How to get the most out of your hops?

[YOpassDAmike]

Hello,

I am a big fan of hoppy beers; therefore, I find myself brewing a lot of apa and ipa's. Generally speaking my grain bill for my apa or ipa consists of base malt and some wheat and/or Munich 10L, no crystal malt. During the boil, I usually use 5-7 ounces of hops. Generally I use a high alpha acid hop either around the 60 minute to 40 minute mark to get my desired IBU's, this usually only takes about a quarter of an ounce to achieve. Then for the rest of my ounces of hops I add them all in between the 15 minute to 0 minute mark. I mostly use dual purpose hops and aroma hops. I also dry hop with about 3 ounces of hops for about 3-5 days for a 5 gallon batch. I want to develope a big juicy ipa with the hop flavor and aroma that is presented in many of my favorite commercial examples, but my apa and ipa always come off as being dull and boring. My apa and ipa usually have faint aroma and flavor. Therefore, is there something I could be doing better, such as changing up my hop schedule or dry hopping time?

I also had a water report conducted by ward labs. I alter my water mostly with gypsum but I also do use a little calcium chloride. I like to get my sulfate level to about 250ppm for my hoppy beers. I will note that I only add gypsum or calcium cholride during the mash. I have heared of people using gypsum or calcium chloride during the boil as well. Will adding to the boil be the solution to my problem? I do a ratio of about 2 parts distilled water to 1 part tap water to cut down on bicarbonate. The tap water I do uae I treat with a cabdean tablet to kill of the chlorine . Using gypsum and calcium chloride, I get all of my minerials in the recommended range for beer.

In the past I have tried doing a hopstand with about 3 ounces of hops for 30 minutes. I would chill the wort to about 160 degrees and then perform the hopstand. Doing the hopstand was not the solution to my problem, it didnt help that much.

I also want to add that when I dry hop, I ensure primary fermentation is over. Then I transfer my beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter to let any potential stuck co2 in the beer to escape. I use hop pellets for boil and dry hopping. When I dry hop with pellets, I put them in a hop sock or grain bag. I also try to submerge my hop bag with 304 stainless steel washers, but a lot of instances, I find that with time the hop bag will still float up near the surface of the beer. I think I need to get heavier washers but I do not think this will be the answer to my problem. I think heavier washers will definitely help, but I do not think it will give me that juicy/ hoppy ipa.

Just to provide a little more info that may help, I always use a US-05 dry yeast to ferment. Are my methods solid? Do I jist need to increase my ounces of hops? Of I increase my hop usage, will my beer get vegetile?

Any advice or help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Tastes are subjective, what is dull hop flavor to you might be a hop bomb to someone else. Since you're treating your water properly, I would say it's most likely you just need more late addition hops. You said you use 5-7oz in the boil, with only a tiny fraction coming from bittering charge. That means you're at 6+ oz of late addition hops. That's pretty good, and combined with your dry hop I have a hard time believing it's as dull as you are perceiving. I would suggest upping the hop schedule further, and also what type of hops are you using? That makes a big difference. There's usually a reason stuff like Galaxy/Mosaic/Citra cost $25/lb compared to the cheaper hops.

 

[YOpassDAmike]

I know everything I have read and done it seems like I should be getting good, strong, and long lasting hop flavor and aroma but I don't. Many people that try my apa and ipa's say the same thing off not being to hop forward. I have also enter 3 different hoppy apa or ipa's that were relatively fresh at the time of submission into AHA competitions. All 3 beers which multiple judges reviewed had made comments about the lack of hop presence. I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

I use a lot of citra, mosaic, galaxy, cascade, amarillo, centennial, falconers flight, crystal, and simcoe hops in a lot of my beers. My homebrew store were I buy my hops from always has fresh smelling/ potent hops. I store my hops in the freezer and then take them out a few hours before using them to let them warm up a bit.

I love the tree house, 3floyds, pipeworks, half acre, revolution type apa and ipa's. These are the breweries I would like to mimic, I know easier said then done.

I know for a hop schedule, a lot of people say adding hops between the 30 minute to 15 minute mark off the boil will be for flavor and anything later in the boil will be for aroma. I do not do many hop additions in the 30 minute to 15 minute range, could this be my problem to lack of flavor. Most of my hop additions are during the last 15 minutes of the boil.

I appreciate the response and feedback, if it wouldn't be any trouble could you post a specific hop schedule you have had sucess with in the past? Also should I up my sulfate higher than 250ppm? Should I add some gypsum to the boil or is just adding to the mash sufficient enough. Thank you.

 

[LarMoeCur]

Run a search on first wort hopping. FWH has added a ton of aroma to my ipas.

 

[tylerb]

No sure answers, but some suggestions. Try playing with the temp of your hopstand. Maybe 170 or 180 will get you more mileage.

Also don't secondary. Oxygen is going to wipe out all that flavor and aroma you're trying to get. When the yeast starts out it eats up all the oxygen from the wort. Transferring to a secondary is going to expose your beer to a ton of oxygen again after the yeast has done all the work of getting rid of it.

Similarly, you could try dry hopping at the tail end of fermentation. Grind up a few ounces of pellet hops and toss them into the primary. I've read some suggesting that the still active yeast will clean up the O2 introduced when adding the hops and the fermenting churns them around.

Can you cold crash? If so, don't bother with the hop sock. Let the beer have as much contact with the hops as possible. Just cold crash.

Do you keg or bottle? If you keg save your hop sock for that to add a second dry hop to the keg. Thoroughly purge the keg.

 

[YOpassDAmike]

Thanks for the advice, unfortunately cold crashing isn't an option and I bottle, at the moment kegging is not an option. Should I grind up my hop pellets when I dry hop, they seem to break up while sitting in the beer for 3-5 days anyways.

 

[tylerb]

No, if I couldn't cold crash I think I'd stick with the sock. The grinding is just to let them spread out in the beer quicker. But if they're stuck in a sock you're right, the pellets will dissolve anyway. Could try shaking the fermenter a few times a day to get some beer moving over the hops.

The bottling may be part of your problem. Be very careful to limit oxygen exposure. Make sure to fill your bottling bucket with a long tube that reaches the bottom of the bucket. Avoid any splashing. Try oxygen absorbing caps bottle caps.

And hop flavor/aroma fade fast. So it's fading while you're waiting for your bottles to carbonate. Open test bottles and as soon as the beer is carbonated get it cold and keep it cold.

In general giving a beer a little time to clean up in the fermentor is a good thing. But with an ipa I try to get that thing fermented and carbonated as quickly as possible. Two weeks in primary then bottle. Picking a yeast that ferments quick and flocculates well will help get you to the bottle quicker. You just have to be careful about temperature, if you get any off flavors you're not giving the yeast any time to clear them up.