Where's my hop flavor and aroma?

I used 3 ounces of late hop additions and dry hopped with almost another 2 ounces. The bitterness is there but for some reason, I'm not getting much hop flavor or aroma.

Could the cause be because :

A. I used 2 packets of Safale 05 for 5 gallons

B. I used spring water (maybe the water profile was off)?

C. I dry hopped in cold beer? Primary 10 days, Secondary (cold conditioned) 1 week, & Dry Hopped in the keg 1 week.

Also, as you'll notice in my recipe, the final product came out really dry so maybe the yeast just chomped up too much hopness? It fermented all the way down to .009 even though I mashed at around 154. I seem to end up with really dry beers a lot and I don't know why.

Here's the recipe.... thanks for feedback!


Original Gravity: 1.061 (1.056 - 1.075)
|============#===================|
Terminal Gravity: 1.009 (1.010 - 1.018)
|=====#==========================|
Color: 11.2 (6.0 - 15.0)
|=================#==============|
Alcohol: 6.8% (5.5% - 7.5%)
|==================#=============|
Bitterness: 64.4 (40.0 - 60.0)
|===========================#====|

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
11 lb Maris Otter
1 lb Munich Malt
.5 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
1 oz Simcoe (11.9%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 oz Amarillo (8.9%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
.5 oz Cascade (6%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
.5 oz Amarillo (8.9%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Cascade (6%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - steeped after boil
1 oz Cascade (5.5%) - steeped after boil
1 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
.8 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter

I'm new to this with no imperical information, but there is a fine line between hop bitterness and hop flavor to me. Sometimes the flavor is bitter....??? I have used simcoe before and have tasted it's flavor instead of just bitterness as it was suppose to be my "bittering" hop. Amarillo and Cascades can have a bitter (read:spicy) flavor as well. Anyway, mixing hop flavors is lost on me, I can only tell the difference when there is one hop used in any given beer.

Certainly there could be some malt back bone things going on that people with more experience could discuss.

I'm stumped. With that many hop additions and 4 oz in the last 20 minutes plus dry hopping there should be a ton of hop flavor and aroma, in the IPA range. Without tasting it I couldn't tell you why.

My experience has been that massive amounts of one hops (and Amarillo is a Cascade sport) doesn't give you the best results.

The yeast won't impact the hop flavor/aroma at all.

The gripping hand? It's really young.

I've only done bottle conditioning for my big IPAs, and the first three weeks of being in the bottle the hoppiness/bitterness doesn't really come out. Around week 5 or 6, WHAM watch out.
This was especially evident on my 180 IBU + 3oz dry hop triple IPA 5g batch. When I first thought it was 'done' I was like "wheres the hops?". After a couple more weeks it really started to shine beautifully.
Try it again later?

saq said:

I've only done bottle conditioning for my big IPAs, and the first three weeks of being in the bottle the hoppiness/bitterness doesn't really come out. Around week 5 or 6, WHAM watch out.
This was especially evident on my 180 IBU + 3oz dry hop triple IPA 5g batch. When I first thought it was 'done' I was like "wheres the hops?". After a couple more weeks it really started to shine beautifully.
Try it again later?

Click to expand...

That's really interesting, hopefully the same thing happens in my case!

shlap said:

I seem to end up with really dry beers a lot and I don't know why.

Click to expand...

Check your thermometer.

I was using a floating thermometer in the mash until I got one of these, and found the floating thermometer read 220 in boiling water! I was wondering why my beers finished so low and thin....

Did you use a bag for the hops boil and steep? if so by the time you got all the hops in the brew you could have had poor utilization. 5 oz of hops is a lot even for a 5 gallon paint bag.

how fresh were the hops?
That's a lot of hop for no flavor/aroma. Just the one addition @ flameout of cascade should have gave a decent aroma not to mention the other ounce of Amarillo and then the dry hops.

Hop freshness is the only thing I can think of as for why you do not have the hop aroma you want. Otherwise, I'm stumped.

However, on your attenuation, you are either mashing too low or too long. As 944 mentioned, your thermometer could be off. However, you could mash at 158 and still wind up with a thin, dry beer if you let it go long enough. Given enough time, the beta-amylase will chew up the dextrin chains to fermentables. That's a big reason why I do not subscribe to the "mash for an hour and don't bother to check conversion" school.


