Got no head retention or hop quality in my IPA. Why?

[BigHead33]

I brewed the octane IPA kit from Midwest. The brew came out as a watery pale ale. It has absolutely no head and no hop quality of any kind. Believe it or not it is not bad it's just not what it should be. This was an all grain brew done with single infusion mash. We followed the instructions to a t. Only difference is we soaked the wood chips in burboun before adding them. We used dry saf ale s-04 and got a very vigorous fermentation. We used two packages per 5 gallon fermenter (10 gal batch). Any suggestions much appreciated

 

[HeadyKilowatt]

What was your mash temp? Low mash temp could give you a more watery beer and affect head retention.

 

[iheartcraftbeer]

Did you bottle it with no (or too little) priming sugar?

 

[arnoldk2]

What was your original gravity and final gravity?

 

[Whattawort]

What were your hop addition times? Also, did you have the grains pre-milled or did you mill them yourself? I've found that pre-milled grains from MWS is barely milled at all. I usually run them through the corona a time or two or beat the crap out of them (roll/crush) with a rolling pin if I'm doing a PM.

 

[inhousebrew]

Well, just looking at that recipe it shouldn't have a ton of hop aroma and/or flavor with only one ounce of US Goldings in the final 15 minutes. The two ounces at 60 and one ounce at 30 are strictly bittering hops and won't give you any hop flavor. Sounds like a good beer, just more of a Enlish style IPA with less hop character than its American counterpart. If you want more flavor and aroma look for a kit with more hop additions from 15-0 minutes and then some dry hop additions to top it off.

As for the watery quality I'm wondering what the final gravity was? The lower you got the less body you will have.

 

[BigHead33]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Ok...we mashed at 150 degrees for 60 minutes which was in the range on the directions. We didn't bottle it, we kegged it. We did not use any priming sugar as we keg and artificially carbonate our brews. I dont have my notes with me right now, but I remember the OG was low and the FG was way too low. We milled the grain ourselves. We have a good mill and i'm pretty sure the grain was crushed sufficiently. We added the hops exactly at the scheduled times in the directions.

I have noticed the problem of low body and low FG's on our last couple brews, but this one is the worst so far. We have since brewed a porter which i just kegged and that too had a FG half of what it should be. We have been using dry yeast and have been getting crazy fermentations (have to use a blow offf). Could this be the cause? Or is it simply too low mash temp? I still cant explain the lack of any bittering quality.

 

[copyright1997]

I use dry yeast almost all the time without issue. 150 is a bit on the low side and will result in higher octane beer, with less body.

What are the grains in the recipe, does it use any carapils or flaked wheat or other to help with head retention?

 

[BigHead33]

No the grain bill did not include any adjuncts. So I should not be concerned about the heavy fermentation? I was thinking maybe too much sugars were being fermented making a low body.

What would a proper mash temp be? 154?

 

[EvilDeadAsh]

You mention in the OP that you are A) using a kit and B) doing a 10G batch. I don't intend to insult you, but wanted to make sure the obvious was being covered - you are using 2 kits, right?

That said - do you know what your efficiency was?

For other posters, the recipe from MWS is as follows:

12.5 lb 2-row
.5 lb C40

2 oz Cascade @ 60
1 oz Willamette @ 30
1 oz Kent Goldings @ 2

Mash at 150

Should yield:
OG 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.018
ABV: 6.18%
IBU: 62.79
SRM: 6.07

edit: removed something i pasted incorrectly

 

[EvilDeadAsh]

No the grain bill did not include any adjuncts. So I should not be concerned about the heavy fermentation? I was thinking maybe too much sugars were being fermented making a low body.

What would a proper mash temp be? 154?

I believe the opposite is true.
Higher mash = more complex sugars = fuller body
Lower mash = less sugars = lighter body

For an IPA, I would imagine low-medium body is preferred, so you should be mashing 150-152ish

 

[mredge73]

Check your thermometer and make sure it is on target. Boil some water and make sure she is on target and then test the low end with ice water.
If you were at 148 or below then you had high fermentables creating the low body and dry finish; FG lower than 1.010?
With the dry beer your hop bitterness should be showing up but without the late additions you aren't going to get the IIPA taste and smell.

 

[mredge73]

I believe the opposite is true.
Higher mash = more complex sugars = fuller body
Lower mash = less sugars = lighter body

For an IPA, I would imagine low-medium body is preferred, so you should be mashing 150-152ish

Lower mash = more simple (fermentable) sugars = lighter body

 

[johngaltsmotor]

and the lower mash temp giving more fermentable sugars means you will end up with a large gravity drop and a lower FG than otherwise expected

Big blowoff can take some of the proteins with it that aid in head retention, but it's likely the low mash temp responsible.

 

[eastoak]

I brewed the octane IPA kit from Midwest. The brew came out as a watery pale ale. It has absolutely no head and no hop quality of any kind. Believe it or not it is not bad it's just not what it should be. This was an all grain brew done with single infusion mash. We followed the instructions to a t. Only difference is we soaked the wood chips in burboun before adding them. We used dry saf ale s-04 and got a very vigorous fermentation. We used two packages per 5 gallon fermenter (10 gal batch). Any suggestions much appreciated

two pack of dry yeast per fermentor might have been over pitching and could have over attenuated the beer, it's happened to me when i over pitched.

 

[inhousebrew]

two pack of dry yeast per fermentor might have been over pitching and could have over attenuated the beer, it's happened to me when i over pitched.

Over pitching does not change fermentability of your wort. If you pitch the correct amount of healthy yeast it should chew through everything and pitching even something ridiculous like two extra gallons of yeast shouldn't change the FG. There's only so much fermentable material, extra yeast won't really change that.

