Disappointed with simcoe in a neipa

[beervoid]

Just kegged a neipa with 3.7oz simcoe and 2.5oz mosaic cryo dry hop. Came out very shallow.
Mosaic is almost nowhere to be found.
Simcoe is just giving me some grassy piness with a very soft peachy note that overshadowd mosaic even though there was more mosaic.

The pellets smelled fine but with that ratio of mosaic I was expecting more fruity goodness.
Seems simcoe doesnt really work well if you are looking for fruity and tropical.

How was your experience with simcoe?

 

[bierhaus15]

There are many other things to consider, but generally Simcoe has become fruitier in the past few years. Hop growers are harvesting Simcoe earlier and many lots now showcase a really nice pineapple juiciness.

You may want to give the beer more time for the flavors to mellow and round out, it can be hard to get defined hop character when the beer is young or there are lots of yeast/solids still in suspension. Also, while ~6 oz is not a huge DH, typically greater DH amounts results in less hop definition, as the individual oil character becomes overshadowed by things like non-isomerized alpha, polyphenols, oxidized beta acids, ect.

 

[IslandLizard]

Are you dry hopping in a keg, right now?

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

There's a local brewery that uses simcoe with mosaic in a NEIPA that is simply spectacular. I've tried to reproduce it and had very little success. I've just started experimenting with a different way of blending hops after reading an article and the results are promising.

When using a blend of hops in the past, I decided on a ratio (say 33% hop A and 67% hop B) and simply applied that ratio at each stage (i.e. FO, WP, DH). Lately I've been working with a different approach where I use one hop in the boil/WP and the other in the DH. I'm finding that I get a much better separation of flavors and each comes through more fully. I did one with citra only as a DH with El Dorado in the WP and the result was really, really good.

The current is a one-sided "collaboration" with Sierra Nevada. I bought the Sierra Nevada Resiliance kit which was a fund-raiser for victims of the campfire wildfire. I tweaked the recipe to drop IBUs and used a hopping process more like a NEIPA. It has centennial and cascade hops and I'm adding some Galaxy and Citra in the DH phase.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I think Simcoe is grossly overrated, but I am not one to love the "dank" quality it brings (I'm not a pot smoker).
Try Azacca next time. Loads of tropical fruit without the dankness that Simcoe and Galaxy can bring.

 

[Sbe2]

Other Half just put out an all Simcoe DDH Double NEIPA that was straight up pineapple. I used to use Simcoe for a WCIPA, not thinking it would be good for a NEIPA. This beer has changed my thinking. Also, I think they used Simcoe CRYO hops.

@beervoid How are your other NEIPAs? It could be process or just the hops you had weren't all that good.

 

[bobeer]

I just kicked a keg of APA that I thought had very little hop character but everyone who tried it said it was a hop bomb. I think my tastes just get used to the hops.
Did you bottle or keg your beer? If you kegged it you can always add more hops until it's where you like it. You can sort of do the same with bottled beer if you have pellet hops and don't mind re-capping the bottles. You can pour over the shoulder and keep most of the hop trub out of your glass. Just put a few pellets in the bottled beer and recap then chill for a few days before opening. I've done this with Miller lite to test out different hop strains without committing to a whole batch of beer with a hop I've never had before. It worked pretty well.

 

[Jag75]

My DH consisted of
1oz Amarillo
1 oz Simcoe
2 oz Citra
2 oz Mosaic

To me I get a tad of bitterness with big juicy flavor and smell. I whirpooled with hops at 170 as well so that could make a difference.

 

[beervoid]

Ill get back to all replies. Just edited my post. I used 2.5oz cryo dry hop. So the mosaic to simcoe ratio was quiet high.

 

[beervoid]

There are many other things to consider, but generally Simcoe has become fruitier in the past few years. Hop growers are harvesting Simcoe earlier and many lots now showcase a really nice pineapple juiciness.

You may want to give the beer more time for the flavors to mellow and round out, it can be hard to get defined hop character when the beer is young or there are lots of yeast/solids still in suspension. Also, while ~6 oz is not a huge DH, typically greater DH amounts results in less hop definition, as the individual oil character becomes overshadowed by things like non-isomerized alpha, polyphenols, oxidized beta acids, ect.

I try to use as much cryo as possible usually to avoid this problem and be able to dry hop more.
I was just pretty blown away how much simcoe seemed to have muted my mosaic.

