What's the dill with Sorachi?

[Hitokiri]

So I am the latest victim of the Sorachi Ace dill-bomb. I brewed up a Belgian pale a few weeks ago and did some late additions of Sorachi Ace looking for a bit of lemony goodness. I remember being fairly pleased with the lemon aroma I was getting from the hot wort as it was cooling but I never did taste the wort (I usually do).

2 weeks later, I'm packaging the beer up and upon drinking my hydro sample, sure enough, its a rather huge dill/onion flavor. There might be a tiny bit of lemon in there somewhere, but its so difficult to tell with the in-your-face dill.

This was my first time using this hop. I'm well aware that Sorachi is known to produce such flavors. But I'm also aware of their reputation for lemony awesomeness. Is there a trick to using this hop? Does it not handle the boiling well? I've read recipes where it is the only hop used so I doubt that's it. Is it the crop? If so, wouldn't we all be complaining about our Sorachi beers this year?

Maybe its the recipe. Maybe its the other ingredients in the beer that bring out the dilly nature of the hop. I don't know, but I'd really like to figure it out and wonder if anyone has done any research/test brewing.

Here was my recipe for the "Ace BPA". This was a 2gal batch.

3 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)
1 lbs Wheat Malt, Dark (9.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)
6.00 g Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
0.45 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)
10.00 g Tettnang [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min
10.00 g Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min
5.00 g Tettnang [4.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min
10.00 g Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min
1.0 pkg Belgian Ardennes (Wyeast Labs #3522)

 

[brewbeerry]

i feel your pain. i just bottled an american wheat this morning with late sorachi ace additions- also first time using the hop. The hydrometer sample before priming sugar was all dill and sourness. i had some leftover AFTER bottling that tasted better (but not by much). I am really hoping it smoothes out and see some actual lemon come through. i also drank the sample at 73F so that probably didnt help my opinion out..

 

[Bisco_Ben]

I have made a sorachi saison twice now and when I tasted the first bottle of my first batch I definitely noticed a whole lot of dill and very little lemon. I feel like with time the dill faded a bit and I was left with a more balanced dill/lemon flavor and aroma. Certainly less lemon than I remember Brooklyns Sorachi Ace being, but i was happy to see that the dill had faded a bit.

 

[ghpeel]

Something is definitely different between the "lemony" descriptor and the "dill" flavor that's getting reported. I've never used it but a friend brewed a Sorachi Ace smash and it was all dill. Oddly, it wasn't bad or anything, but the dill was unmistakable.

 

[drainbamage]

I just used it in a dry-hop and got the dill flavor, and more lemongrass than lemon zest. I used only 1 oz. so that the dill wouldn't be too overpowering if it did come through. I had considered doing a single-hop with SA, but I'm glad I decided against. I think it would've been too much.

 

[bnilguy]

I made an all sorachi wheat. And yep. Dill bomb. It's turned into a novelty beer where I ask people 'what do you taste' beer. Thinking it would be nice to make a beer batter for fish haha. I use my garlic onion bomb summit for an ipa based BBQ sauce. Works great!

 

[Hitokiri]

Well I take comfort in knowing I'm not the only one at least. It certainly seems to be more of a crop thing than a recipe thing though. I've heard about other hops having this "bad crop" issue including columbus and summit. Is there something the homebrewer can do to ensure the quality/source of one's hops? I hate to write off a type of hop forever just because of one bad batch, but its kind of hard not to.

bnilguy, I like the food idea!

 

[drainbamage]

Well I take comfort in knowing I'm not the only one at least. It certainly seems to be more of a crop thing than a recipe thing though. I've heard about other hops having this "bad crop" issue including columbus and summit. Is there something the homebrewer can do to ensure the quality/source of one's hops? I hate to write off a type of hop forever just because of one bad batch, but its kind of hard not to.

bnilguy, I like the food idea!

Buying from a different distributor maybe, although I don't know if there is a way to trace things back to one farm or another. Not to mention that certain specialty hops like Amarillo are only grown by one farm.