After breaking into all-grain brewing about 6 months ago, I decided to enter my first local competition. I brewed a double IPA and my score averaged out at 28.25, with the individual judges scoring it at 31, 28, 29, and 25. I was pretty pleased with the first 3 scores, and was really shooting for anything in the high 20's/low 30's, but was disappointed with that score of 25. This judge detected some oxidation and diacetyl, suggesting that I didn't keep it in the primary long enough. Another helpful comment was to increase my oxidation before pitching. Coincidentally, this was the last batch I did before I bought the William's oxygenation stone. Overall, though, I'm pleased with the results, and I'm glad that I got some helpful feedback. For a double IPA, some judges noted that it could use more hops. I added a ton of late hops as a 5 minute addition, did a large hopstand, and did a large dry hop in two stages. When I first bottled this, I tasted it flat and thought that it was one of the best hoppy beers I've ever tasted, just gushing with hop flavor. After conditioning in the bottle for 3 weeks, I tasted it and was like, "meh." What gives?
First competition results
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ObsidianJester
Well-Known Member
My own observations with using similar brewing methods is much like your own. Some of it is just the fact that hops fade quickly. The other aspect I picked up on is when bottles are on the higher end of the carbonation spectrum they seem to loose more of that hop flavor to me.
The next experiments I'll make on it is to switch to more whole cone hops and not use so much of hop pellets to hit my hop stand targets.
The next experiments I'll make on it is to switch to more whole cone hops and not use so much of hop pellets to hit my hop stand targets.
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