Nelson Sauvin advice

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MikeFallopian

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
214
Reaction score
3
Location
Cardiff
I picked up some Nelson Sauvin the other day and feel like brewing a pale ale with it. I would like some recipe advice though, as I haven't used it before.

Should I do a single hop with it or combine it with other hops? Other hops I have lying around at the moment are Crystal, Amarillo, Northern Brewer, First Gold and Brewers Gold.

The grain bill will be pale malt and carapils.

Any advice would be appreciated - including hop combinations using the other hops listed!
 
I would go with Northern Brewer. The minty flavor would go well with the Nelson. Amarillo is hard to find and is quite good on it's own, so save those.
 
Actually the brewers gold would pro ably pair best. BG has somewhat of a black currant aroma that would go great with Nelson.

I have paired Nelson with Amarillo, and that was great. However, if I had BG lying around I would have used that instead.
 
Actually the brewers gold would pro ably pair best. BG has somewhat of a black currant aroma that would go great with Nelson.

I have paired Nelson with Amarillo, and that was great. However, if I had BG lying around I would have used that instead.

The black currant is why I would not use BG as it would compete with the grape flavor of Nelson. I think the NB would compliment better......Just my opinion.

That's one thing I enjoy about home brewing.....There are so many different ways to the finish line and more than one is right.
 
i think nelson is a great hop on it's own but i think it shines better with something else

it's got some citrus notes as well that can be brought out by using other citrusy hops

my personal choice would be amarillo but you could prob use any of those
 
I think I may go for a Nelson Sauvin single hop.

Which yeast would be better: US-04 or US-05?
 
I did a nelson sauvin smash barleywine that I did a partigyle pale ale from. Both with the same hop schedule and both dry hoped with half an ounce. They both are awesome. The barleywine came out at 9.4% and the pale at about 3% or so. I used us-05 for both.
 
MikeFallopian said:
I think I may go for a Nelson Sauvin single hop.

Which yeast would be better: US-04 or US-05?

For this beer I would go with the ever clean 05 to really let the hops shine
 
I did a pilsner/nelson sauvin smash where i got to about 50 IBU - which in my opinion is too high. the beer tasted like white wine, and even after aging/mellowing for a long time it is still very fruity.

if you go with only the nelson sauvin, i would probably keep the IBUs lower, unless a pale ale spritzer sounds good to you.
 
I did a pilsner/nelson sauvin smash where i got to about 50 IBU - which in my opinion is too high. the beer tasted like white wine, and even after aging/mellowing for a long time it is still very fruity.

if you go with only the nelson sauvin, i would probably keep the IBUs lower, unless a pale ale spritzer sounds good to you.

Ha ha! I'm brewing it as I type, and just read this message just before sparging.

On your advice, I've reduced the target IBUs from 46 to 37. I'm not sure I'm after a pale ale spritzer!

I must say the hops smell lovely.
 
Nelson Sauvin is awesome as a single-hop, though I used it as a aroma hop in my barleywine and as a single-hop in an IIPA - both recipes are in my sig, though I used Rakau in the last version of the IIPA.
 
I did a pilsner/nelson sauvin smash where i got to about 50 IBU - which in my opinion is too high. the beer tasted like white wine, and even after aging/mellowing for a long time it is still very fruity.

if you go with only the nelson sauvin, i would probably keep the IBUs lower, unless a pale ale spritzer sounds good to you.

IBU wouldn't effect the flavor as much as late additions

you could have 50 IBU with almost no flavor if you just did a 60min addition - IMO the white wine flavor is pretty standard with Nelson and much more noticeable in greater amounts of late additions.
 
IBU wouldn't effect the flavor as much as late additions

you could have 50 IBU with almost no flavor if you just did a 60min addition - IMO the white wine flavor is pretty standard with Nelson and much more noticeable in greater amounts of late additions.

I ended up going for the following hop schedule (sorry for the metric measures):

18g @ 60
10g @ 30
8g @ 15
8g @ 5
8g @ 0

This was for a 5 imperial gallon (23 litre) batch. According to the brewing software this should give an IBU of 38.
 
What are people's thoughts on this: using champagne yeast or wine yeast with a Nelson Sauvin pale?
 
I just did a pale ale with simcoe, amarillo and nelson. Ended up very tropical fruit like. Was a little too much at first but after a few weeks its very nice now. But yeah nelson can get out of hand fast I can still taste it even with those other strong hops in the mix.
 
Back
Top