NEIPA: advice on hopping schedule El Dorado, Enigma, Galaxy (whirlpool vs dryhop)

[Rainy]

Hi,

I am working on a 6.5% NEIPA recipe (6 gallon batch) with in total (dryhop+whirlpool) 8oz each of El Dorado, Enigma and Galaxy.

First question is if these three hops work together well, I quickly scanned untappd to see if a similar hop combination has been done in commercial beer and I found that Other Half has made NEIPAS with Galaxy+El Dorado and Galaxy+Enigma and Galaxy+Enigma+Motueka(Dream Layers).
Motueka seems to bring more spicy, floral, herbal flavours to the table and I am afraid that El Dorado is too similar to Galaxy and Enigma.

Second questions is then how to distribute the hops over the whirlpool and dry hop?
Anybody has some experience with the difference in flavours you get from these hops when using it in whirlpool vs dryhop? My general feeling based on this study would be that the main difference is that in the whirlpool additions the the more delicate monoterpenes (myrcene,...) and sesquiterpenes (hydrocarbons and oxygenated) are blown off during fermentation, therefore losing the more wodody, herbal, hoppy aromas and being more left with linalool and geraniol. The linalool and geraniol from the whirlpool would also result in more nerol and Beta-citronellol due to biotransformation.
So to summarize whirpool would to more fruity flavours, while with dry hop at the end of fermentation would keep more of the complex hop character, which is closer to what you smell when opening a hop bag.

My first idea would be to do keep Galaxy completely for the Dry Hop, using 4oz each of Enigma and El Dorado in the whirlpool and then making split batches where one batch gets:

Whirlpool (6 gal):
4oz Eldorado
4oz Enigma

Dryhop batch 1 (3 gal):
4oz Eldorado
4oz Galaxy

Dryhop batch 2 (3 gal):
4oz Enigma
4oz Galaxy

Maybe I then still split the dryhopping into 2 charges, one in the primary fermenter at the end of fermentation (1 Plato from FG) and one in the serving keg after the diacetyl rest has been done in the primary fermenter.

My question in the end boils down to: Of these varieties are there any that work better in dry-hop of whirlpool?

Any ideas?

 

[WBCo]

I've only ever brewed with Enigma once. I liked it enough to try it again, but I haven't been able to find it in stock. I've only ever used El Dorado on the cold side. I like it a lot when going for fruit forward IPAs and fruited kettle sours. I bought 3 pounds of Galaxy a few months back. Not impressed with it this year. I've been using most of it in the whirl and small charges of biotrans hops because it isn't bringing much on the final dryhop. This is unfortunate because Galaxy is usually one of my favorite hops. Hopefully your batch is better than mine!

I think you have a decent plan, but oil levels are just averages. When you open the bags of hops you will have a better idea of how they are smelling and can make a last minute decision on how you want to use them for this brew.

My only suggestion would be to brew a little more than 6 gallons if you can. 24 ounces of hops in 6 gallons is going to kill your final volumes, and coming from someone who uses A LOT of hops, I would argue that you are probably past the point of diminishing returns. Do you normally use that amount of hops for that size batch? What kind of fermentor are you using?

 

[thehaze]

Enigma is potent, lots of polyphenols when dry hopping ( general for most AUS and NZ hops ), but delivers exquisite fruity, red wine, citrusy notes. El Dorado is good, really good, with flavours ranging from generic citrus to green pineapple and candied fruit, and Galaxy... well it's Galaxy. El Dorado is not really potent, so use more of it. I would keep Galaxy in the background, with El Dorado and Enigma in the forefront, with an aceent on El Dorado. I would not boil any of these hops. Just whirlpool and dry hopping. For dry hopping, I would go easier on Galaxy. It's really, really potent and can turn your beer into liquid, hop pellet kind of flavour.

As for which work better in the dry hop. all of them are really good. It comes up to what kind of aromas and flavours you are expecting from the beer.

