Hopstand, and Dry Hop in any beer Moderation and Balance of Flavour, Aroma and Bitterness in Harmony is the objective. We have New varieties of hops on both sides of the Atlantic and the NZ varieties in my professional beers it’s all British although in my homebrew it’s going down utilising NZ hops into British styles and Golden Ales.
 
The lagers are done standard style with brew hops
I do agree with the Wheat beer I would not normally whirlpool it was more of a experiment to launch a lime taste in it but it didn't work
I have another packet of Motueka I may open it and give it a really good smell and rub some in my hand to see if it is the hops in that particular brew

Would work well in an American Wheat, although I think I'd be more inclined to use the hops on the cold side.
 
Ok I have done some more with these problem beers
1. this beer was highly hopped (300g)my Brewers friend shows it @ 55 IBU of which 30 IBU was in the dry hop and the remainder was 25IBU @ 80c but I used the formula that Hazlewood put on this forum years ago and in reality with that it was 10 IBU with a adjusted total of 40IBU.
hops were Motueka, Taiheke and Sabro roughly equal THIS beer was whirlpooled @ 65c
2. this is a beer (175g) and shows in BF 37 IBU of which 17 IBU are in the dry hop and the remainder 20 IBU are in the whirlpool again using Hazlewoods formula it is adjusted to 8 IBU giving a total of 25 IBU
Hops were Motueka, El Dorado and Cryo Mosaic This beer was whirlpooled @ 65c
3. This is a wheat beer with 100g of Motueka in a whirlpool again BF shows 12 IBU again in a 80c whirlpool but done @ 65c so should adjust down to 5 IBU

Yeast were Saturated in 1 and 2 and Banana Split in 3
The common link is obviously Motueka
1 was very bitter so much so no hop fruitiness was evident 2 is drinkable and probably would suit Sadfield as it is like a West Coast with plenty of bitterness but some fruit coming through.
Number 3 is bitter above the IBU that is projected and the wife says again that it has a taste of kippers which is what she said last night and she did not know when I presented them to her this afternoon which beer was which. I personally did not get the kipper taste but I got a slight smell in the aroma but it does not have any of the traits of Motueka like lime and this is a single hop beer.
My conclusion is 1 is gone
2 is a Westie and I will leave for a few weeks to mellow and then take a view.
the one that is really throwing me in the Motueka wheat I will leave that alone to see if any banana flavour develops as this and the previous wheat did not using this yeast.
No off flavours (or colour)apart from the kipper? in any just the high bittering.
Would high bittering kill the hop flavours as I do not usually have beers this bitter?
 
I did a Motueka Wheat a couple of years back I found that very bitter included mash hop and boil hops and whirlpool at 80 it wasn’t undrinkable but at the top end of my palate I did that with a specific wheat beer yeast although I can’t remember what it was though I pretty certain the last couple of years production of Motueka are quite high on the alpha acids so it may be the case that that’s what you are picking up on
 
It does point to the Motueka but the AA is 7.4 according to the packet and the BF calculations only show 12 IBU @ 80c so that is throwing me
 
I know the software is not accurate as nobody seems to be able to provide a reasonably accurate formula but it should not be that far out as upto now it has served me well in many brews.
Do you know of any software that may be available Andy?
 
I use Breww in the brewery but that’s pro stuff Brewfather can get it more right although that tends to disagree with the Grainfather app brewers friend works quite well but I usually fall back to calculating the hops per litre manually you can imagine in a brewery scenario hops are a investment and a sum of parts to the end product. I have had problems in the past whereby Brewfather predicted 23 ibu when I sampled it it was way more bitter than that I eventually worked out that I had to manually put the hop alpha acids corrected into software since different harvests mean different stats for the hops. I had some target leaf in the brewery recently Freshpak 2023 that were 13.5% which is the higher end for those normally around 10% alpha end result I had to recalibrate my recipe to account for the higher alpha acid hop.
 
You won't get IBUs from a dry hop, but IBUs only tell a part of the story anyway.

I wonder if there is something about eh character of the bitterness from Motueka that you're finding unpleasant, despite its modest AA percentage.
 
I use Breww in the brewery but that’s pro stuff Brewfather can get it more right although that tends to disagree with the Grainfather app brewers friend works quite well but I usually fall back to calculating the hops per litre manually you can imagine in a brewery scenario hops are a investment and a sum of parts to the end product. I have had problems in the past whereby Brewfather predicted 23 ibu when I sampled it it was way more bitter than that I eventually worked out that I had to manually put the hop alpha acids corrected into software since different harvests mean different stats for the hops. I had some target leaf in the brewery recently Freshpak 2023 that were 13.5% which is the higher end for those normally around 10% alpha end result I had to recalibrate my recipe to account for the higher alpha acid hop.


That's surely the same for all software?
 
Also at 80 degrees you should only be extracting aroma and flavour as it’s the lower end for Isomerisation temp you would expect to extract a few IBUs but not a massive amount.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top