Missing hop aroma

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kday

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Last night I drank the first bottle of my first all grain brew. I used the DFH 60 clone recipe from this forum. It is an interesting tasting beer, but nothing like DFH. The most striking difference is a complete absence of hop aroma.

Due to a water miscalculation I brewed 4 gallons instead of 5. I used the hop schedule for a 5 gallon batch, and I also dry hopped for 7 days.

This is the recipe I used:
brew-recipe-1024x779.png


The boil times there are the start of a continuous addition. The last of the hops were added 10 minutes before flame out.

After 2 weeks fermenting I added 1 oz amarillo pellets and 1/2 oz simcoe leaf hops (loose -- no bag) to the primary fementer (an ale pail) and left it for another week. I didn't stir in the hops, they just sat on top, but when I bottled the hops were all soaked with wort.

Any ideas where my hop aroma went? The only thing I can think of is water chemistry. I used filtered MWRA tap water with ~1 gram gypsum added per 2.5 gallons water.

I bottled the beer last Sunday, so it is very young -- but I would expect hop aroma to diminish with time, not increase, right?
 
The amarillo/simcoe hops should NOT end at 10 minutes left in the boil! The key to big hop aroma and flavor is to have the hops added right up until flame out.

Next time, start more slowly with the hops at 30 minutes, making sure to have plenty left for the last 10 minutes of the boil. That's where the flavor and aroma hops come from- the last 15 minutes of the boil especially.
 
Thanks for the expert advice, Yooper. I'm not sure how I ended up doing that.
 
I would check them when they fully carbonate.Ive had hop aromas not come out until once fully carbed.
 
it could also be masked by the fresh smell of the yeast which should fade away quickly from green beer. If you get a waft of a bready sweet smell.
 
Sorry sort of off topic but what program did you use for all your recipe calculations? Looks like a nice one.
 
Thanks for the replies. It's been 9 days since I bottled them now and they taste fully carbonated, but I'll give them some more time. I bet Yooper figured it out though.

The screenshot above is indeed from BeerSmith 2. So far I like it a lot. It's handy having all of the calculations in one place.
 
dry-hopping - half an ounce of Simcoe for 7 days? not much there - maybe bump to an ounce.

FWIW, I secondary when dry-hopping. Specifically, in my experience, I get better flavor - my guess is that the trub is absorbing some of the hoppy goodness.
 
There was 1 oz of Amarillo in addition to the 1/2 oz Simcoe for dry hopping.

I had planned to secondary, but since I only ended up with 4 gallons in the fermenter it seemed risky to have that much head space.

Plenty of things to try differently next time!
 
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