pulling grapefruit flavor out

what is the target time to boil hops to get the grapefruit flavor? 15min 10, 5? Dryhop? at what point do you get the greatest grapefruity flavors?

I think you get the most flavor at 20 minutes or so. Granted, the grapefruit flavor also depends on the variety of hops.

Not certain, but a combination of Amarillo, Cascades and Perle for flavor & aroma, WILL give you grapefruit. My 3CPA uses 1/2 ounce of each, mixed together & added equally at 20, 10 & 5. It tasted like fresh-squeezed for the first month.

david_42 said:

Not certain, but a combination of Amarillo, Cascades and Perle for flavor & aroma, WILL give you grapefruit. My 3CPA uses 1/2 ounce of each, mixed together & added equally at 20, 10 & 5. It tasted like fresh-squeezed for the first month.

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Are you into throwing your hops right in, or do you use a bag?

I dry hopped my Maltese Falcon and that citrus flavor really lingered well...with no added bitterness.

There seems a fine balance of time between letting the bitterness of a high-hopped beer mellow, and the desired citrus tones get weaker. Some may call it green, I call it fresh.

You know it’s good when even your burps have that refreshing, cleansing “taste”.

BierMuncher said:

You know it’s good when even your burps have that refreshing, cleansing “taste”.

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Oh yeah! Those are great.

I used all cascade in a APA, very grapefruity taste. Has died down some since I bottled, but it was really strong at one point.

Another nice thing about kegging, you can freshen the hop aroma (assuming the batch lasts that long).

I've made several beers that had a strong grapefruit flavor...the only common element to all of them was a Centennial addition at 60 minutes. I know 60 minutes is way too long for a flavor addition, so maybe "flavor" isn't the right word. But the bitterness from that addition was perceived as a grapefruit taste...one of the beers (a blonde ale) tasted pretty much exactly like grapefruit juice.

Hops predominantly contain these 4 flavor compounds:

humulene
farsene
caryophyllene
myrcene

Myrcene and farnesene are present in essential grapefruit oil. See this link:

http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com/data/rw1044061.html

Volatile hop oils are kept in the brew by boiling late, post-boil steeping, hop-backing or dry-hopping. Do one or all of these things with hops containing high percentages of myrcene (cascade, simcoe, amarillo, etc) and farnesene and you'll probably get a grapefruity flavor/aroma. See this link for a source of oil percentage info:

http://www.brew-monkey.com/brewschool/hopdata.php

If you want grapefruit flavor use a combination of Chinook and Cascade hops in you recipe. Use these for bittering, flavoring and aroma additions.

Dr Malt