No fruity, tropical aromas or taste in my beers

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latProd

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Hi all and thank you for reading :)
I have been brewing for a while and though I am a pretty casual brewer I can usually create a decent beer when I try.
I recently moved to Poland, on a farm, and I am using water from a private well, so lots of minerals, probably pretty soft and no chemicals. (naturally filtered apparently)
I have brewed two beers so far using the grainfather, and making sure to add bittering hops @ 60 mins to avoid too much bitterness, and lots of hops on 15 and 5 mins. (to the extent it pretty much clogs my hop filter).
On my last beer i used 50g cascade at 15 mins, 50g citra at 5 min (3,5 oz all together) and i dry hopped with 100 grams of citra (again 3,5 oz) and i had a small tasting now after a week in the bottle just as the carbonation is starting to get going. I just couldnt believe it, it had such a small, pathetic amount of aroma and basically just a little too much bitterness.
I used safale 05 and fermented for two weeks at 18 degrees celsius (64-65 fahrenheit). I like to think i did everything right.
Back in Norway, I always got really fruity and lovely IPAs with this type of hop regiment and a balanced bitterness.
I cannot for the life of me figure out what is going wrong here.
I am getting married i 3 months and the plan was to brew some lovely hoppy pale ale with low bitterness but now I'm unsure how to achieve this.
could the water here prevent me from getting the hop flavor i want?
Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Thank you.

TL:DR: The hops aint making my beers fruity and lovely.
 
Is it possible to buy RO water where you are and brew with it, preferably after treating it, instead of the well water?

My guess would be water too if you are using the same procedures and ingredients you previously used and getting different results.
 
My guess would be water too if you are using the same procedures and ingredients you previously used and getting different results.

Agreed, sounds like a water problem until proven otherwise. I think you meant to say OP that your water is probably pretty hard from the well, right?
 
Is it possible to buy RO water where you are and brew with it, preferably after treating it, instead of the well water?

My guess would be water too if you are using the same procedures and ingredients you previously used and getting different results.

Hi and thanks for the reply. I have no experience with RO water, and would be hard pressed to figure out what it is and how to get it in Poland, seeing as my Polish is terrible so far ;) Reverse Osmosis right?
I can try. But when u say "treating it", the question is, how, and with what?
I am having clear suspicions about the water as well :/
 
Agreed, sounds like a water problem until proven otherwise. I think you meant to say OP that your water is probably pretty hard from the well, right?

Hmm. I don't really know to be honest, I can only go by what it feels like compared to Norway. (as u have probably guessed by now, I am no water expert) but it feels more mineraly and "slimy" in lack of a better word, than the rather crisp norwegian water. After doing some reading, I think you are right, it is hard water indeed. There is a lot of mineral residue in the water boilers for instance.
EDIT: if it is any help, the bitterness is quite prounounced in the beer, so that part of the hops are definately coming through... which, ironically, is not what im after :/
 
I'm far from a water expert too but I think this is sounding like a water issue. Too much sulfate could accentuate bitterness. Also you might have a lot more alkalinity than your previous water source, raising the pH. To quote Martin from the Bru'n water site "High wort and beer pH can create 'dull' flavors, harsh bitterness, and darker beer color."

If you can find an RO water source the beer primer linked below has instructions for simple additions to get you in the ballpark.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460
 
Where in Poland are you? Generally, water in the northern half of the country is softer but harder in the southern half.

If you can get a copy of a water report from your local Gmina or Voivodship, I can have a look at it - I speak decent Polish. Maybe it can help you diagnose what your issue is and how to treat your water.
 
The grainfather uses a counterflow chiller which means the late addition hops are sitting in near boiling wort for quite a while as you transfer to the fermenter. This means all those wonderful hop oils are boiling away.

I would suggest moving all of the late additions to the chilling stage. That should help.

- Artichoke
 
I'm far from a water expert too but I think this is sounding like a water issue. Too much sulfate could accentuate bitterness. Also you might have a lot more alkalinity than your previous water source, raising the pH. To quote Martin from the Bru'n water site "High wort and beer pH can create 'dull' flavors, harsh bitterness, and darker beer color."

If you can find an RO water source the beer primer linked below has instructions for simple additions to get you in the ballpark.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

Thanks a lot, I will definately look into the RO water thing, and do an experimental batch.
 
Where in Poland are you? Generally, water in the northern half of the country is softer but harder in the southern half.

If you can get a copy of a water report from your local Gmina or Voivodship, I can have a look at it - I speak decent Polish. Maybe it can help you diagnose what your issue is and how to treat your water.