 

[Dan]

Actually it was just the right pitch according to MrMalty. Two 11.5 gram packs of yeast for 10 gallons of 1.060

I'm willing to bet as others said it was the low mash temp and maybe some thermometer error.

 

[BigHead33]

Haha that is a legitimate question, but yes I did use 2 kits. If I mashed at the called for temperature I feel like that can't explain the light body and low FG completely. I feel like i'm missing something. Is it possible my sparge water is not hot enough? I heat the HL to 170 but by the time it drains down I'm sure it's not as hot. I also notice the temp of my mashtun does not go up much during sparging. BTW I do NOT do a mash out

 

[inhousebrew]

Mashouts not necessary. If your batch sparging you can do a semi-mashout though just by adding water around 180 to get your grainbed up to 165*. Also, if batch sparging (which I'm not sure you specified what you do, or at least I forgot and am not looking it up) the water temps not really going to make a difference.

 

[BigHead33]

we had two thermometers in the mashtun. I digital and regular. They both said 150 so we were confident on that. I think we might try going up a couple of degrees next time and switch to liquid yeast. I like the dry because all you have to do is rehydrate it that day as opposed to a starter the day before with liquid, but maybe all that blowoff is giving away valuable proteins

 

[BigHead33]

Mashouts not necessary. If your batch sparging you can do a semi-mashout though just by adding water around 180 to get your grainbed up to 165*. Also, if batch sparging (which I'm not sure you specified what you do, or at least I forgot and am not looking it up) the water temps not really going to make a difference.

I'm fly sparging. I'm thinking its possible there is more conversion going on during the sparge (more than what is wanted) until the wort is finally heated in the kettle much later

 

[copyright1997]

You mention in the OP that you are A) using a kit and B) doing a 10G batch. I don't intend to insult you, but wanted to make sure the obvious was being covered - you are using 2 kits, right?

That said - do you know what your efficiency was?

For other posters, the recipe from MWS is as follows:

12.5 lb 2-row
.5 lb C40

2 oz Cascade @ 60
1 oz Willamette @ 30
1 oz Kent Goldings @ 2

Mash at 150

Should yield:
OG 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.018
ABV: 6.18%
IBU: 62.79
SRM: 6.07

edit: removed something i pasted incorrectly

With this recipe and a mash temperature on the low side (150), I would expect a thinner body, lower FG result (lower than the 1.018 estimated).

For giggles, I plugged this kit (2x) into beersmith, 10 gallon batch and forced the mash temperature to 150. It estimates FG at 1.013.

I think if this was redone with a mash temperature a couple of degree's higher (152) plus a bit of carapils or flaked wheat or flaked oats or flaked barley would make a big difference. (Yes, I know a lot of people poo-poo carapils but I like it within reason.)

In general, these factors can all influence head retention:
Grist composition
Mash procedure
Boil dynamics
Wort chilling
Serving procedure
Serving apparatus

 

[BigHead33]

Thanks again for the feedback. We have the blickman 3 tier system. We use a 10 gal igloo cooler with a false bottom for a mashtun. We use a homemade copper coil wort chiller. It takes a good while to chill the 10 gallon batch. Does any of this raise a red flag to you for causing poor head retention?

 

[arnoldk2]

Do you know what type of water you are using? Using hard or soft water will effect the hoppiness in the beer. I forget if hard water produces a hoppier beer but google it, that may be part of the issue. If your OG is to low then I would think your efficiency is off. It took me three brews to dial it in. Like others have said, kick up the temp a degree or two to get a better body and add carapills to get that head retention. Other than that just verify you are adding the hops that have a higher AA% to the 60 minute boil. If it is still not hoppy enough you may need to buy extra hops. also consider how the hops have been stored. Improper storage of hops can have an affect as well.

 

[BigHead33]

We are using Long Island tap water. I never got a chemical analysis on it, but I know it is on the soft side because soap comes off easy in the shower. A couple pieces of info I didn't add is that we installed a GE canister carbon filter on our system to filter out the chlorine and I noticed this problem around the same time, but im not sure if it was exactly the same time. Would the carbon filter filter out necessary hardness? I also did not add gypsum to this batch (i forgot to).

We never figured out our efficiency, but I dont see how it could be that bad because we are mashing with standard homebrew equipment and following the directions exactly. We check for conversion every time and that checks out.

We use pellet hops that are package sealed and use them immediately so I dont think its that either.

 

[copyright1997]

We never figured out our efficiency, but I dont see how it could be that bad because we are mashing with standard homebrew equipment and following the directions exactly. We check for conversion every time and that checks out.

You can calculate efficiency easily given your grain bill and resulting starting gravity. If you want, I can calculate it for you...did you use the kit grain bill (2x) listed before and what was your starting gravity level and volumes (i.e. did you hit 10 gallon).

Oh, almost forgot. You mention lack of head retention...how are you measuring this...in a glass? If so, make sure you don't have an issue with detergent residue on the glass (e.g. washed in a dishwasher).

 

[Molybedenum]

We are using Long Island tap water. I never got a chemical analysis on it, but I know it is on the soft side because soap comes off easy in the shower.

That's a feature of hard water.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/a/softwaterrinse.htm

Head retention can be related to hop content. Did you grind your grain, or was it ground for you?

 

[BigHead33]

oh i had that opposite. So we our water is on the harder side here then which wouldnt explain the lack of minerals unless the filter is filtering them out. We mill our own grain with a good mill.

I have to wait until Friday to see my notes on this batch, but I will post that info when I do. Thanks for the help