KJB5200
Active Member
Hey Everyone,
So I brewed my first lager a couple months ago (SA Boston Lager clone) and it seems like an overall success (especially considering this was also my first AG!). I took off a sample after 5 weeks in the fermentor and it tasted great. Malt was crisp with a slight sweetness and well balanced bitterness. Hop aroma/flavor weren't as up-front as I wanted so following my recipe I decided to dry-hop.
Only I had read a lot online going against dry-hopping cold so I decided to give hop tea a try. Boiled 1L water with 1/4cup DME for 15min, added 0.75oz Hallertauer and 0.5oz Santiam at flameout, and steeped 15min. Cooled to 50F before pitching into carboy and gave it 9 days to hang out before bottling. Now I know it's only been ~3 weeks of conditioning (I bottle condition to free up the carboy) but I cracked a few open to see how it was coming along. Everything was very pleasant except for a varying degree of DMS/wet-grass flavor between the bottles. The first one I opened was undrinkable (tasted exactly like boiled spinach and damp grass clippings) but the second had virtually none of these flavors. Other bottles have been everywhere in between.
So has anyone else experienced this with using a hop tea? I've dry-hopped ales before without such extreme grassy flavors but this if my first hop tea.
So I brewed my first lager a couple months ago (SA Boston Lager clone) and it seems like an overall success (especially considering this was also my first AG!). I took off a sample after 5 weeks in the fermentor and it tasted great. Malt was crisp with a slight sweetness and well balanced bitterness. Hop aroma/flavor weren't as up-front as I wanted so following my recipe I decided to dry-hop.
Only I had read a lot online going against dry-hopping cold so I decided to give hop tea a try. Boiled 1L water with 1/4cup DME for 15min, added 0.75oz Hallertauer and 0.5oz Santiam at flameout, and steeped 15min. Cooled to 50F before pitching into carboy and gave it 9 days to hang out before bottling. Now I know it's only been ~3 weeks of conditioning (I bottle condition to free up the carboy) but I cracked a few open to see how it was coming along. Everything was very pleasant except for a varying degree of DMS/wet-grass flavor between the bottles. The first one I opened was undrinkable (tasted exactly like boiled spinach and damp grass clippings) but the second had virtually none of these flavors. Other bottles have been everywhere in between.
So has anyone else experienced this with using a hop tea? I've dry-hopped ales before without such extreme grassy flavors but this if my first hop tea.