Dry hopping with Saaz... fail

Hello everyone! I just wanted to say, for the record, that dry hopping with Saaz is not a good idea. I did it, as the only information I could find was to the contrary of using such a hop in the dry hopping process... naturally, I wanted to disprove that theory in practice.

It failed! I dry hopped a 5 gallon batch of balanced IPA with 2 OZ Saaz, and the only difference between the Saaz dry hopped and the equal batch without, was a weird floral sort of perfumy taste... no detectable oomph whatsoever.

I know others on this forum and other have asked if Saaz is good to dry hop with, and now I can say from experience that no, it is not a hop to be used for Dry hopping. I definitely concur that it was a waste of 2 OZ of saaz.

Amen

Thanks for sharing and doing the scientific comparison!

Sounds like you got exactly what Saaz is good for. It has very little oomph. Nothing like being able to say, "Tried that, NG".

I was just so suprised that Saaz was really and so obviously good for flavour additions only.. very interesting stuff. Well, must try an all Saaz American Pale Ale to see how she turns out!

I put some in a fading I2PA several weeks ago and it tastes fine to me. I have been getting a bit bored with grapefruit dry hop and the Saaz sure is different. To each his own!

samc said:

I put some in a fading I2PA several weeks ago and it tastes fine to me. I have been getting a bit bored with grapefruit dry hop and the Saaz sure is different. To each his own!

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What is a fading I2PA? Please elaborate, I am definately open to anything... I too tend to seek other methods of having a delicious IPA without the citrus. Did you use Saaz for flavouring as well as dry hopping? Or just dry hopping...

jjones17 said:

What is a fading I2PA? Please elaborate, I am definately open to anything... I too tend to seek other methods of having a delicious IPA without the citrus. Did you use Saaz for flavouring as well as dry hopping? Or just dry hopping...

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After time hop aroma & flavors start to fade and bitterness can overwhelm the beer. At that point I will throw in a nylon bag with some hops to balance it out. In this beer I originally had some Saaz in at the 15 minutes to end of boil, followed by Amarillo at flame out. The Amarillo flavors did not last long enough to finish the second keg. IMO the Amarillo was overwhelming at first and was fine when it started to fade, then the beer became too bitter for me.

Pilsner Urquell = Saaz dry hopping !!!

Was the "detectable oomph" you were looking for a bittering effect? Because dry hopping in general doesn't isomerize alpha acids, nor does it add taste-able difference in bittering.

Sounds like you got a bit of the spicy aroma that you would expect from dry hopping with Saaz, no? Could be hard to pick up in a IPA with many other hop aromas present.

I've heard Saaz can be a good dry hop for Belgians, (though not really to style), and spicy hop aroma compliments spicy fermentation character. Along the lines: http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/wp/our-beers/fluffy-white-rabbits/