Planning on making a SMaSH using Vienna Malt and Pacific gem hops. Thinking that the reported woody bitterness and blackberry/currant notes would be nice in a SMaSH. Anyone have any experience with Pacific Gem?
Cheers!
Cheers!
What was your hop schedule?
Hop schedule was 0.5 oz. at each of 60, 13, 5, and 0 minutes.
Matt, maybe you got some nasty bad hops, or maybe they don't agree with Croatian water chemistry, because the beer I made with these was delicious. I have made 2 batches of this and it has been the favourite of my beer snob friends. Very clean, some toasted oak dryness notes to the bittering, subtle blackberry finish. I strongly recommend doing this with some vienna or pils malt as the fruitiness really accentuates the berry notes. I used Kolsch yeast too...
I dunno man, this is in my permanent rotation now and it disappears really quickly.
Hmmm,I was going to brew a partial mash version of my sunset gold APA with pacific gem & one of the other NZ hops I have a pound of. I liked the idea of the oak & Berry together. I bought like 3oz each of some 5 varieties of NZ hops when midwest had'em on sale.
Hop schedule was 0.5 oz. at each of 60, 13, 5, and 0 minutes.
Matt, maybe you got some nasty bad hops, or maybe they don't agree with Croatian water chemistry, because the beer I made with these was delicious. I have made 2 batches of this and it has been the favourite of my beer snob friends. Very clean, some toasted oak dryness notes to the bittering, subtle blackberry finish. I strongly recommend doing this with some vienna or pils malt as the fruitiness really accentuates the berry notes. I used Kolsch yeast too...
I dunno man, this is in my permanent rotation now and it disappears really quickly.
All I can say is I used it as I mentioned earlier and I really like it. I'm also not the only one who has really liked this recipe. Matt, as a researcher who studies water I can tell you there is a lot more going on with water chemistry than what we typically pay attention to as brewers. My suspicion is that a lot of what people perceive as far as different hop aromas/flavours comes down to interactions between hops and water in the boil. Maybe I'm just in an area that it works for me. I order my NZ hops from hopshack.com if it helps.
I am totally uninterested in trying this hop again, so won't be ordering it. From NZ, I love Nelson Sauvin, which some other people hate as well. There are tons and tons of other hops I love. I see no reason to try the only hop that I hate again. It'd be a total waste of time and effort.
I don't think it's interaction with the water. When I used it, it had a very harsh, pungent Black Currant or other berry note that was totally unpleasant. The bittering is fine, it's the flavor and aroma that I don't like.
Anyway, the water was adjusted with 62% distilled water and various salts added to achieve this:
Ca 111
Mg 25
Na 3
Chloride 95
Sulfate 138
Alkalinity 120
RA 27
Chloride to Sulfate ratio .68 bitter.
It's not an overly harsh water for an APA. I've made dozens of APAs using similar water with many, many other hops and had no such problem.
Anyway, I'm not interested in being convinced that I am wrong on something that is clearly a matter of personal preference. I hate this hop and will never use it again. The original post asked what people thought of this hop, so I chimed in. I am not trying to convince you that you are wrong. If you like it, that's fine. I hate it. And I'm not alone. If I had read reactions like mine before I used it, I likely would have selected another hop and wouldn't have wasted my time.
I'll soon find out if I like them or not. Making a hop forward wheat beer using Pacif Gem only. Doing a small batch, but it'll be the equivelent of 1.3 oz as 20 minutes and 1.3 oz dry hopped. Only about 40 IBU, but the hop taste and arroma will be very aggressive.
Well dang. On brew day last Saturday,I pulled out an ounce of pacifica instead of pacific gem. Oops. Oh well,pacifica is supposed to taste like orangwe marmalde with som floral. With the 14g of rehydrated Cooper's ale yeast,it could be tasty.
Enter your email address to join: