Eddiebosox

Recipes 

I have had this problem since I started brewing 4 years ago, and after maybe 40 batches of beer. I cannot get a really hoppy IPA. Sure I can get a nice bitterness to my ipa's, and some definite hop flavor, but I cannot, for the life of me, recreate that powerful grapefruit citrus aroma and flavor that I get from a commercial craft beer. Now mind you, I have tried everything. I have made a basic 2 row only single hop beer, I have mixed my grains to have just a touch of crystal, to a decent amount. I moved to all grain just to get more hop utilization thinking that was my problem. But still nothing. I've tried various yeasts from safale dry, to California yeast, to English yeast. And I've hopped the ever loving hell out of it. I've dumped in more hops in the last 30 minutes of the boil than you can imagine, and dry hopped it mercilessly, and I can't get that floral citrus punch I so desperately crave. What could I be doing wrong? I've used hops (pellets mostly) from hopunion, Austin homebrew, and brewmasters warehouse. All with the same results. A decent IPA with good bitterness but a very, very mild hop aroma and flavor. But I want a grapefruit hop BOMB. The odd thing is, every time I go to add my hop pellets, be it cascade, Amarillo, Willamette, or Citra, they really don’t have that grapfruity citrus smell that I get from the commercial beers I like. But when I research the beers I like they all say they use pellets. maybe I should look at hop oils? Wet hoping?

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Primary
Tricerahops CLone

Bottled
Scottish 60 shilling
Black Butte Porter clone
British Bitter (split into two batches with Thames valley and Burton ale yeast)

brycelarson

Recipes 

Have you dry hopped?

sketerbuck

Recipes 

What do you do in the way of water treatments?

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bobbrews

Recipes 

What is your typical boil size / batch size and how much total hops do you use per batch? Can you show us one of your typical hop schedules? A recipe would be even better if you tend to follow a theme, since we can gauge BU:GU ratio and determine if any character malts or odd processes are hindering your hops' potential.

Eddiebosox

Recipes 

I dry hop pretty significantly. for water I do 2 teaspoons of Gypsum. I live in Washington DC and got my water profile.

__________________
Primary
Tricerahops CLone

Bottled
Scottish 60 shilling
Black Butte Porter clone
British Bitter (split into two batches with Thames valley and Burton ale yeast)

Eddiebosox

Recipes 

Here is my latest IPA:
Water Prep
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins)

Mash Ingredients
Amt Name
12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US 76.2 %
2 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) 12.7 %
1 lbs 12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) 11.1 %

Boil Ingredients
Amt Name Type
1.00 oz Citra [13.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 42.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [4.70 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 11.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [4.70 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 10.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 11.5 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 12.0 min Hop 7.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [4.70 %] Boil 10.0 min Hop 5.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 3.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 0.0 IBUs

__________________
Primary
Tricerahops CLone

Bottled
Scottish 60 shilling
Black Butte Porter clone
British Bitter (split into two batches with Thames valley and Burton ale yeast)

Eddiebosox

Recipes 

forgot to add 3 oz cascade dry hop. it makes a good IPA, but just doesn't have the citrus punch i want.

__________________
Primary
Tricerahops CLone

Bottled
Scottish 60 shilling
Black Butte Porter clone
British Bitter (split into two batches with Thames valley and Burton ale yeast)

H-ost

Recipes 

Do have any names of specific IPAs that you are trying to match your hoppiness to?

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"Wisdom isn't "thinking hard". It's experience." - PassedPawn

cram

Recipes 

For IPAs, using first wort hops (usually 2 oz. of whole hops) definitely boosts hop flavor. For aroma, I think it's all about a lot (3-4 oz.+) of dry hops after fermentation is complete. Rousing the beer/hops once or more a day during dry-hopping helps, imo. That and drinking the beer while it's still young...

If all else fails, and you get into kegging, you can throw a couple ounces into a hop bag when your beer is ready to serve and you'll have all the hop aroma you want (plus some hop parts floating in your pint glass)!

david_42

Recipes 

"grapefruit hop BOMB"

A common problem is using large amounts of ONE hop for dry hopping, looks like what you did. You don't get a complex, intense nose that way.

Try this: mix 1 oz each of Perle, Cascades and Amarillo. Use 1 oz of the mix at 10 minutes, 1 oz @ 5 and use the rest to dry hop AFTER the fermentation is done. This replaces your last five adds. It will smell and taste like grapefruit juice.

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