What am I Missing?

[TwoGiantMonsters]

Preface - Not a beginner but i'll always consider myself a novice.

I love a hoppy ale, and recently I've fallen in love with the New England style IPA. I've read up on the style guidelines, followed the hopping schedules and even tried a clone kit, but i'm not getting that POW of hop aroma and low bitterness that characterizes the style. It comes out rather bitter with low to moderate aroma. Not a bad beer, but not what I'm going for.

Side note, I also love Cascadian Dark Ales and my recipe for that comes out as designed. My recipe for NEIPA uses a similar malt & grain set up as my CDA (exactly the same, really) so it's dark and roasty but i was looking forward to the juicy pine aroma explosion with all the late addition hops.

Throwing style out the door I wanted this to be completely different and indescribable,
here is the recipe for my Shoggoth Ale, named after the formless beast created by New England's greatest horror/sci-fi author:

1 gallon brew -

1 gallon store bought spring water

3 oz oats
3 oz special b
3 oz chocolate malt
3 oz roasted barley

2 lbs amber DME
2 oz 180L Belgian Candi Syrup
2oz molasses

.25 oz Columbus 60 min
.60 oz Simcoe FO hopstand 10 min steep
.50 oz Columbus FO hopstand 10 min steep
.25 oz Mosaic FO hopstand 10 min steep
.25 oz Citra FO hopstand 10 min steep
.12 oz Centennial FO hopstand 10 min steep
.40 oz Simcoe whirlpool/chilling
.25 oz Mosaic whirlpool/chilling
.25 oz Columbus whirlpool/chilling
.12 oz Citra whirlpool/chilling

strain, aerate, bring back to 1 gl, pitch half pk safale 04

.25 oz Cascade first dry hop

ferment 7 days at 68 degrees

rack to seconary

1 oz Chinook second dry hop 7 days

bottle with 1 oz corn sugar

tried this recipe 3 times and like i said, it's been a good beer but it doesn't have the aroma I would expect. Any constructive advice will be welcome. Thank you

 

[jalc6927]

I don’t do IPA, but understand the NEIPA is not an easy brew

 

[Smellyglove]

NEIPA is about 10% recipe, rest is technique post fermentation.

I see you mentioned "rack to secondary", the battle is lost already there unless you do a 0-oxygen transfer. But if you bottle, I'd just do another type of beer, to be honest. It's about oxygen pickup. More hops mean more stuff to get destroyed, and imho opinion a good IPA (Just IPA, not NEIPA) can get bland after 24 hrs if it's been introduced to oxygen, at room temp. Give it tops a few days without oxygen, it's the crown caps and temperature which kills it, and a bit the sugar used for carbonation.

 

[tri_clamp_ninja]

First off, swap the Amber dme for light (muntons, nb, etc)/golden light (briess). It will still give a malty flavor from your primary fermentable and you won't lose a terrible amount of color but those Amber extracts usually use grains like Munich and/or darker crystal/caramel malts which can throw hoppy profiles out of whack if you don't control them to precise percentages of your grain bill... Which you can't with dme or lme. Also, that really dark Candi syrup and molasses.... that will severely darken your srm and give all sorts of burnt sugar flavors which kill hops. Second, follow your temps closely post boil. Any hop additions you do past your flame out addition grows in efficacy (flavor and aroma) as your wort temp drops below 170f. This is considered "sub-isomerization" temperature. I know, it can be slightly confusing considering you aren't truly "isomerizing" your hops unless fully boiling but Don't worry about that here. Basically the cooler your wort gets, the more of those almost 'chalky' fresh hop flavors you'll get. 130f is a killer sweet spot for this, if you keep sanitation in check. Third, Whole cone hops will be your best friend here. Ditch pellets entirely. Fourth, skip the 60 min addition. That gives you bitterness and nothing else. A true NEIPA is usually boiled for 45 mins or less, frequently 30 mins or less, and hops are rarely added anytime before 15 mins left in the boil. In terms of your hop profile contributions on the hot side with a recipe like this you would be looking at something like 15 mins, flame, steep, whirlpool. Now to hit the ibu's per style guidelines using such late additions you will need ALOT of hops seeing as high AA hop varietals are usually out of place. Boiling for more the the 15 mins you need for the primary "bittering" addition are going to really just be for condensing your sugars to hit your OG.

 

[thedevilandgod]

Light DME for sure. Dry hop at an ounce of hops per gallon too.

 

[TwoGiantMonsters]

thank you all for your responses. after reading your expert opinions, i've come to the realization that maybe i should be brewing two (or three) different styles. I guess my chimera monster vision of a beer just wont work. Thank you.