Problem retaining hop aroma

[Docjowles]

I recently tried brewing an American pale ale, which I intended to have a big, in your face hop aroma. I'm not sure what went wrong, but the beer ended up being more bitter and less aromatic than I wanted.

Obvious answer: "you used high alpha acid hops and/or added them too soon, *******". I'm not sure that's what happened here, though, and I wanted to ask if there are any other common pitfalls that let hop aroma/flavor escape.

I don't have the exact recipe handy, but this is close (all hop additions are pellets):

6lbs light liquid extract and some steeped grain, OG ~1.045
60 min: 1oz amarillo
30 min: 0.5 oz each Cascade and EKG
10 min: ditto
5 min: ditto

I added all of the extract up front and it was about a 2.5 gallon boil volume.

Dry hopped for 5 days in secondary with another ounce each of Cascade and EKG in a mesh baggie.

After a few weeks of bottle conditioning, the only real hop character is pure bitterness. No nice floral/grassy/citrus smell or flavor, just bitterness. What went wrong? Should all the aroma hops been delayed to 1 minute or even just at flameout? Are whole flower hops better (in the boil, dry hopping, or both) when I care more about aroma and flavor than bitterness?

Also, when I racked out of the secondary, I avoided squeezing the hop sludge bag because I was worried about clarity. Later though when I removed the bag, it was VERY aromatic. Would you recommend squeezing out the liquid before racking to the bottling bucket?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Well I asked a few questions on dry-hopping recently as well, and I will be dry hopping an APA that I used all Cascade and Amarillo in.

All Pellet:
.5 oz each @ 60
.5 oz each @ 10
.5 oz each @ 5
.5 oz each @ flameout (10 min steep)

I plan to use 1 oz each to dry hop with for approx. 7days.

The consensus was this was a decent hopping schedule, I switched my blow-off tube for an airlock Sunday morning (1 week into fermentation) the aroma was fairly potent for the couple minutes I had the hose off. I have not dry-hopped yet.

Also, many that use pellets stated that they do not even use a bag as they will settle to the bottom without a problem.

Additionally, I will dry-hop in the primary instead of racking to secondary. I will no longer secondary unless I need to free up a primary, rack onto fruit, or do some extended aging (which I doubt will ever occur). It is more work with little benefit. I am an "extended primary" man.

Also, someone had mentioned if the dry-hop is allowed to go too long there could be a loss of aroma. Of course if fermentation is not complete, or starts back up after racking to secondary escaping co2 will carry the aroma out of the fermenter.

 

[BADS197]

What was the AA% of your hops?

You can have two people with 1oz of Amarillo or whatever and chances are they will be different % AA. Which will throw off any calculations/bitterness.

 

[beerkrump]

The aromatic compounds in hops are the most volatile and boil off readily. So, to retain as many as possible delay your aroma additions to the 5 minutes to flame out range. Also, your 30 addition is going to contribute quite a bit of bitterness.

When you dry hopped, did your mesh bag just float on top? It is the contact with the beer that is going to get the aroma that you're trying to get. You will need to weight down the bag or just toss in the hops.

 

[passedpawn]

Looks like it should be nicely hoppy. A lot of the hop nose comes from the carbonation, so if it isn't carbed well you won't get as much effect.

I use pellets, and I just throw them in the fermenter when I dryhop. I don't use bags in the fermenter. It is not a problem if you are careful when you siphon to a bottling bucket.

 

[TechyDork]

I just did my 2nd IPA, and i felt that in my first IPA it did not have quite the hop nose that i expecte. I dry hopped with 2oz cascade for 7 days. in my first batch i used hop bags during the boil, but this time i just dumped the leaf hops in to the wort and strained them out when adding to the fermentor. when i dry hopped the 1st batch i just racked on to the leaf hops and they stayed at the top of the fermentor, this time i will try weighing them down and see if that makes a difference. i will try to report my results when this new batch is ready.

 

[beerocd]

Put a tsp cinnamon in your MASH?
"it can combine with precursors of staling compounds in the mashing process and help reduce the oxidizing staling process."

Someone had to bring it up - it's in the newest Zymurgy(p11).

-OCD

 

[BierMuncher]

How long did you primary before racking to the secondary?

Your 10, 5 and flameout additions are fine for flavor / aroma.

I use loose pellets and rock the carboy every day to rinse down the floating hops. If you didn't weigh down the hop bag in the secondary, you likely didn't extract a lot of aroma.

 

[Beernik]

I always prefer whole hops or plugs. The suck up some wort, but I'd rather see a bunch of hop flowers in the bottom of my kettle and carboy than that much more more trubby mud. I also think i get a "cleaner" flavor. But that's probably more psychological than anything.

Dry hopping with pellets should give you more aroma in dry hopping because the beta acids should be easier to extract than from whole flowers.