NEIPA turned out cucumbery?

[mac.cartier]

Hey guys, I just kegged my second NEIPA and so far it doesn’t seem to be going as expected. I used the Other Half All Together recipe which is a 2-row & oat base dry hopped with Citra, Simcoe, Cascade, and Mosaic. My first pre-kegged sample smells great, like kiwi, papaya, and then… cucumber. The flavor is remarkably like orange juice and cucumber with some spinach-like notes. It tastes like the green smoothies that I’m given and told they taste exactly the same as a normal smoothie.

I just started doing 2.5gal BIAB batches and am having some growing pains coming from 1gal batches. I tried using a 5gal bucket to mash this time and despite my best insulation the temp dropped pretty quickly. My target FG was 1.020 for some sweetness and body, but it looks like my FG was 1.008, implying the apparent attenuation of the verdant I pitched was an impressive 88%. That was strike one, the beer (albeit a warmish flat sample) is definitely thinner and drier than I wanted.

On my previous NEIPA, I left it in primary for 7 days and even now, a month later, it has this yeast bite that I assume came from my impatience. For this new beer I dry hopped on day 3, just after peak krausen, and then decided to let it sit in primary for a while longer, hoping to avoid a yeasty flavor. I am assuming that I picked up some vegetal flavors from the dry hops over the 18 days they sat in there, but I have read mixed opinions about dry hopping lengths.

Have any of you experienced this? Maybe even done this recipe?
Honestly the cucumber notes would be amazing if it hadn’t ended up being 9% and the orange juice flavor would be fantastic if there were more sweetness and body.
I’m sure if I give it some time it’ll end up being ok, but I definitely missed my target. Any advice?

 

[mac.cartier]

I have a fun little update…

I had tossed my post-boil hydrometer reading into a mason jar and added the rest of the packet of verdant and the remaining 5g of CTZ because why not. I think the dry hop ratio converts to 5lb/bbl and I had way overpitched the yeast.

I just cold crashed it and carbonated it in my sodastream and it has no business being this delicious. It’s better than the actual batch. It is also very dry and has the mouthfeel and dankness of a WCIPA with the yeast character of a NEIPA.

 

[beervoid]

Hey guys, I just kegged my second NEIPA and so far it doesn’t seem to be going as expected. I used the Other Half All Together recipe which is a 2-row & oat base dry hopped with Citra, Simcoe, Cascade, and Mosaic. My first pre-kegged sample smells great, like kiwi, papaya, and then… cucumber. The flavor is remarkably like orange juice and cucumber with some spinach-like notes. It tastes like the green smoothies that I’m given and told they taste exactly the same as a normal smoothie.

I just started doing 2.5gal BIAB batches and am having some growing pains coming from 1gal batches. I tried using a 5gal bucket to mash this time and despite my best insulation the temp dropped pretty quickly. My target FG was 1.020 for some sweetness and body, but it looks like my FG was 1.008, implying the apparent attenuation of the verdant I pitched was an impressive 88%. That was strike one, the beer (albeit a warmish flat sample) is definitely thinner and drier than I wanted.

On my previous NEIPA, I left it in primary for 7 days and even now, a month later, it has this yeast bite that I assume came from my impatience. For this new beer I dry hopped on day 3, just after peak krausen, and then decided to let it sit in primary for a while longer, hoping to avoid a yeasty flavor. I am assuming that I picked up some vegetal flavors from the dry hops over the 18 days they sat in there, but I have read mixed opinions about dry hopping lengths.

Have any of you experienced this? Maybe even done this recipe?
Honestly the cucumber notes would be amazing if it hadn’t ended up being 9% and the orange juice flavor would be fantastic if there were more sweetness and body.
I’m sure if I give it some time it’ll end up being ok, but I definitely missed my target. Any advice?

What was the dryhop temperature

 

[mac.cartier]

What was the dryhop temperature

I dry hopped at room temp, so about 68-70°F

 

[Jag75]

Try dry hopping around 55-60 degrees. 18 days on hops is overboard imo. 3 days is all you need . Have you tried waiting till the end of fermentation to dry hop? When you say primary , are you saying you move the beer to a different fermenter?

Also 1.008 is low for sure . What was your mashing temp and OG?

Try dry hopping at the end of fermentation. Drop your temp , toss in your hops then 3 days later keg .

 

[Bobby_M]

Room temp, a couple days max with traditional t-90 pellets. If you use cryo hops (aka lupomax or T-45), you can leave it for much longer because there's half as much vegetal material.

Cooling the fermenter down to 55F (soft crashing) would reduce the impact of a longer soak time, but it's also meant to reduce the chance of hop creep which is the tendency of dry hops to encourage a small amount of refermentation. This is relevant to you in the case where the cucumber flavor you're picking up is actually acetaldehyde and not grassy/vegetal.

I don't want to over complicate things but cold crashing introduces another set of challenges. Probably the safest way to dry hop with relatively simple gear is to use T-45/cryo pellets and limit soak time a bit.

 

[YeastFeast]

I make NEIPAs all the time, these are what I believe are the keys to a good one:

1.) if you’re going to make NEIPAs regularly, you really need a way to control temps, especially soft crashes to 55°F and cold crashes to 35°F & it’s nice to be able to control your fermentation.
2.) I add the vast majority of hops after fermentation is complete. I’ve experimented with hops everywhere along the process (mash, boil, whirlpool…& late dry hopping has the biggest impact based on my experiments.
3.) when fermentation is complete, soft crash to 55° for 2-3 days to drop as much yeast out as possible and then dry hop.
4.) when your done dry hopping, drop to 35° for a few days before packaging.
5.) Avoiding oxygen is critical (dry hopping & transfer), doesn’t take much, I’ve had purple/grey candy sweet beer in as little as a couple weeks from oxidation.

These beers are super challenging which keeps driving me to make great ones! Good luck!

 

[Jag75]

Yeah I agree . Biotransformation is a tad overrated imo. I've done it a few times when I first started brewing .

 

[YeastFeast]

Yeah I agree . Biotransformation is a tad overrated imo. I've done it a few times when I first started brewing .

Right, I don’t have any scientific proof, I can only say through experimentation that I don’t add hops when the majority of yeast is still present.
Since I’ve been doing it this way, I get zero hop burn/bite.