 

[Rainy]

Thanks for the great advice.
In terms of the amount of hops used. I know it's really borderline in terms of not ending up with an overly astringent because all the polyphenols due to overhopping. The last beer I made was a 6 gallon batch 6% neipa with 3.5oz of Vic Secret and 3.5oz of Mosaic in the Whirlpool and then 7oz Galaxy and 7oz Mosaic dry hop and it was of course astringent in the beginning but after 3 weeks in the keg and witha clear beer draft system it was perfect and full of flavor and aroma.

The high amounts are mainly because of me wanting to fully use vacuum packaged hops of 8oz. Although I could vacuum package the left overs.

I do like an IPA to have more a real hop flavor with spiciness and earthiness included, than just being pure juice. And I don't mind the more tea like flavors higher hopped beers have.

I was indeed planning to get the bitterness from the whirlpool hops and not add any hops to the boil.

Would bringing the high polyphenol hops (enigma and galaxy) to the whirlpool and fermentation dry hop lead to more rounded flavors?

El Dorado could then be leading the serving keg dry hop.

And 6oz Whirlpool and 10oz dry hop in total would maybe be more reasonable and reduces the risk of astringent flavors.

I was also thinking about soft crashing to drop some of the yeast out before transferring to a keg, so that less of the keg hop aromas drop out with the yeast when doing to hard cold crash after the dry hop in the keg.

 

[couchsending]

Galaxy and Enigma are incredibly potent. You literally only need half the amount you would of other hops to get the same impact. I’d just use less of those two hops. If you were to make an El Dorado/Galaxy beer and wanted a nice blend of the two it would almost need to be 3:1 Eldorado to Galaxy in order for the Galaxy to not just flatten the other hop.

 

[day_trippr]

I love Galaxy! I'm actually enjoying the third 10 gallon batch of this recipe. It's definitely not the fruit smoothie of, say, Julius, but if you enjoy some back-of-the-palate bite at the finish this works nicely

Cheers!

 

[applescrap]

Are you using 24 oz for 6 g? I usually see 10 to 16 for a single batch.

 

[Rainy]

Usually it's more around 21oz for 6g, but that's indeed the maximum of what's possible without getting too much astringency and they do need at least 2 weeks in the keg to really settle down a bit. I do like the more spicy earthy flavours of hops, but maybe I can also achieve that by using a morthy earthy hop in the whirlpool and use less hops.
I once did a comparison between a single (3.5 oz for 3 gal) and double dry hop (7oz for 3gal) on the same base beer and the single dry hopped one was more drinkable and fruity in the first month, while the double dry hoppd one was more vegetal.
The second month though my preference went to the double dr hopped one as the vegetal flavours smoothed out and it became more fruity.
The clear beer draft sytem does help to drink the heavily hopped beers earlier as it drawing beer from the top of the keg, so you get less polyphenols and vegetal matter in the glass.

It's a bit like Andrew from Other Half was mentioning in the craft beer and brewing podcast: "All hops smooth out eventually"
And quite a lot of commercial brewers use an equivalent of 7oz for 3 gal in their DDH beers.

My main aim was to get rid of 3 vacuum sealed hop packages of 8oz each which were vacuum sealed but got punctured, so I had to reseal the bags with my vacuum sealer but of course some air is still in there, so i wanted to use them quickly so I could still use them for dry hopping.
The hops still smelled fine before I resealed the bags, so I figured they were all still good for dry hopping. But another option would be to use these bags only for the whirlpool over multiple brews. It seems to be common practice, to use opened bags for whirlpool and not for dry hop.

I guess my question also has to do with hop management: what to do with bags of hops that got opened/punctured and you don't know how long they were in contact with air?

I think I start to lean more towards just using doing a beer with 8oz of Galaxy and 8oz of El dorado and use 2.5 oz of each in the whirlpool and 5.5 oz in the dry hop.
The 8oz of Enigma will be for the next brew.