Not getting strong enough hop flavor/aroma

I recently brewed a clone of a beer. It has 1 more day of dry hopping. I have tasted it and I like it, however, it does not have the hop level of the original beer. I am really happy with all other aspects of the beer. This beer was deemed "clone" so i'm thinking its not the recipe. Without changing the recipe(add more hops at the end), how can I get more flavor and aroma? I brew 5 gallon batches and this recipe had 1oz each at 85min, 30min, 5min, and 0 min. 21grams dry hop. Part of my problem maybe that I do not incorporate any sort of a hop stand. As soon as my timer goes off I'm draining straight to the carboy(through a plate chiller). Usually 10 minutes and the kettle is drained out. Of course though the recipe does not call for a hop stand. Maybe its common knowledge to let it sit for a little bit before draining. One reason I have not tried it was, for the life of my, I cant find a good description how IBUs would change if I let it stand for 60-80 minutes. I saw 10% a few times however they were only referencing the zero minute hops. What about the rest of the hops that are already in the kettle. Surely they add more IBU's during the hop stand. 10% across the board?

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Perhaps more knowledge of my setup could help

I brew All-Grain.
I use a very large 8" Diameter by 18" Tall metal Hop spider(I don't believe that is the problem at least with the small quantity of hops in the recipe in question)

I think most responses will tell you to move the 30 min to 10 min or less, hopstand anywhere from 180-140* for 30 minutes, and increase the amount of hops your using. You could also look into doing a two stage dryhop. Some breweries seem to find that it is more effective than one.

And I wouldn't worry about much increase in IBUs from hop stand. It will increase some but it will be a smooth bitterness. I don't think there's much hard info on the increase. i wouldnt think it would be much more than 10%. you'll just have to experiment to see what works for you.

Is it still in the fermenter? If so, don't fuss over it just yet. I bet its flavor is going to change dramatically over the 6-8 weeks in the bottle or keg.

Isomerization happens over 180*F. If you do your hopstand under this temperature you shouldn't get any added bitterness. You could try that.

Also, do you pay attention to your water chemistry? Changing something in the water could help.

JonM said:

Is it still in the fermenter? If so, don't fuss over it just yet. I bet its flavor is going to change dramatically over the 6-8 weeks in the bottle or keg.

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Exactly this. Never judge a beer until it is packaged and carb'd.

I suppose it's wise to not judge it yet. I'll wait.

for 5 gallon batches i've reduced my bittering charge to 10-15 ibu and add all of the rest of the hops (3-5oz) at flame out, usually a 15-30 min hop stand. the aroma and flavor is incredible, very bright and the bitterness is very pleasing.

eastoak said:

for 5 gallon batches i've reduced my bittering charge to 10-15 ibu and add all of the rest of the hops (3-5oz) at flame out, usually a 15-30 min hop stand. the aroma and flavor is incredible, very bright and the bitterness is very pleasing.

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I'd like to try something like that but I feel I would be guessing too much, depending on what style of beer I am making. What did you just describe above? pale ale, ipa or dipa. Final Ibu range? I guess the only way to know is just start trying it.

Just put in more hops towards the end...

Another factor that is sometimes a huge factor is the freshness of hops. I've made the same exact recipe twice before and one was amazing and the other was just ok, and I remember smelling the hops that went into the ok beer and they were not as pungent as the hops used for the better beer.

Sometimes we just can't control that as homebrewers. Now I'll usually smell the hops and add more if I can actually notice a lack of what "I think" the hop should smell like. Of course this is really hard and most of the time I just add about 10-20% extra because homebrew store hops are almost never as fresh as the hops breweries get

westwardclock said:

I'd like to try something like that but I feel I would be guessing too much, depending on what style of beer I am making. What did you just describe above? pale ale, ipa or dipa. Final Ibu range? I guess the only way to know is just start trying it.

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i make pale ales most of the time. even though the wort is cooling down the whole time i find that there is bitterness extracted. as far as calculating the bitterness, i don't really. after a few times a recipe comes together for me in terms of the quantity of hops used and the balance between ABV, bitterness, flavor and aroma. it would be interesting to send a beer out for IBU testing and i may just do that soon.

Other then the bIttering hops I do

25% at 20 minutes
25% at 10 minutes
50% at flameout

Then dryhop 1 week before packaging with atleased 1oz

for me fresh hop flavor happens at 15min. longer and it fades. shorter and it's all nose.

RonPopeil said:

for me fresh hop flavor happens at 15min. longer and it fades. shorter and it's all nose.

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Huh weird, I've found to get the most flavor at 0 and 180f steep, but I guess that just proves there's 100,000,000 ways to do things.

Who deemed the recipe a "clone"? Perhaps look at that person's process.

Other flavors are gonna mask hop flavors. Getting good hot/cold break will help get some protein out as well as lagering and cold-crashing. Limiting other off flavors like bacteria and yeast off-flavors is gonna help.

Someone mentioned using fresh hops. This is important. Using a hop extract might be a good idea.


Your taking 10 minutes to drain through a plate chiller? perhaps that is adding 10 minutes onto all your additions, so shift them up ex: instead of 15 minutes use 7 minutes etc.. and then for 0 minute additions perhaps you can recirculate back into the kettle and add 0 minute hops after the temp starts dropping.

Another idea would be to buy some hops in bulk and get an idea of what too much hop flavor tastes like and how many hops it takes in your process to achieve that. Experiments are important. Mess with FWH, mash hops, and hop stands to see what they bring to the table.

Another idea I saw recently was to cold-crash before dry-hopping. This might be worth exploring.

My loving wife bought me a Blichman Hop Rocket for my birthday. She didn't know I use only pellets and the rocket is not designed for them. Just wrapped the inside strainer in a hop sock and did a low pressure transfer (co2) from one keg to the next through the liquid out posts. POW!! Hit it right on the head!! If you keg, worth a try. I no longer dry-hop with any other method.

Could you elaborate on the hop rocket idea, please? What temp do you have the beer at? Is one pass really sufficient? How many ounces of pellets do you use? Do you end up with any pellet fragments in the final product?

jeffjm said:

Could you elaborate on the hop rocket idea, please? What temp do you have the beer at? Is one pass really sufficient? How many ounces of pellets do you use? Do you end up with any pellet fragments in the final product?

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I leave the beer at room temperature, have made onlly one pass but plan on multiple passes in the future. So far I have only used up to 2 ounces, but I think more would work. I have only done this twice. I used to dry hop in the keg, but no more. "Any pellet fragments"? Some, but they are gone after you pull a couple of pints. Keep in mind most IPAs have a little gunk in suspension anyway. Certainly no more than that. One could probably convert a water filter to this use, but the rocket works very well. All this happens after I have cold crashed the beer before kegging.