Has anyone been able to replicate extreme hop aroma?

Beers like Stone's Go To IPA and Drake's Aroma Coma have an insane amount of aroma and I can't ever seem to get that, no matter how many dry and whirlpool hops I throw in there. Is there some secret? Are my hops just crappier than the ones they use? Do they have some magical oxygen-free transfer system?

Sometimes I think that maybe my sense of smell has just adjusted but then I get another serving of one of those beers and I'm blown away.

Do you keg? It definitely helps, as well as fermenting in airtight / pressurizable fermentors allowing minimal chances of oxidation during dry hop additions. Every time I open my conicals or corny keg fermentors I purge with co2 after I reseal. Also closed keg to keg transfers and maybe even a little water chemistry can also help.

Your hops probably are crappier. Your talking about people who do this for a living. They get fresh hops. Do you? Are they at least this year's crop?

It's possible they are not even using hops, but perhaps just extracts. Or maybe even t-45 pellets which have more yellow stuff and less green.


Ever tried a hopback? I have not, but curious none-the-less.


You have "no matter how many hops dry and whirlpooled". How many exactly is that? I've dry hopped 10 oz before and it had quite a bit of aroma, but I haven't had the beers you've mentioned. I do notice they use Multiple dry hops additions.


Yes, they are oxygen free. You aren't even close.

I dunno man. I do really well whirlpooling and dryhopping. I'm not saying a hopback wouldn't get me a little more, but I'm impressed with my results. I just cracked an ESB (in bottles) where I whirlpooled EKG and Fuggles, and it's got awesome aroma. I think you should look at your system and your water. There's a reason those techniques are so ubiquitous - they work.

Stone go to IPA is one I my favorites. I dry hop with 3-4 oz and get great aroma. How much are you dryhopping with. I mash hop, FWH, flavor, flameout, hopstand and dryhopp. Lagunitas daytime fractional IPA is another with great aroma. What do the hops smell like. My Carboy bubbles out hop smell.


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Have you checked your water? It can affect hop perception, for sure.

Yes..not every time but I have had a few rival the best commercial out there...to the point where you can immediately smell the hops just popping the cap and putting it on a counter.

As pointed out, were are at a major disadvantage. We get lower quality hops for the most part, and we generally don't have the equipment and techniques available that commercial breweries do.

Nonetheless, check this out:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/top-10-tips-super-hoppy-ipa.html

Thanks for the tips. One of these days I'm going to try building my water and seeing if that makes the difference, because I have a hunch that's the key.

My latest IPA is a Citra/Galaxy IPA and the aroma sort of explodes from the glass. I did a hop stand added 3 ounces of Citra and an ounce of Galaxy at flame out stirred like mad dropped the lid on set the timer for 20 minutes. I also dry hopped with the same 3 ounces of Citra and 1 ounce of Galaxy. I used 14 total ounces of hops in 6 gallons 10 ounces of Citra 4 ounces of Galaxy. An amazing IPA.

yeah after starting this thread I drew up a recipe for a citra/galaxy/mosaic IPA, hoping that when I get my water straight I can get some great aroma with it.

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.060
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 6.33%
IBU (tinseth): 100.13
SRM (morey): 5.39

FERMENTABLES:
14 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (90.3%)
1 lb - German - Vienna (6.5%)
0.5 lb - American - Victory (3.2%)

HOPS:
9 g - Warrior, Type: Pellet, AA: 16, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 14.64
1 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 19.31
1 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 14.11
2 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 15.52
3 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Whirlpool for 30 min at 180 °F, IBU: 36.55
2.5 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Dry Hop for 8 days
2.5 oz - Citra/Galaxy/Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.5, Use: Dry Hop for 4 days

Living in San Francisco I chase the amazing aroma. I find it challenging to find commercial bottled beer other then Pliny the Elder which consistantly kills. So many beat up warm stored oxidized hoppy beers at Bevmo. I hate the wet cardboard descriptor its bull, leave a pint out over night after stirring the glass no wet cardboard just muddled dull crap.

People on this forum love to say "don' worry" but I think the oxidation concerns are very valid with late/dry hopped beers. Been brewing for 5 years and had a few great hoppy aromatic batches last year but many muddled ones. Watch the videos on YouTube from John And Vinny, I think brewing Heady Topper and Pliny gives them some credibility. Both baby the beer and use lots of co2 and pay critical attention to oxidation. Living on the west coast and I can tell you few breweries make great IPAs, especially all these new smaller startups, they make the same mistakes as us home brewers.

I recently started to focus on oxidation and being overly obsessed. Switched back to buckets with spigots for primary. Dry hop now at day 5-7 into fermentation into the bucket loose, and if it's a Dipa I will do a 2nd round in primary as well. Keep the bucket in my mini fridge at ~66F. I stopped crashing in primary due to oxygen suck back. Transfer to a purged keg (4 times at 15 psi) via spigot and chill/carb. Every beer as of late has been coming out very aromatic.

I think my old method of carboy ferment, gelatin to clear, rack to keg with bag of hops was oxidizing my beers, sure sometimes I got lucky but not consistantly. Feels good to be a newbie again with no racking canes.

dtwhite said:

Thanks for the tips. One of these days I'm going to try building my water and seeing if that makes the difference, because I have a hunch that's the key.

Click to expand...

It definitely plays a role, John Kimmich from the Alchemist eludes to that in this chop and brew episode
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=LdfySDN2mF0

He begins talking about water when asked a question at 41 min 44 sec but the entire episode is worth the watch.

I think it's mostly hop freshness. I brewed an extract beer and dry hopped it with 3 oz. When you poured a pint it literally smelled up the entire kitchen. Ever since then, two years ago, I want that aroma back!

BreezyBrew said:

I think it's mostly hop freshness. I brewed an extract beer and dry hopped it with 3 oz. When you poured a pint it literally smelled up the entire kitchen. Ever since then, two years ago, I want that aroma back!

Click to expand...

Without a doubt, the harvest of many hops available to homebrewers in 2012 was far better than last year's. I hope this year is good.

I think oxidation is key too. When I switched to kegs my beers maintained much more hop aroma.

That said, if you don't pound it with whirlpool and dry hops, it's not going to have that fresh opened pouch of hops smell. You have to commit! Best aroma IPA I've made I used 6oz dry hop (2 doses of 3oz for 4 days). I was bottling then and a month later, that beer would still punch you in the face.

Looks like someone else agrees http://www.bear-flavored.com/2014/09/how-i-dry-hop-my-ipas-with-no-oxygen.html

khillian said:

Looks like someone else agrees http://www.bear-flavored.com/2014/09/how-i-dry-hop-my-ipas-with-no-oxygen.html

Click to expand...

Good link.

One technique that some pros use is recirculating the beer while dry hopping. By keeping the beer moving can extract much more hop oil, and do it in a shorter time. Leaving hops still in beer doesn't do the optimal job of extracting oils, and its been repeatedly proven in testing.
http://www.metabrewing.com/2013/02/recirculating-dry-hops-extract-more.html

I've experimented with different methods to recirculate and it seems to work pretty well.

One other thing the pros use but don't like to advertise- hop extract. Can be used to get very strong aroma with no added tannins.