Cascade hops kinda blah

[Echofett]

Hey guys I recently got into brewing. I jumped right into all grain and I have about 7 batches under my belt. Like many I am a serious hop head and all the recipes I have made myself have been in that vein.

I have been kinda disappointed with any recipe I have formulated with cascade hops. There is just no pop to them, if you know what I mean.

Can you give me any tips on getting more from my hops in general? I just want a more up front hop punch.

I have tried using wlp001 and will be purchasing gypsum for my next batch.

But any other cool tricks I could try?

Thanks.

 

[tooldudetool]

I'm a big fan of hop steeping with my IPA's, it basically means turning off the heat at the end of the boil, chilling down to around 180F, then add your flameout hops (lots of em!) and cover and steep for 20 minutes or more at that temperature. This adds loads of aroma and flavor, without much in the way of added bitterness. I will typically just do a 60 minute addition to get all my bitterness, then no other additions except 3-5 ounces of flameout/hop steep hops. Then of course I dry hop with 3 ounces of pellets for a week... great hop character! I'm a fan of using at least 3-4 different US hop varieties in an IPA.. Simcoe, Columbus, Cascade and Centennial are my favorites, and I've really enjoyed adding a bit of Nelson Sauvin or Galaxy to the dry hop for some more tropical notes. Gypsum does help with that hop pop as well.

 

[duboman]

Maybe give us an idea of how you're using them and amounts and we can tweak it with ideas.

Also, consider your water profile and verify its conducive for hoppy beers. You might need to tweak things to get the pop you're looking for

 

[Echofett]

I have been mostly making pale ales. Trying to get a handle on the different hops and ingredients.

But even a bigger IPA I did with citra, Amarillo, cascade, centennial and magnum didn't really have a forward hop presence. It was just kinda plain.