Hops problem

I've been tweaking a recipe of an SNPA clone and I haven't been able to nail the hops at all, and I am really confused as to why. I've made two batches.

The first recipe I felt needed more hops to get close to the SNPA (which in theory it shouldn't have because it was listed at 38 IBU)

The recipe: SNPA Clone
#12 Malteurop
#1.25 Crystal 60
.5oz Magnum (14% AA) 60min
.5oz Perle (8% AA) 30min
1oz Cascade (5.5% AA) 10min

I felt that this didn't have enough hops. It was severely lacking in my opinion, could barely taste the hops....so I tweaked it, and brewed this

SNPA Clone 2:

#12 Malteurop
#1.25 Crystal 60
1oz Magnum (14% AA) 60min
.5oz Perle (8% AA) 30min
1oz Cascade (5.5% AA) 10min

*The estimated IBUs on a SNPA are 48. This reciple clocked in at 65. I figured with the overkill I'd come out where I wanted to be, but I was still severely lacking my hop flavor.

Any suggestions as to what my problem could be?

Thanks in advance =D

You boosted your bittering hop addition, but not your flavoring hop addition. If you think the bittering was OK on the first batch, leave the 60 minute addition at .5 oz. To increase the hop flavor, add more hops in the 10-30 minute range.

It could be your water profile. It could be your process (are you using muslin bags). It could be you just need to add more hops, IBUs are an estimate unless you send it to a lab. It could be your yeast or fermentation temp. Is the amount of bitterness good, but the flavor isn't there? Is there not enough bitterness? Are you lacking aroma? Do you dry hop?

There are a lot of recipes out there for this that are supposed to be clones. They all have more late hops than yours.

For an American PA, I feel that you must have at least 1oz at 10min and 1oz at 0min. I bet just altering this in your recipe (without changing the bittering hops) will give you the resiny hop mouthfeel you're probably missing.

rjwhite41 said:

It could be your water profile. It could be your process (are you using muslin bags). It could be you just need to add more hops, IBUs are an estimate unless you send it to a lab. It could be your yeast or fermentation temp. Is the amount of bitterness good, but the flavor isn't there? Is there not enough bitterness? Are you lacking aroma? Do you dry hop?

Click to expand...

Bitterness is good, no aroma or flavor, no dry hop. Everything else in my process that you mentioned checks out OK. I think I will try adding more in the 10-30min range....and dry hop with Cascades.

Thanks all for the info.

Too much crystal, in my opinion. That "sweetness" from the crystal can cover up the hops. Drop the crystal to 1 pound at most.

Then, the hops should be more like:

1 oz Magnum (60 min)

1.00 oz Cascade (15 min)
1.00 oz Cascade (0 min)
1.00 oz Cascade (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -

Go with your second recipe and:

- Cut the magnum to 0.75 ozs
- Increase the Perle to 1.0 ozs
- Add 2.0 ozs Cascade at 0 mins.

all good thoughts, I am going to play around with it....and dropping the Crystal is definitely what I'm going to do because the malt is super sweet.