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harrymanback92

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O I bottled my first batch 8 days ago. I bottled it all in 22s with a couple of 12 ounce bottles to use to check the beers progression. I cracked one after 8 days and the carbonation is pretty good. It's an American pale ale, brewed from an extract kit. It's totally drinkable and I don't notice any unpleasant off flavors;I just don't pick up any hop. I used 1 ounce magnum pellets at the 60 minute mark, 1 ounce of vanguard at 45, and 1 ounce of cascade at burnout. Can this lack if hop be attributed to green beer? Will further conditioning help? I understood that hops are ment to be consumed fresh, so won't the hop flavor start to dwindle as it conditions? I'm a newb so I haven't really experienced "green beer", I know patience will probably make everything right, but I was hoping someone could explain what's going on. Cheers!
 
Hmm you should have plenty of hop flavor in your beer. Granted remember you didn't make a hop explosion IPA what you did seem more than adequate.

A couple of things might be reasons you are not getting much hop flavor. First, do you know how old the hops might be? Where they stored in a cold place where you bought them and where they stored in a cold place when you had them?

Next, did you use a hop bag or not on you final hop addition? If you didn't leave them in there for very long could be why not much aroma is there.

I would recommend dry hopping next time, just to experiment or experience the difference. Either add the hops directly to the fermentor right away, or wait a week after fermentation has slowed down and add the hops, and keep them on the beer for 14 days.

Another way of increasing hop flavor would be to use a higher alpha % hop at the end of the boil, cascades are pretty low.
 
First thing I noticed is the 45min addition...you don't really need one. It's too early in the boil to get any aroma or flavor out of it, and I think most people on here would agree.

second, what was the batch size? 3oz of hops for a 5gal pale ale isn't that much, especially for a beer that is meant to be hoppy.

Next batch you do, skip a 45 and even 30 minute additions. Use a high-alpha hop for bittering at 60minutes, just like you did with magnum. Then do some additions at 15, 10, 5, etc minute marks. The later hop additions are what give the flavor and aroma you are looking for, just 1oz at flameout isn't enough. And low-alpha hops work just fine for later additions, Cascade is my favorite kind of hop to use in the last 15 minutes for pale ales and IPAs.

Look around in the recipe forum for other Pale Ale Recipes, and post your own recipe for suggestions/advice before you brew your next batch.
 
Did you do a full boil? or partial boil and top up with water? If doing a partial boil, the gravity of wort is higher than when you do a full 6+ gallon boil. The higher concentration of sugars makes it more difficult for the isomerized alpha acids to dissolve.

A lot of people when brewing extract will use half of the extract at the beginning, add the bittering hops, then add the remainder of the extract later in the boil so that the bittering hops have a lower gravity wort to isomerize in.
 
Yes. A lot of times the PERCEPTION of hoppiness doesn't come out UNTIL the beer is fully carbed and conditioned. It's NOT that it's NOT THERE, it's just that everything else hasn't come together like the flavors melding, co2 developing fully, any non complimentary flavors (i.e. greenness) dissipating.

You bottled it 8 days ago, you don't have a hop problem, you have a patience problem.

Leave you beers alone for AT LEAST 2 more weeks, then come back and tells us everything is fine.

You CAN NEVER judge a beer until it's fully carbed and conditioned...It's that simple. You beer STILL has a journey to go through. You don't know and won't until you gone PAST the third week or not.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out. You have green beer.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience." ;)
 
How fast did you chill your wort? If it stayed fairly hot for more than 10 minutes, you may have lost much of the aroma in that time. If this is the case, the next time you brew, you might try waiting 5 min. after flameout before adding your last hop addition. You don't want it too hot, but also not too cool.
 
What Revvy says - plus - water?? Sometimes a water profile is not conducive for hops and you will be underwhelmed. But I would go with Revvy for the time being.

However I do disagree with one thing.

You bottled it 8 days ago, you don't have a hop problem, you have a patience problem.

Leave you beers alone for AT LEAST 2 more weeks, then come back and tells us everything is fine.

Naa - go ahead and taste as a learning opportunity - just don't judge. I've gotten pretty good at knowing how a beer will come out at bottling when it's warm and flat. Might not taste good at all but I know that certain warm flat flavors will develop over time. . . . and sometimes not!
 
Hey guys, been awhile!

When I bottled I bottled my batch in 22oz bottles, save 2 12oz bottles to taste while it conditioned. I'm not impatient about drinking my beer, but more curious as to what's happening, chemically, during conditioning:)

The beer taste great! I just don't notice any hops; I gathered from Revvys post that the perceived hoppy flavor comes from proper carbonation and have since noticed, in IPA's I buy, how the carbonation seems to add to the aroma of hops.


My beer is conditioning away and keeps getting better! This was my first brew, I'm currently in secondary with a black IPA extract recipe and brewing a partial mash imperial IPA Sunday! This hobby is addictive haha:mug:
 
If your beer tastes good now, it should be REALLY good in a couple of weeks! I'm glad your brew has worked out well for you!
 
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