Not hoppy enough

[Brewharhar]

Hi, I have a Pilsner on the go, the gravity is now steady and I plan to bottle at the weekend. I had a taste and it certainly tastes like beer.

I do have a few questions, wondering if anyone can help me.

1. I like my beer quite hoppy and would prefer a stronger hop flavour, I heard I can add hop pellets to the secondary fermentation and filter out in bottling process, are there any risks here? I have some in freezer from when I initially made the beer.

2. the beer is not 100% clear, instructions say "reasonably clear" could this indicate an issue? It's been in secondary 13 days so far.

3. Is 21/22 degrees good for initial conditioning in bottle?

thanks!

 

[pms67]

1 add whatever hops you like for 3-4 days,transfer to secondary then it will be great.
2 don't worry about that,2 weeks in bottles should sort it
3 yes,doesn't really matter
4 enjoy
:hat:

 

[Brewharhar]

thanks so much! Feeling much better about 2 & 3 particularly. In negotiations about 1 with partner who doesn't want me to mess with it.

 

[rodwha]

Do you have any sort of hop bag like a muslin bag or reusable bag? Helps quite a bit.

Dry hopping really just adds to the aroma, but the aroma tricks the mind into thinking of flavor so I suppose it helps to some degree. Dry hopping fades quickly with time though.

There are no risks to dry hopping unless you did terrible things to it first.

It will clear with time. The fridge helps too, which is, in essence, similar to lagering.

 

[pms67]

Do you have any sort of hop bag like a muslin bag or reusable bag? Helps quite a bit.

Dry hopping really just adds to the aroma, but the aroma tricks the mind into thinking of flavor so I suppose it helps to some degree. Dry hopping fades quickly with time though.

There are no risks to dry hopping unless you did terrible things to it first.

It will clear with time. The fridge helps too, which is, in essence, similar to lagering.

I agree about the dry hopping but I find it only adds aroma and fades when you use leaf hops,pellets are in a different league in my book.
All the premium kits supply pellets and for good reason,I have stopped buying the leaf hops as I feel you have to use far too much to have any decent impact.
Cheers

 

[Brewharhar]

Thanks I'm relieved that it will become clearer, yes have muslin that I could make a bag with. If I bottle Saturday this will give them 2 days in the beer, I'm thinking I will just add a few as a compromise. Understand that kits can be quite neutral and so can use a bit of effort to give them some character. cheers!

 

[rodwha]

I don't bother with anything other than pellets for the same reason.

In general it seems kits are very neutral, which is why I prefer to come up with my own recipes. When I desire something that I'm unfamiliar with I'll look at the ingredient sheets from kits and then compare to posted recipes. I then create my recipe and then post to a forum asking for critique. It's worked rather well. It's also slightly cheaper usually.

 

[rodwha]

Oooops. Double post...

 

[Brewharhar]

I want to make my own with liquid malts and hops, not sure where to start though, e.g. Ratio of malts to water, I should look up some recipes.

 

[rodwha]

I usually look at the recipe sheets on MoreBeer's kits to begin with, though I believe most kits are somewhat neutral (maybe not IPA's as much?).

From there I visit the huge recipe database on a very large American homebrew forum (guessing it's not cool to post a link).

My first two attempts were kits and they turned out terrible. From there SWMBO helped find 2 recipes that sounded good (IPA and brown), and those went excellent (with her help). And from there I found a brew calculator and just jumped in.

It was a little daunting at first, but I quickly got comfortable. I still always ask for critique. Though I understand a fair amount I'm no expert.

It's certainly nice to have a LHBS that offers exact amounts of what you want (LME and grains).

 

[Brewharhar]

Thanks will check out other forums also. Will investigate recipes. Not ready for grains, but will look for malt recipes. :)

 

[rodwha]

Do you have a LHBS that offers ingredients by amount needed? If you needed 2.3 kilos of LME and/or grains would they do it or is it all preset amounts? If not you'd need DME (what you guys call spray malt, right?) to make up any differences. For the grains it would either mean trying to tailor a couple of recipes together to use up the grains or a grain mill to crush only what you needed.

