Hoppy beers. Never taste fresh or fruity like commercial

[timtoos]

Hi all,

I brewed a version of the Pale Fire from the homebrewing book, here (20L brew length)

Heres the water profile I used (from Graham Wheelers water calculator)

I tested my water before and after additions and heres the analysis:

WATER ANALYSIS
Pre Water Addition Analysis
TDS: 34
pH: 5.27
Ca: n/a
Alkalinity: 0.99ml remaining = 0ppm

Post Water Addition Analysis
TDS: 467
pH: 6.60
Ca: n/a
Alkalinity: 0.92ml remaining = 0.9 x 17.9 = 16.11ppm

My mash pH details were:
Predicted Beersmith MPH: 5.45
Predicted Beersmith BW: 5.05
Predicted BrunWater: 5.29
Actual: 5.43 taken after 10 mins after mash in

As you can see 5.43 is acceptable (I think).

Anyway I racked the beer into brite tank earlier this week and force carbonated up to 2.6 vols. I had a taste last night and its hoppy, yes, but not fruity or as fresh as say a Beavertowns Neck Oil. All my hoppy beers what I seem to remember have a harsh bitterness about them. The aroma isnt bad, maybe a touch subdued but the flavour tastes dank, not fresh and in your face. The calculated IBU on this beer is about 33 IBU. It tastes much more bitter than this.

I try to keep oxygen at bay by doing closed transfers and when crash cooling I add a balloon full of CO2 to stop O2 getting sucked in.

The grains were fresh and crushed on the brew day. The hops were from MM and were frozen the day purchased (2 week before brewing).

Do the commercial guys add extracts nowadays to get the fresh/fruity aromas or is it just done dry hopping?

Am I missing something? Any advice please?

 

[Galena]

What yeast did you use?

 

[timtoos]

Wlp001.
Made a good starter as well

 

[Galena]

WLP001 accentuates hop flavours but is not great for fruity flavours. I am no expert but I think maybe you should try with a yeast that will give fruity esters. You will need to research a bit more, but read up on other yeast profiles by White labs and Wyeast, Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale for example, or WLP002 perhaps
I am not suggest

 

[Rochefort]

Galena's point is a good one - WLP 051 is better than WLP 001, WLP 002 is also good with a modified mashing procedure (as used by Firestone Walker).

There is absolutely no point in keeping the beer on the dry hops for longer than 2-3 days if they are pellets. I also don't see the benefit of holding the wort at low temps whilst dry hopping

From Brew your own magazine:

So for how long, at what temperature and how much to dry hop your beer? Before I started research into this article, my idea to get ideal hop oil extraction was to dry hop for 10 days at 65 °F (18 °C). It had always treated me well. I received a lot of hop aroma when appropriate levels of hops were added. But in a polling of homebrewers, I realized that my 10-day duration was on the high end of the scale. Many homebrewers were going as short as three days. Of all the brewers I talked to, only Vinnie Cilurzo went more than five days with his dry hops. Research by Wolfe and Shellhammer confirm that hop extraction occurs rapidly. In fact in a recirculating system they found that most aroma compounds are extracted from pellet hops in a matter of hours. For pelletized dry hops added without recirculation, they found that full extraction occurred in one to two days while whole hops took closer to a week for full extraction.

The next variable to look at is temperature. Considering the rise of the IPL (India Pale Lager), the temperature of the beer and its effect on the oil extraction is something to keep in mind. So my first turn in this department was to Jack’s Abby Brewing Brewmaster Jack Hendler whose lagers have made waves in the US craft beer scene. Surprising to me, the average time Jack dry hops is only three to four days. He does increase his temperature to 55 °F (13 °C) for adding hops, but adds that, “The cooler the temp, the less aroma you’ll pull from the hops.” If you do plan to try an IPL of your own, Jack has some further dry hopping suggestions. “You’ll need to reevaluate dry hop addition quantities, because the dry hop aroma will be highlighted more than an ale. You may find a different or smaller quantity gets the aroma you’re looking for,” he said.

