Homegrown hops - Flavourless ?

jjones17 · Oct 23, 2010

Hello everyone,

This is my first year hop harvest from Cascade and Chinook bines. I made an IPA with about 60 IBUS. It is a 4 gallon batch, I used about 2 ounces of my homegrown cascades starting at the 20 minute point until flame out.

For my primary IBUS, I used a high alpha bittering hop that I purchased from a local brewer, I use it all the time. This way i was not really going to lose out much if my hops had a low AA%.

Anyway, I was going for a strong cascade flavor/aroma. I bottled the batch yesterday after 3 weeks on the primary. I used notty for my yeast. There is absolutely NO cascade flavour or aroma there. It tasted fairly malty (somewhat yeasty still my attenuation was higher than expected so I need a good 3 weeks botttle conditioning), and there was a pronounced bitterness for certain. But no cascade goodness. None. Zippo.

The wort had HUGE cascade aroma, and during fermentation the co2 from my airlock smelled SOOOOO heavenly like cascade. I dried my hops for three days on screens, tested the weight etc.

Has anyone experienced this with homegrown hops? Anyone know what happened? Should I expect this from all my homegrowns? I want to try another batch using chinook/cascades - but I am afraid no flavor will exist either. This is terrible

RCCOLA · Oct 23, 2010

You just need to add more and then do a dry hop. 2 ozs. of flavor hops for an IPA is not much.
I just looked at my last APA and I added 5.5ozs. from 20mins. to 0, and then 1.5 ozs. dry hop in a 7 gal batch.

So, the rule for huge hop flavor/aroma is huge additions. Also, dry hopping adds so much more to hoppy beers that leaving them out is not an option for me.

jjones17 · Oct 24, 2010

I just figured I should have tasted SOME flavor of the cascade, as opposed to zero. I have made a few IPAs using about that many flavoring additions, and they turned out awesome. Though, I have always used pellet hops. Is there a difference between whole/pellet when it comes to flavor/aroma?

Yooper · Oct 24, 2010

When you picked the hops, were they perfectly ripe? When you dried them, did you notice that they smelled really good?

jjones17 · Oct 25, 2010

Yeah they smelled awesome when I dried them. They smelled awesome when I picked them too. Based on all the info I could find, they were ready. They felt 'papery', and were no longer sort of 'hard' in the center. A few had started to brown a bit also. After being frozen, thawed, the smell is much less - but I think that is just the way frozen then thawed hops smell.

Today, I am trying another batch - this time an APA using all the rest of my cascades and all my chinook. 2 additions, one at 20 min one at 7 min - as well as a FWH. I have 1.5 ounces in each addition. Hopefully I can taste what I am looking for this time

jjones17 · Oct 26, 2010

I tasted the first batch again - starting to detect a very slight Cascade flavor. Its faint, though. However, the beer is actually awesome. Its nice and bitter with a good malt profile. It tastes closer to most commercial IPA's than most of my 'enamel stripping' ipas with huge hop flavor.

Hoping the new APA has more flavor - we shall see