Incognito + Spectrum...Any Experiences?

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HM-2

Brewing by the seat of my pants
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Anyone got experience with the Baath-Haus Incognito and Spectrum hop products? I've managed to pick up some Sabro and Eukanot Incognito, and Citra Spectrum, and planning on using them in a hazy DIPA in the coming week. I've adapted one of my existing DIPA recipes to accommodate but could do with some advice/guidance from anyone who has previously used these products as to whether I've got quantities and timings right.

Tyrannosaurus Flex - 8.1%
OG: 1.072
FG: 1.010
EBC: 10.8
Batch Size: 23L
Brewhouse Efficiency: 78%


Grist:

AmountName% Grist
2.77KGWeyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner38
2.77KG Warminster Maris Otter38
583gCrisp Wheat Malt8
365gWeyermann CaraPils5
365gGladfield Golden Naked Oats5
292gSoft Clear Candi Sugar4
146gSimpsons Amber Malt2



Hops
AmountNameIBUUseTime
15gSimcoe T90 (13%)8Boil10m
15gAmarillo T90 (9.2%)5.7Boil10m
25gAmarillo Cryo (18.3%)5Whirlpool30m
25gSimcoe T90 (13%)3.6Whirlpool30m
15gSabro INCOGNITO (47%)7.2Whirlpool30m
50gSabro Cryo (24%)0Dry Hop3 days
50gSimcoe T90 (13%)0Dry Hop3 days
25gAmarillo Cryo (18.3%)0Dry Hop3 days
25gSimcoe Cryo (23.6%)0Dry Hop3 days
15gCitra SPECTRUM (??%)0Dry Hop3 days

Mash Steps
75 minutes @ 67°C main mash
15 minutes @ 75°C mash out

Yeast
1 pkg - White Labs WLP644

Anyone have experience of using either Incognito or Spectrum, or indeed the two in combination? Any pitfalls or things I need to watch out for?
 
Wondering the same thing as I might pick up some Incognito in my next YVH order. Reviews on their site are very positive. From their description it seems it's preferrable as whirlpool dosage, although the description says it's flowable at room temps. The line below makes me think dry hopping is a bad idea though

"INCOGNITO is flowable at room temp, but you can wrap it in a warm towel or place the jug in warm water to lower the viscosity and improve portability."
 
Both Spectrum and Incognito are flowable. I was pretty impressed with them when I used them, aside from the beer ending up a little too dry they produced some great flavours with far less hop creep than I can sometimes have in really big IPAs.

I would caution that Incognito definitely needs a hotter whirlpool than I'd usually use (70-75°C) to properly dissolve. I had a lot of very sticky resin residue in my fermenter once krausen had dropped which took a fair bit of effort to clean off.
 
Just brewed with Incognito, I dissolved it in alcohol to help it mix in the hotside.
This stuff is sticky icky, I added it during last minutes of the boil and stirred as much as I could to try and make it dissolve.
Ended up with brown/black stuff floating on the top of the wort while cooling.
After transfer there was alot of this brown gunk on the sides of the kettle.
Not sure how my conical will be cleaned afterwards.
Hopefully it's worth the extra pain of cleaning cause so far I've been more impressed with regular c02 extracts for use in the hotside, they seem to dissolve better then incognito for me.
 
This stuff is very, very sticky and messy to use as a home brewer. Following someone's advise, I poured 1 gallon of boiling hot wort into my conical fermenter and added the incognito to it. I then cooled the remaining 4 gallons of wort in the kettle before adding it to the fermenter. I am glad I did it this way because the incognito would have stuck to my copper immersion chiller and the kettle walls otherwise. Even then, the incognito did not fully dissolve and some of it stuck to the walls of the fermenter. I found that soap and water did a good job of removing it without much scrubbing.

The flavor was good, but not worth the mess in the end in my opinion. I think using Lupomax or similar hop products would be easier even if it uses more solid hop products.

I still have some left, so I may try putting it in a blender with boiling hot wort to see if I can get it to dissolve more before adding it to the fermenter. However, I also fear that the incognito will stick to the blades of the blender.
 
the thing about incognito is that if you dont prep it right, you lose alot of the "benefits" of the product.

as noted here multiple times, you really need to heat it up. warm towel is bu!!$hit. it needs to be hot. and you need a good whirlpool to get it mixed properly. DO NOT underestimate this. get it hot. because if you dont and it sinks to the bottom of your kettle you're screwed. it is super sticky. and you have trub and crap at bottom of kettle. it will create nasty goop balls if it sinks to the bottom and mixes with the trub. at that point, its worthless. alcohol could be good method, assuming you whirlpool hot enough to boil off the alcohol.
 
the thing about incognito is that if you dont prep it right, you lose alot of the "benefits" of the product.

as noted here multiple times, you really need to heat it up. warm towel is bu!!$hit. it needs to be hot. and you need a good whirlpool to get it mixed properly. DO NOT underestimate this. get it hot. because if you dont and it sinks to the bottom of your kettle you're screwed. it is super sticky. and you have trub and crap at bottom of kettle. it will create nasty goop balls if it sinks to the bottom and mixes with the trub. at that point, its worthless. alcohol could be good method, assuming you whirlpool hot enough to boil off the alcohol.
I heated it up which definately makes it more liquid AND dissolved it into alcohol, added during mutiple times in the boil with stirring it was still sticking everywhere.
Co2 extract becomes flowable too when you warm it up.
 
I heated it up which definately makes it more liquid AND dissolved it into alcohol, added during mutiple times in the boil with stirring it was still sticking everywhere.
Co2 extract becomes flowable too when you warm it up.
How did you feel about the process once you were knocking out into the fermenter? Was it all dispersed well, or did you still have some little oil globules in the wort?
 
How did you feel about the process once you were knocking out into the fermenter? Was it all dispersed well, or did you still have some little oil globules in the wort?
Oil globules on too of the wort, not alot though, and It didnt seem to be a problem in the fermenter.
 
yeah. it makes me wonder if there's no real way to get "full" dispersal. at least on homebrew level. emulsifiers are no go. homebrew pumps probably not strong enough to do the job. not sure how else you get dispersal other than with a solvent like alcohol, but even that isnt fool proof.

interesting problem
 
yeah. it makes me wonder if there's no real way to get "full" dispersal. at least on homebrew level. emulsifiers are no go. homebrew pumps probably not strong enough to do the job. not sure how else you get dispersal other than with a solvent like alcohol, but even that isnt fool proof.

interesting problem
For a big brewery heating up large quantities of extract might be troublesome so I can see how this product might have an added value as its "flowable at room temps"
But I fail to see the benefit for smaller brewing, I get better results with regular co2, judging from less mess.
 
Oil globules on too of the wort, not alot though, and It didnt seem to be a problem in the fermenter.
There's a video(I believe on Yakima's website) where the guy walks through how to use incognito and after adding it to the whirlpool he added a small amount of pellet hops, to try to grab any oily stuff floating on top.

I mimicked this, although I really didn't notice alot floating on top so not sure it made much difference.

All I know is the IPA I made with this was awesome, super flavorful. The recipe didn't have a huge dry hop, which often results in kind of a good but little boring beer but this one was so flavorful. I used half my Citra incognito vial and am getting ready to use the rest on my next batch. Wish they had more in stock. Last I checked it was still just Citra available. I think this stuff is pretty awesome and I'm going to be using it alot going forward.

Cleanup wasn't bad for me. There was a residue on my kettle but I think I used some oxyclean and it cleaned up without much hassle.
 

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