So how much dry hops should you add? Obviously that is completely dependent on what you are trying to achieve with your beer. But keep in mind that sometimes, more isn’t always better. In my freshman year microeconomics course I learned about a basic principle, the law of diminishing returns. In the terms of dry hopping, the more you add, the less net gain you add with each additional increment. In fact you may find that you are detracting from a certain nuanced characteristic of the beer if you overwhelm it with another characteristic. Finding the right balance of hop oils of a varietal or a blend is key. If you’ve had Heady Topper before, you may be surprised to learn that John Kimmich dry hops with under 4 oz. (113 g) per 5 gallons (19 L).

 

[timtoos]

Great stuff. Many thanks - some good points mentioned. I hadnt thought about the yeast. I automatically presumed WLP001 for hoppy beers without thinking about the fruitiness.
Also, fair pint about the dry hopping. I did follow the book but it went against what I had read about dry hopping times and temperatures.
I think I will do it again but this time using the WLP0051 yeast and dry hopping at a higher temperature and only for 3 days - then rack and cold crash.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[chillipickle]

If you dont mind using dry yeast, verdant ipa gives nice fruitiness.

 

[timtoos]

What's the better yeast for American Pales/IPA's? 051 or 002? Never used 002 but used 051 in a Galaxy beer I did a few years ago and that was an amazing drop.

 

[timtoos]

Not used Dry for ages. I need to get some in stock as wet yeast is a pain to plan at times

 

[Rochefort]

WLP002 is more fruity/chewy. It will finish too high in gravity unless you do everything to prevent that happening.

The trick to getting the yeast to chew through to a higher attenuation than on the White Labs page is to mash it at 63C for 45 minutes, then at 71 C for 15 minutes and oxygenate thoroughly.

I prefer lower sulfate in my beers than that used in your recipe - they taste harsh for about a month if the sulfate is over 300 ppm, they do get better over time though. 200 ppm SO4 and ~70 ppm Cl works great, it is all personal preference though.

 

[Braufather]

I’m still trying to achieve this myself . I used to rack after 3 weeks in primary with the the dry hop last 3 days.Since I moved to racking earlier after 12 days, dry hopping on Day 8, hop aroma And flavour has stepped up Considerably I’ve found.

don’t think it’s a yeast issue as the ones you are Using are found in many hop forward recipes. Gamma ray in brew dog book recomends. s04 which is the dry equivilent. Ive also had success with mango jacks east coast yeast.

 

[Leon103]

Chuck more hops in it.

 

[timtoos]

Ill think I need to look at my dry hopping procedure and yeast type. When I used the WLP051 I really liked that beer. The reason I used WLP001 this time was only because I had some in stock. Ah well.
There was quite a lot of dry hops added. I think it was 180g for this 24L batch I made. There was a real sludge of hops and yeast in the fermenter when I racked. Would you think that more hops should be added?

 

[Galena]

You could easily make some hop tea and add that to your keg, easy to experiment with flavour that way.

 

[timtoos]

Has anyone used those hop extract oils? If so what you think?
If I made a hop tea would it give me clarity issues?

 

[Leon103]

Ill think I need to look at my dry hopping procedure and yeast type. When I used the WLP051 I really liked that beer. The reason I used WLP001 this time was only because I had some in stock. Ah well.
There was quite a lot of dry hops added. I think it was 180g for this 24L batch I made. There was a real sludge of hops and yeast in the fermenter when I racked. Would you think that more hops should be added?

Depends on what you define as hoppy. I wouldn't say neck oil is hoppy. The recipe shows 150g which for me isn't much.

What temperature are you dry hopping at?

 

[timtoos]

I find that neck oil tastes very fresh and fruity though which is what I wanted. I don’t do this mega hop bitterness at all, much prefer the aroma and fruitiness that hops can provide.