TL

I don’t see the issue with the F.G. IPA’s IMO are better dry and your O.G. wasn’t that high to justify a higher F.G. The only thing I could think of is (as mentioned above) Hop freshness. Have you tried first wort hopping, it adds a good hop flavor along with bitterness. Also...did you try this beer carbonated cus hop flavor could be tasted better then.

I've checked my thermometer in boiling water and it's dead on at 212.

I didn't use hop bags, just threw them into the pot.

The beer is carbonated.

The hops are very fresh, they're from my brewer friend at Rock Bottom who just got them in and always makes tasty IPAs.

I DID spend a ridiculous amount of time vorlaufing, probably an hour, so maybe that's why it came out so dry?

weird...vorlauf should only take about 10 minutes. What were you doing? All I do is drain at 1 qt/minute 2 qts, pour it back in, drain another 2 qts, dump it back in, repeat 2-3 times. The wort should be clear of debris and mostly bright by then or just a tad cloudy.

TeleTwanger said:

weird...vorlauf should only take about 10 minutes. What were you doing? All I do is drain at 1 qt/minute 2 qts, pour it back in, drain another 2 qts, dump it back in, repeat 2-3 times. The wort should be clear of debris and mostly bright by then or just a tad cloudy.

Click to expand...

I do a constant vorlauf during mashing. I recirculate for the entire mash and get very good conversion and super clear wort.

Don't know what to tell you!!!! Maybe you boil kettle has poor utilization so try more hops next time??????????

What cooling method are you using? How long does it take you to get the full volume down below 120º? Perhaps your cooling method is allowing a lot of your late additions to lose their volitiles.... that doesn't help with the dry hop though....

Maybe look into a hopback if you use a counterflow or plate chiller.

King of Cascade said:

I do a constant vorlauf during mashing. I recirculate for the entire mash and get very good conversion and super clear wort.

Click to expand...

What does this mean? Constant Vorlauf sounds like some kind of Rheinheitsgebot hell or something, like the guy doomed for eternity to push the rock up the hill which keeps tumbling down. I recirculate a few quarts and drain the rest into my kettle and boil, if I always returned the wort to the mash the kettle would always stay empty. Maybe you are referring to batch sparge which I know nothing about? Or do you Vorlauf during the mash?


To the OP, do you have a head cold? Have other people reported no flavor/aroma after drinking your beer or is it just you?

TeleTwanger said:

What does this mean? Constant Vorlauf sounds like some kind of Rheinheitsgebot hell or something, like the guy doomed for eternity to push the rock up the hill which keeps tumbling down. I recirculate a few quarts and drain the rest into my kettle and boil, if I always returned the wort to the mash the kettle would always stay empty. Maybe you are referring to batch sparge which I know nothing about? Or do you Vorlauf during the mash?

Click to expand...

It's not related to batch sparging, per se. I think its a practice that is more common among fly-spargers. He is probably using a pump that draws wort out of the mash tun from the bottom spigot and returns it to the top of the tun during the entire time of the mash. During the sparge, the wort is directed to the kettle while hot sparge water is fed onto the top of the grain bed. I have some buddies who do this, and they get the clearest wort I have ever seen going into their kettle.

What does this mean? Constant Vorlauf sounds like some kind of Rheinheitsgebot hell or something, like the guy doomed for eternity to push the rock up the hill which keeps tumbling down. I recirculate a few quarts and drain the rest into my kettle and boil, if I always returned the wort to the mash the kettle would always stay empty. Maybe you are referring to batch sparge which I know nothing about? Or do you Vorlauf during the mash?

Click to expand...

Hilarious!!! The “Constant Vorlauf”!!!! Beerthoven has it correct it is done during the mash then a valve is opened to the kettle after conversion. The benefits are mash temp control, super clear wort and better consistency and conversion. I do batch sparge on occasion but find I get better efficiency fly sparging. With that being said it shouldn’t effect the hop flavor or cause an overly low F.G. One thing you could try for more hop flavor is first wort hopping. Another poster suggested your cooling times might be taking to long but with 2 oz hops after boil and almost 2 oz hops for dry hopping I don’t understand why there is not hop flavor.