 

[beervoid]

Are you dry hopping in a keg, right now?

Yes but I transferred off the yeast and dry hops after about 2 days to a purged keg.

 

[beervoid]

There's a local brewery that uses simcoe with mosaic in a NEIPA that is simply spectacular. I've tried to reproduce it and had very little success. I've just started experimenting with a different way of blending hops after reading an article and the results are promising.

When using a blend of hops in the past, I decided on a ratio (say 33% hop A and 67% hop B) and simply applied that ratio at each stage (i.e. FO, WP, DH). Lately I've been working with a different approach where I use one hop in the boil/WP and the other in the DH. I'm finding that I get a much better separation of flavors and each comes through more fully. I did one with citra only as a DH with El Dorado in the WP and the result was really, really good.

The current is a one-sided "collaboration" with Sierra Nevada. I bought the Sierra Nevada Resiliance kit which was a fund-raiser for victims of the campfire wildfire. I tweaked the recipe to drop IBUs and used a hopping process more like a NEIPA. It has centennial and cascade hops and I'm adding some Galaxy and Citra in the DH phase.

Funny you mention that combo. I've been playing around with cheaper hops on the hotside.
This particular beer had centennial and cascade in the last 10min boil and as wp additions.
I then dry hopped with a simcoe and mosaic.

Im trying to figure out if those spendy hops are really neccesary on the hotside.
So far havent been very successfull. The beers turn out good but from my memory my best where always with the more expensive hops in both hot and cold side.
Still need to make a side by side experiment.

How did this beer turn out vs lets say a citra and galaxy hot and coldside beer if you have any references?

 

[beervoid]

I think Simcoe is grossly overrated, but I am not one to love the "dank" quality it brings (I'm not a pot smoker).
Try Azacca next time. Loads of tropical fruit without the dankness that Simcoe and Galaxy can bring.

I did a mosaic azzacca just prior. It was good and pretty much like you describe. It struck me as a lighter less pungent version of citra

 

[beervoid]

Other Half just put out an all Simcoe DDH Double NEIPA that was straight up pineapple. I used to use Simcoe for a WCIPA, not thinking it would be good for a NEIPA. This beer has changed my thinking. Also, I think they used Simcoe CRYO hops.

@beervoid How are your other NEIPAs? It could be process or just the hops you had weren't all that good.

Ive done over 50 neipas of the same grist slowly tweaking it and I can say im pretty happy with most of them. Some where outstanding (the ones with the most expensive hops)
Im pretty sure its not my process but this was the first time I used simcoe and was expecting more fruity goodness from it.
Might get some simcoe cryo for a next try.

 

[beervoid]

I just kicked a keg of APA that I thought had very little hop character but everyone who tried it said it was a hop bomb. I think my tastes just get used to the hops.
Did you bottle or keg your beer? If you kegged it you can always add more hops until it's where you like it. You can sort of do the same with bottled beer if you have pellet hops and don't mind re-capping the bottles. You can pour over the shoulder and keep most of the hop trub out of your glass. Just put a few pellets in the bottled beer and recap then chill for a few days before opening. I've done this with Miller lite to test out different hop strains without committing to a whole batch of beer with a hop I've never had before. It worked pretty well.

I do kegs only and im very carefull about my DO's so I would prefer to not open any beer to add more hops after its done.

 

[beervoid]

My DH consisted of
1oz Amarillo
1 oz Simcoe
2 oz Citra
2 oz Mosaic

To me I get a tad of bitterness with big juicy flavor and smell. I whirpooled with hops at 170 as well so that could make a difference.

It might be that cause I used centennial and cascade only in the kettle I missed out on some juicyness... But from my research to get fruit of out simcoe you want to use it as dry hop only to squeeze tropical out of it.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I did a mosaic azzacca just prior. It was good and pretty much like you describe. It struck me as a lighter less pungent version of citra

Yeah, I started using Azacca as a sub for Galaxy because I was getting a lot of saturated dankness from Galaxy.
I did a NEIPA that was Azacca, Bravo, and Citra (ABC), and it was pure pineapple juice.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Funny you mention that combo. I've been playing around with cheaper hops on the hotside.
This particular beer had centennial and cascade in the last 10min boil and as wp additions.
I then dry hopped with a simcoe and mosaic.

Im trying to figure out if those spendy hops are really neccesary on the hotside.
So far havent been very successfull. The beers turn out good but from my memory my best where always with the more expensive hops in both hot and cold side.
Still need to make a side by side experiment.

