Issues with my sessions IPAs - any ideas?

[shoreman]

I've been brewing for while and like to brew a lot of session beers. Lately I've been having some issues with my Session IPAs that I can't quite put my foot on and wondered if anyone had any ideas on what might be happening. Here's a recent recipe:

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/land-down-under-ipa

The last 2 hops additions were at 120 degrees as I'm chilling. The dry hopping is actually in the keg to not introduce any oxidation. I dry hop in spice bags.

What I'm getting from my session ipas recently is some sort of harsh/grassy bitterness with what I would consider a lot of crystal or caramel flavors in the malt - the aromas usually work well but its actually more along the flavor of the beer, its a bit harsh. I'm mashing at about 150 and this beer actually fermented down to 1.008. The yeast is actually a mix of WLP007 & S04 - no salts added just Campden Tablets to clear chlorine in my water.

Any thoughts?

 

[shoreman]

I would like to add that it could be yeast driven since S04 has been a staple and have read about bready/cider flavors in this yeast.

 

[Smellyglove]

It says in the recipe, but I guess that's an error? Flaked Oats in the boil?

Caramalts shouldn't give you a harsh experience.

Might it be that you're writing this after a few pours from a recently hopped keg? Polyphenols from the hops will settle at the bottom, and if you pour and taste a few glasses, you'll get a harsh twang to it since you're sampling a glass with polyphenols, and hop debris from the DH. Do you get sort of slight "mud" on the teeth? Your description of harsh/grassy fits this issue.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Lately I've been having some issues with my Session IPAs that I can't quite put my foot on ...some sort of harsh/grassy bitterness with what I would consider a lot of crystal or caramel flavors in the malt

Grassiness sounds like some kind of aldehyde, which has two usual causes. Either you're not fully fermenting out the wort and it needs additional conditioning time. Or it comes from ingredients that have been sitting around for a while and started to go off. The fact that this is happening at this time of year - when we're all using up the last of a northern hemisphere harvest of barley and hops from 12 months ago - and the fact that it has happened "lately" implying it has gradually come on, both suggest that old/poorly-stored ingredients are a factor.

Caramel could be tied up with either of those factors, but in particular I'm thinking diacetyl which could also point to a need for additional conditioning.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks - the oats were mashed.

It definitely needs longer conditioning for sure, but was just getting the same vibe as my last IPA only 1 week in the keg.

As for ingredients, I just brewed a Grisette & Saison with similar age Malts and hops with none of these issues.

I'm going to ditch s04 on this next batch to see if that might be the issue.

 

[user 70770]

I'd look at 2 things. How long are you dry hopping? I'd stay under 7 days and in my experience, 3-4 days is sufficient to extract the delicious aromatics. Second is beer ph. High ph can make bitterness taste grassy. Try this for your next batch. Add a tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gallons of water used for brewing. And add about 2ml of lactic acid 88% to your sparge water. Let us know how your next batch turns out.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks for everyone that chimed in on this thread.

Now going back over these two brew days I think I have pinpointed the issue - bad hop storage, especially with whole hops. I had purchased some 2016 hops on sale and had brewed with them straight out of the mylar bag and zip locked them up without any sort of purge & stored them i the freezer.

Definitely lesson learned here, but I think I'm going to try to brew one of these exact batches (diff yeast) with 2017 hops and make sure that this is the issue.

I'll be buying smaller quantities of hops in separate bags moving forward b/c 10 gallons of grassy/harsh bitter beer is not something I'm interested in repeating.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

bad hop storage, especially with whole hops. I had purchased some 2016 hops on sale and had brewed with them straight out of the mylar bag and zip locked them up without any sort of purge & stored them i the freezer.

This paper suggests that broadly hops store pretty well at ambient under vacuum, or cold without vacuum, but really decline at ambient without vacuum. My subjective impression is that that's sorta true - but if they've been a bit mistreated before then they are much more susceptible once opened, regardless of how you then treat them. Hops might well be on sale because of being not treated particularly well, aside from the fact that they're just a year old now.

Since we get hops in 100g packs here, I'm increasingly using recipes of "25IBU bittering plus 100g of single variety hops spread over late/whirlpool/dry" for when I just want a house beer or am testing a new hop/yeast. Saves having to manage lots of different open packs other than the bittering hops. Having bought some alpha extract to "rescue" my last batch of "leftovers" beer, I'm plucking up the courage to do a "alpha extract plus 100g" recipe - it feels all wrong but I'm intrigued how it will turn out, and would mean I don't need any open packs of hops at all. I have a vacuum sealer, I just like the simplicity of the idea.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks for posting. I could just smell the deteriorating of the Galexy hops from when I purchased til now.

Brulosophy has a couple good experiments on this as well.

I think your approach makes sense.

I'm looking to simplify my Brewing so will just be buying 2oz sealed packs at a time and use them throughout the brew rather than complex hop bills. I'm seeing some smash beers in the future - just waiting for 2017 pellets