No Hop Taste or Aroma! I'm Perplexed! Help?

[BrewingInChicago]

So I got a Mr. Beer kit on the cheap and made the batch that came with the kit. Wasn't the greatest but it was drinkable. I did drink it all. Threw everything out afterwards to save space. That was about 5 years ago.

Fast forward to the present time. This former Miller Lite fan is now a craft beer fan. I got another Mr. Beer kit from a friend for free and decided to make a doctored up batch. Did research and found the right type of video that explained what I wanted to do with the Mr. Beer kit. Here is the video:



I decided to brew a batch of beer following this guy's instructions to a tee, but using an altered version of his recipe:

1 lb dried malt extract (extra light)
3.3 lb can Munton's liquid malt extract (extra light)

60 Minute Boil

60 Minute Hops:
.5 oz Columbus
.5 Nelson Sauvin

20 Minute Hops:
.5 oz Nelson Sauvin
.5 oz Cascade

7 Minute Hops:
.5 oz Cascade

Fermented in the Mr. Beer keg for three weeks using HALF a packet of safale US-05 yeast which I pitched straight from the package, which was stored in my fridge.
OG - 1.070
FG - 1.014

Bottled on 2/19/2014. Stuck a bottle in the fridge for a couple days and opened it and it's darker than I expected, no hop taste and aroma whatsoever. In fact, it's caramel malty. I took time to think about my steps and I attribute it to leaving the lid on the pot fully covered during the boil. I also remember seeing black spots on the side of the pot at the end of the boil so I may have burnt stuff or boiled too hot. I did this on a kitchen stove so I doubt my stove kicks up massive heat (I did use the "Power Plus Burner" on my Fridgidare stove, tho). I read on here that someone shook their beer out of frustration because they didn't taste hops and they finally got the hops, but that didn't work for me lol. The beer is undrinkable!

I got mad after tasting the beer and decided to buy a 12" pot thermometer and made another batch. With different hops and being extra careful not to boil too hot. After adding the DME, I got the temp to just over 200 degrees to get a good boil started then turned it down and added about 1/3rd the can of LME and then got it all to around 160-180 degrees during the entire boil (with no lid) using these hops:

60 min (.5 oz Columbus)
20 min (.5 oz Citra)
7 min (.5 oz Citra)

I added the rest of the LME at the last 10 minutes of the boil to sanitize it just in case that was the problem with the first batch, but being careful how I poured it in, making sure I took it off the heat and stirring well. This time I pitched the whole packet of Safale US-05 yeast straight from the packet like the guy in the youtube video did.

I brewed this on 3/2/2014 and the OG is 1.076. I took a gravity reading on 3/17/2014 and got 1.013 but when I smelled and tried it, I got no hops AGAIN! No strong sweet caramel taste this time, tho. If the hops were there, I think the beer would be at least drinkable, if not borderline good. Thinking back, I didn't let the hops steep and for some reason I took them out at flame out. But I don't think not letting the hops steep would make the hops nonexistant. So now here are my questions?

1. Think I can try to save this current batch by dry hopping with 1 oz Citra leaf hops?

2. Anyone have a clue as to what I may be doing wrong, using what I've said and what's going on in the youtube video I was going off of?

3. Should I stick to buying beer? LOL maybe I'm the burn water type and shouldn't be making beer. What sucks is I already bought the stuff to make 5 gallon batches, but I don't want to do that if I'll just be making batches of non-hoppy, crappy beer.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[prpromin]

If you scorched the LME on the first go around, that might have produced enough of a flavor to cover the hops, but it would have to be one beastly scorch. You don't mention, but I assume that these are new hops? They're not 5 year-old hops, right?

Regarding the boil - I'm not sure what you mean by keeping the boil at 160-180 degrees the second time around. Water boils at 212 - not hotter or colder (unless you live at altitude), so that second boil wasn't really a boil, which would probably impact hop utilization. It might account for what you perceive in the second batch. As a side note, I find that with my pale ales, most of the aroma comes with dry hopping, not from any point in the boil. Dry hopping will improve the aroma.

Finally, I don't see this above, but you are waiting until the wort actually boils to start your 60 minute timer, yes? I didn't watch the video, btw.

Other than that, your instinct to remove the pot from the heat while adding the LME is a good one. That will at least prevent scorched wort.

Finally, I brew full 5 gallon batches on my kitchen stove with no problem. Often, that means starting with north of 7 gallons. Now, I do straddle two burners, but I get a boil without issue. I would guess that with a smaller volume, I could do that with a single burner.

