Falconer's Flight dilemma

[chocotaco]

Problem: I want to brew a Falconer's Flight beer, but I hate pellet hops with the fire of a thousand suns.

Solution #1: Get over it and use pellet hops, ya pansy!
Solution #2: Figure out what's in the FF blend, use those leaf hops and nobody's the wiser.
Solution #3: Forget about it and brew something else, man.

Thoughts?

 

[BUCKNUTS]

Option1 & 3 are your only viable options. I brewed a red ipa with falconers flight and citra and it was delicious so i vote for #1.

 

[motorneuron]

Pardon my impertinence, but clearly #1. What's the big deal? You don't have to use pellets all the time. You don't have to use exclusively FF hops in this beer, either; you can throw in some whole leaf hops too. Unless pellets just don't work on your system for some reason, or something.

Or, if you want to trick yourself, just use some fall leaves from your yard and pretend those are hops, but meanwhile add in the pellets.

 

[chocotaco]

I know, I should get over it, but I just hate the gunk. I'm not equipped yet to do a whirlpool/drain so it pretty much all ends up in the fermenter and I guess that's not a big deal but it bothers me. I haven't ever looked back since I switched to leaf hops and my beer has really improved (subjectively, confirmation bias perhaps). But I miss out on fun blends like FF and Zythos.

I'm hoping to save up for a nicer kettle so maybe I'll choose Hidden Option 4 and table this recipe until that time. I guess I was just hoping someone had some secret intel on what goes into Falconer's Flight.

 

[midfielder5]

Leaf hopping with Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe and Citra may get you "close". I haven't done it but those high-demand hops are generally what the blend is trying to reproduce.

 

[chocotaco]

Interesting - just so happens I have a pound each of Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra pre-ordered from this year's harvest. Maybe I'll pick up some Centennial as well and mess around with them.

 

[Indian_villager]

Buy one of those cheap nylon hop bags from your homebrew store. And use that to hold your hops. $1.50 solution.

 

[midfielder5]

Sure, google around to confirm; I was going by memory re the hops. Of course we don't know the % mix, and it may also say "experimental" hops so you could use the hot new hops (names are escaping me atm).

 

[mooshimanx]

Problem: I want to brew a Falconer's Flight beer, but I hate pellet hops with the fire of a thousand suns.

Solution #1: Get over it and use pellet hops, ya pansy!
Solution #2: Figure out what's in the FF blend, use those leaf hops and nobody's the wiser.
Solution #3: Forget about it and brew something else, man.

Thoughts?

Its a proprietary blend. The chance of you finding out is practically nil unless you have a lot of dirt on some people who work for HopUnion. (If you do, tell them to send me some Amarillo rhizomes.)

Also, its not actually that hard to avoid gunk in the fermenter, just be patient with letting the break/hopgunk settle after you give it a big stir, I'm talking like 30 minutes cooled and sitting in the kettle, then use your autosiphon to get it to the fermenter. (I usually just dump it into my Ale Pails through a sanitized paint strainer bag, which does the exact same thing.)

 

[BeerGrylls]

Option #1. FF gave me a final product that I don't think I could have gotten otherwise. However, in my circumstance, my FF PA tasted much better after a month than it did fresh. It was brash at first. Don't worry about hop gunk, just use some whirlfloc / irish moss, and then cold crash and/or gelatin if it's still not clear enough at bottling time.

 

[BUCKNUTS]

Its a proprietary blend. The chance of you finding out is practically nil unless you have a lot of dirt on some people who work for HopUnion.

This is why i feel like only option 1 & 3 are viable you will never know what hops exactly at what percentages exactly are present in FF hopvlend just use the paint strainer method already mentioned it'll keep majority of hops out of the fermenter

 

[joelrapp]

Buy one of those cheap nylon hop bags from your homebrew store. And use that to hold your hops. $1.50 solution.

Do what he said and stop being dumb. I brew a DIPA w/ FF, Citra and Amarillo - 13oz of pellet hops in a 10g batch. The nylon bag hold it all. They're great hops by the way, but nothing you can't achieve with all of your North American 'C' hops.

 

[PastorofMuppets]

if you just dont like gunk from the pellets that is such a easy problem to solve.

 

[chocotaco]

Buy one of those cheap nylon hop bags from your homebrew store. And use that to hold your hops. $1.50 solution.

I've done that with the finest strainer bag I could find, and it still doesn't contain the worst of the sludge (at least in my experience). Plus the hop resin never comes out of the bag after several washings which also bothers me.

The real issue might be that I am undiagnosed OCD... it would explain a lot of things.

 

[Brewsncrabs]

I just brewed a clone of Green Flash West Coast IPA that has 5 ozs of hops in boil. All pellets went in 2 bags and my fermenter has some beautiful clean yeast in the bottom. Get a bag if it bothers you. Let it settle and siphon away!

 

[chocotaco]

OK, one more thing then I'll let this thread die.

I don't have a valved kettle and I don't autosiphon when I can help it (I use CO2 to move beer around, which can't be done on any kettle I know of). So to go from kettle to fermenter I currently pour through a strainer and a funnel with a mesh bag under the funnel. This causes big problems with pellet hops - if the hops weren't contained they clog the straining apparatus, and even if they were contained the "fines" (coffee term) from the pellets get into the fermenter and I hate that - and that's probably my reason for hating them so much.

The real solution to my problem is to get a kettle with a ball valve. I'm too cheap to do it, but it's on my Christmas list so maybe some people will get me some gift cards (or even a kettle!) and then I won't hate pellet hops so much. Meantime, I'll mess around with some of the hop combos suggested since I will have copious amounts of most of them. I have a pretty good palate, so if it smells/tastes mainly like Falconer's Flight I'll be happy even if it's missing an "experimental hop" or two.

Thanks for the inputs, HBT.

 

[midfielder5]

As a final P.S., the hops I listed as suspects in FF were what the manufacturer gave as OK replacements for the hop blend (Amarillo, Simcoe, Citra) and I added Centennial, just because it seemed appropriate. cheers!

 

[motorneuron]

On the "fines" being in the carboy--for the most part, that stuff will settle to the bottom, along with the rest of the trub. In my experience, high usage of hops isn't even the main reason that my beer lacks clarity--when I have a cloudy beer, it's usually from something with the yeast or the grain bill. And there's no independent reason that I know of that a little bit of trub or hop material in the carboy will harm your beer. (In fact, IIRC, some of that stuff is helpful for early yeast nutrition.) Of course, I may be misinformed. But I don't think you really need to worry.

If it really does drive you mad, though, can't go wrong with the hop suggestions in this thread. We live in a great time for American IPA hops.