How did this beer turn out vs lets say a citra and galaxy hot and coldside beer if you have any references?

Which beer? If you're asking about the centennial/cascade/Galaxy tweak from the Resiliance IPA...I don't know yet. I just dropped the first dry hop last night and won't be kegging for about a week or so. I'm not sure it'll be the best proving ground with 1.25 lbs of crystal 60. I don't normally put any crystal in my IPAs. Also, it will be quite a bit lower gravity than the recipe calls for. They pre-milled the grains and my conversion efficiency was horrible. My OG was about 7 points low.

 

[bobeer]

I do kegs only and im very carefull about my DO's so I would prefer to not open any beer to add more hops after its done.

Sorry, but what is DO's?

I see you said you transferred after only dryhopping for 2 days? IMO that's not a very long dryhop and perhaps more of the "juice" you're looking for could have been extracted if the beer had more time to pull it out of the hops? I know you say you have a good process down but it's just something to consider.

FWIW- If oxygen is what you're worried about.... I pretty much have only kegged for the past 5 years or so and if you purge your keg of the gas that's in there, and have the hops ready to toss in, there will still be a blanket of c02 in the head-space of the keg. Very little oxygen should get in there. Plus you'll do another purge with c02 once the keg is sealed back up again. No muss no fuss. At least that's been my experience, anyway. Good luck.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Sorry, but what is DO's?

I see you said you transferred after only dryhopping for 2 days? IMO that's not a very long dryhop and perhaps more of the "juice" you're looking for could have been extracted if the beer had more time to pull it out of the hops? I know you say you have a good process down but it's just something to consider.

FWIW- If oxygen is what you're worried about.... I pretty much have only kegged for the past 5 years or so and if you purge your keg of the gas that's in there, and have the hops ready to toss in, there will still be a blanket of c02 in the head-space of the keg. Very little oxygen should get in there. Plus you'll do another purge with c02 once the keg is sealed back up again. No muss no fuss. At least that's been my experience, anyway. Good luck.

I believe DO is dissolved oxygen. Many go to extreme measures to ensure no disolved oxygen in the mash water and mash and as close to zero exposure as soon as fermentation begins.

 

[Sbe2]

Ive done over 50 neipas of the same grist slowly tweaking it and I can say im pretty happy with most of them. Some where outstanding (the ones with the most expensive hops)
Im pretty sure its not my process but this was the first time I used simcoe and was expecting more fruity goodness from it.
Might get some simcoe cryo for a next try.

I figured u were a seasoned NEIPA brewer.

I am interested in your results because I have Simcoe in my next hop order(been 3 yrs since I have used it). Keep us posted if you try to use it again

 

[beervoid]

Sorry, but what is DO's?

I see you said you transferred after only dryhopping for 2 days? IMO that's not a very long dryhop and perhaps more of the "juice" you're looking for could have been extracted if the beer had more time to pull it out of the hops? I know you say you have a good process down but it's just something to consider.

FWIW- If oxygen is what you're worried about.... I pretty much have only kegged for the past 5 years or so and if you purge your keg of the gas that's in there, and have the hops ready to toss in, there will still be a blanket of c02 in the head-space of the keg. Very little oxygen should get in there. Plus you'll do another purge with c02 once the keg is sealed back up again. No muss no fuss. At least that's been my experience, anyway. Good luck.

Research shows less then 12 hours when rousing and less then 24hours otherwise.
I do it a bit longer for possible hop creep and diacetyl rest. In my experience more time isnt beneficial for juicyness but it might pull some more pine and earth notes for wc style ipas?

DO is dissolved oxygen.
Ive done the purging transfers before and it works but my beer quality and life went up after spunding and naturally carbing. Especially the juicy flavours seem to rapidly escape if you dont keep DOs minimal. Im not worrying about do hotside DO's btw.

 

[beervoid]

I figured u were a seasoned NEIPA brewer.

I am interested in your results because I have Simcoe in my next hop order(been 3 yrs since I have used it). Keep us posted if you try to use it again

I still got more then a pound of pellets lying around and not giving up on this hop yet.
I can see it working in lesser proportions perhaps at 2oz or less with another lighter hop and then loaded pungent varieties.

If you use them please report back here.
It would nice if homebrewtalk had a section dedicated to hop flavours.. I only saw growing.