Hope this helps narrow things down a bit.

 

[CraptainWirtz]

For your current batch, yes, dry hop that sucka! Wouldn't hurt to do more than the 1 oz though.

I agree with the above poster that if you can get your pot to boil that would be ideal. My only other suggestion is more hops, and later in the boil. Try a full ounce at 5 minutes and a full ounce at 1 minute.

 

[strangegreenman]

I find I get the best hop aroma when I add the aroma hops five minutes before, and again just as, I stop boiling. Give that brew another try with .5oz aroma hops each at five and zero minutes, and cool the wort down as fast as you can afterward. The reason is that the components of hop flavor and aroma are terpenes and terpene-derived alcohols- fragrant oils that easily evaporate from hot boiling wort.

1oz of dry hops would help even a 5-gallon batch, though it's not really workable after bottling.

I think prpromin's got the real problem nailed though- take your pot off the heat before you add any brewing sugars or extracts. Scorching is a sad thing and makes hops less noticeable in the final beer.

 

[BrewingInChicago]

I am assuming that the hops are fresh. I bought them from the only LHBS that I know of on the north side of Chicago. And I used them about a day or two after I bought them.

I also started the timing and threw the bittering hops in when I got the boil started. So when the boil gets going at 200 degrees +, should I keep the boil going that hot for the full 60 minutes?

 

[mdennytoo]

Useful bittering really only occurs between about 15 min -90 min of actually boiling (210f-212f depending on your altitude). You say these beers were sweet. I think your problem is low boil volume. I started with a Mr. Beer kit too. They pre-bitter their cans of malt extract so that the low volume of wort has less of an effect. In fact, they have mostly made the beer for you-but you are reconstituting it. The regular pale 3.3lb Munton's malt is not already bittered. This will fix your problem: Get a bigger pot! Do a full wort boil of 2.5 gallons, evaporating down to two gallons over the course of an hour. Put the bittering hops in only when the wort is actually at full boil, and boil for an hour. Flavor in at ~20, aroma in at ~1 min. Although, 1 oz@ 60 min. will make 2 gallons of beer too bitter. Try 1/2 an ounce. Top off with clean water (not tap) if you boiled away too much volume. Unopened, ozonated distilled water is good for that. The expensive way is to double or triple your hop addition using the same 3/4 gallon dutch oven pot you have in the video. You could also just use two cans of Mr. Beer's pre-bittered malt cans. If you put your hops in before it is boiling, they will lend themselves as a flavor hop addition> and that is called First Wort Hopping, and that is a good thing, and you should try it again- on purpose, this time. It will give your beer a smoother bitterness and replace the flavor addition at ~20min. One last thing: Don't ever quit brewing your own beer! That way leads to ruin and certain doom.

 

[gr8shandini]

I got mad after tasting the beer and decided to buy a 12" pot thermometer and made another batch. With different hops and being extra careful not to boil too hot. After adding the DME, I got the temp to just over 200 degrees to get a good boil started then turned it down and added about 1/3rd the can of LME and then got it all to around 160-180 degrees during the entire boil (with no lid) using these hops. . .

Well, there's your problem. If you're at 160 degrees, you're not boiling. The alpha acids in the hops need elevated temperatures to form the compounds that add bitterness and the flavor usually associated with hops. You can get by with being a few degrees low, but at the temperatures you're using, the reaction will take much longer than the usual schedule.

Also, there's no way to boil too hot or too cold. Water (or wort) will always boil at the same temperature based on the air pressure above it. In Chicago, you're close enough to sea level that it should be very near 212 degrees. At 200, you might see some hot break floating around that looks like bubbles, but it's not boiling. Either that or your thermometer is off. You might want to calibrate it in some plain tap water so it's easy to tell when you have a good boil.

Now it is possible to scorch wort due to the local temperature of the kettle getting too high, but if you're working on a stove top, this is unlikely.

 

[opiate82]

I think you have already gotten some great advice and things that I would recommend trying that could help. But I will give one other thing that really made the difference with my beers and hop flavor.

I was having similar issue with a lack of punch with my hop flavor/aroma, dug around the forums and discovered the Water Chemistry Primer in the Brew Science section of these forums. Turns out I need to adjust my water a bit using Calcium Chloride and Gypsum, and once I started doing the hop character in my IPAs really started to pop.

 

[BrewingInChicago]

Thanks for all the help. I will utilize them in the next batch I make. Cheers.