I find that Brewdog products are rather harsh nowadays and for me are very overrated. I think this beer has more B.Dog traits unfortunately, with its harshness. I used to really like their beers but they seem to be messing with their recipes and ABVs. I do really like Beavertowns neck oil I think its very sessionable.

This beer should have a IBU of about 33IBU but tastes higher now.

I dry hopped with the temperature at about 19C for 2 days then cold crashed to 3C for 5 days before racking to Brite tank.

What amount of hops would you recommend?

How long should I leave before drinking? Will it get less harsh in a months time?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

View attachment 46633

Heres the water profile I used (from Graham Wheelers water calculator)

View attachment 46634

...Actual: 5.43 taken after 10 mins after mash in

...I had a taste last night and its hoppy, yes, but not fruity or as fresh as say a Beavertowns Neck Oil. All my hoppy beers what I seem to remember have a harsh bitterness about them. The aroma isnt bad, maybe a touch subdued but the flavour tastes dank, not fresh and in your face. The calculated IBU on this beer is about 33 IBU. It tastes much more bitter than this.

Obvious things - go more chloride heavy, say 130 sulphate 200 chloride.

Any hops added above 80C will contribute bitterness as their alpha acids isomerise, so if you're slow at cooling from 100C to 80C then those flameout hops will be contributing bitterness. So don't hang about, or move them from flameout to whirlpool.

Most software doesn't cope well with the bittering contributed by dry hops. If the end result is too bitter for you, then reduce the Magnum - trust your tastebuds not the software.

pH 5.43 is still a bit on the high side, and big dry hop additions will further raise the pH, you might want to consider adjusting the pH after the boil to 4.8-4.9.

Oxidation is always a problem with doing this kind of stuff at homebrew scale - whatever you're doing to minimise oxygen ingress won't be enough. But one thing that can help is to use dry yeast, as it doesn't need aeration in the same way as liquid yeast. US-05, BRY-97, Verdant all bring different things to the party, depending what you're going for.

There's a bit of a trend at the moment to cool crash after fermentation to cellar temperature or less, to drop out most of the yeast and then add the dry hop. YMMV.

If you really want to geek out over dry-hopping, have a read of this from Scott Janish :
http://scottjanish.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/TQ-58-1-0402-01.pdf

 

[The Baron]

I go with Northern on this dry hopping does add IBU's where so many say it doesn't. Well all I can say is some of the software accounts for this but you can zero it which then gives a lower IBU than in reality also whirlpooling can add to it definitely above 80c.
I no longer use a bittering hops and just use the IBU's from my chosen hops to get the bittering right so as to get more flavour with more hops and keep the IBU's low.
I also if doing a hoppy beer just whirlpool at generally 80c or the odd time at 90c if I need a little more bitterness. I may still do late additions with Lagers, Bitters and blondes etc but no bittering hops, its what suits me
Ps I do not like high bitter beers unless very well balanced

 

[timtoos]

Guys, this is really interesting and theres points I did not know or consider.
It maybe worth me losing the bittering hops and just add aroma and flavours ones. I only added the late hops at whirlpool and once the wort was at 80C. I hope this was right? This is the whirlpool hop data I recorded:

WHIRLPOOL ADDITIONS
Added at 82/83C. After 13 minutes temperature was 78C, after 20 minutes temperature was 76C.

I cant remember the wort pH in the fermenter, Im thinking it was 5.20-5.25 or in this region. Is this too high? How should I adjust this? Acid?

@ Northern Brewer. I thought hoppy beers were supposed to be more favoured to higher sulphate values rather than chloride? My ratio is 2.0 although the sulphite I thought was high. It was from GW calculator as a good profile for hoppy beers.

I realise that O2 is bad and try many methods to reduce its ingress. I also realise its not really possible at HB level but still can this be the issue? I cold crash using a balloon full of CO2 and pressure transfer. I presume I take some O2 on board but will it be enough to cause these issues?