I'm not certain how long crushed grains are good for so I prefer not to keep it longer than a few weeks. It's likely good a few months though.

If you'd like some help creating a recipe I'd be happy to help.

 

[Brewharhar]

Hi rodwha, I was curious if it was possible to make a beer with just LME and various hops. I have a local LBHS that sells most things, their LME are sold by the 1.3k, but they do have lots of small bags of grains, they are expensive though, friend did math and said it would cost more to do a LME+ grain brew. The LMEs are mostly 8$ Canadian each. (5 quid). I'd like to make a amber or red, stronger flavour slightly hoppy beer so that it's ready for winter, any recommendations or recipe ideas very welcome. Thanks for your help. :)

 

[rodwha]

Typically the LME's are basic. There's a plain jane something like having used just 2-row and then there are a few such as an amber and a dark. I've also seen rye and Munich. And I'm not super familiar with everything that's available. The amber may work well enough with just LME.

What's typically best is to get a more basic LME and create what you are wanting with specialty grains (mostly crystal malts and such).

Does your LHBS have a website that I can look over to work with?

I used Hopville until Brewtoad bought them. I'm not so sure it's exact, but it's been close enough it seems. It's a free online brew calculator. I like free. There's another that I have a link to somewhere, but just haven't really checked it out.

I guess to start off do you have any parameters for what you are wanting (ABV) and what hops/yeast you'd like to use?

 

[Legion]

You didn't mention what hops you have in the freezer? If they are not a noble hop then adding them will stop the beer from being a pilsner...

 

[Brewharhar]

Thanks, there is an online store but it doesn't align to the shop (as I found) as it's stuff they can order in. They did have a whole fridge full of tons of hops varieties, I stood there agog for some time, they had all colours of LME. Lots of different grains in small medium and large bags. I am sure they will have at least the main ingredients, I could phone them and ask regarding more obscure ones, they are really helpful. I'm a Geordie in Canada, dont think people brew as much here. I'm lucky there is a store at all!

 

[Brewharhar]

Hi legion, they were northern brewer, I bought them specially for when I initially made it, the guy at the shop said they were good for Pilsner, we shall see :) thanks!

 

[rodwha]

Northern Brewer is not a noble hop. There's only a handful that are classified as such. There are a few that have been crossbred that are somewhat like a noble hop, but aren't really when it's all boiled down.

I'm in the middle on this (tradition). Being in the US it's much cheaper and easier (of course) to get American ingredients, and I've not a big problem with making an American version. However there are just some styles that really ought to be made in a traditional fashion, or as close as you can get it to be. As an example I recently (finally) tried to make an ESB (love it!) that had a biscuity flavor to it. I do partial mashes and couldn't get Maris Otter extract and had no choice but to use an American pale LME, as well as a Belgian (figured it would be closer to style than using another American company) biscuit. I did what I could with my resources without spending too much.

Though many may say it's shameful to create a style of beer that doesn't quite fit into a traditional style, who cares? Are they drinking it? It's not their time or effort. But it is certainly nice if you can get as close as possible.

Use your Northern Brewer hops if you need to. It's no one's beer but yours, and they certainly aren't there to help on brew day. Do what you must and enjoy it for what it is, though a more traditional hop variety may be better.

Homebrewing is all a learning curve. I've certainly made PLENTY of mistakes, and it's likely I have plenty more!

There are certainly plenty of British styles of beer I intend to brew (as well as an Irish and Scottish brew as well), and I can only hope to make it as authentic as I can within reason. Maybe I can gain some advice!

 

[Brewharhar]

Darn! Ah well, we shall see, when we tasted it on Wednesday we both were pretty happy overall in that it did taste like beer (little wins), I differed saying more hops. I chucked in just a few last night and we will bottle tomorrow or Sunday. I was given the bottles, they need a serious cleaning, this could take me all of Saturday. Enjoying the journey. cheers & thanks!

 

[Brewharhar]

Wikipedia have an excellent page on hops, stuff I never knew, better keep hops pellets away from the dog!