Hehe, I'm impressed :) I'm slightly north of Poznan so north west.
Trouble is, since it's a private water source, I am not sure a water report exists. I guess I would have to hire someone to come and analyze it.. don't even know if this is possible. But if such a report exists that is a very kind offer and I appreciate it alot :)
 
The grainfather uses a counterflow chiller which means the late addition hops are sitting in near boiling wort for quite a while as you transfer to the fermenter. This means all those wonderful hop oils are boiling away.

I would suggest moving all of the late additions to the chilling stage. That should help.

- Artichoke

Yeah you are right about that actually, never thought about it. Ever since I started using the GF I have had to up the hops to get similar results to my older BIAB system. When you say the chilling stage, how do I go about this? Due to the counterflow chiller the contents of the GF remains at near 80 degrees celsius when I am done pumping it into the fermenter. At what time do you suggest I add them?
 
Yeah you are right about that actually, never thought about it. Ever since I started using the GF I have had to up the hops to get similar results to my older BIAB system. When you say the chilling stage, how do I go about this? Due to the counterflow chiller the contents of the GF remains at near 80 degrees celsius when I am done pumping it into the fermenter. At what time do you suggest I add them?

When I add hops at "flame out", I don't actually add them right away. I have been chilling the wort somewhere between 160-170 and holding it for about ten minutes. I don't know how big of a difference there is, but I am banking on their being less alpha acid isomerization and more hop flavor. Using Beersmith for calculations, it doesn't matter if you add flame out hops at 0 minutes at boiling temperature or if you add them after the temperature drops a bit. Neither will affect the calculated IBU, but this is probably not what really happens.
 
Sorry I wasn't very clear. By chilling stage I meant at tbe end of the boil and right after you run hot wort through the chiller to sanitize it so the temperature has a chance to drop a bit. Ideally you would do what the pevious poster suggests; chill wort to around 170f, add your hops and then let them steep for 30 mins or so before you transfer the wort to the fermenter. The idea being that those desirable aromatic hop compound don't boil away at lower temperatures and stay in the wort.

- Artichoke
 
Thanks to both of you for clarifying, no idea why I didn't think about that. I will definately try to do that. I've tried steeping like this before, although that was a recipe where there was no boiling of hops at all, and it came out flat and uninteresting. I'll just do regular additions, and then add loads of hops like you described and see if that works
 
Hehe, I'm impressed :) I'm slightly north of Poznan so north west.
Trouble is, since it's a private water source, I am not sure a water report exists. I guess I would have to hire someone to come and analyze it.. don't even know if this is possible. But if such a report exists that is a very kind offer and I appreciate it alot :)

You could send a sample of your water to the states to be tested:

https://www.wardlab.com/BrewersKitOrder.php

That's what I did, and found out my municipal water supply was NO GOOD for beermaking.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Is it possible to buy RO water where you are and brew with it, preferably after treating it, instead of the well water?

My guess would be water too if you are using the same procedures and ingredients you previously used and getting different results.

Hey again. I have looked into the RO water thing, tho i know very little about it.
I found this on some amazon like site here in poland.

https://allegro.pl/listing?string= ...ase-relevance-floki-5-nga-honest-uni-1-3-0803

Some kind of RO5 and RO6 kits or something, is this something that could work?
 
Hey again. I have looked into the RO water thing, tho i know very little about it.
I found this on some amazon like site here in poland.

https://allegro.pl/listing?string= ...ase-relevance-floki-5-nga-honest-uni-1-3-0803

Some kind of RO5 and RO6 kits or something, is this something that could work?

Those appear to be RO water kits but I don't understand Polish. An alternative to buying an RO kit might be to buy distilled water from a grocery store. We can buy 1 and 5 gallon jugs of distilled here for very little. Both RO and distilled water have very little if any mineralization though they get that way via different pathways.

You would have to add back the appropriate minerals if brewing all grain as described by a brewing water calculator if using RO or distilled. I like this calculator because of its simplicity but there are many more available on the net. https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/
It is not that diffucult a process to adjust RO or distilled water if you read the supporting documentation but it has a large impact on your final product imo.
 
Those appear to be RO water kits but I don't understand Polish. An alternative to buying an RO kit might be to buy distilled water from a grocery store. We can buy 1 and 5 gallon jugs of distilled here for very little. Both RO and distilled water have very little if any mineralization though they get that way via different pathways.

You would have to add back the appropriate minerals if brewing all grain as described by a brewing water calculator if using RO or distilled. I like this calculator because of its simplicity but there are many more available on the net. https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/
It is not that diffucult a process to adjust RO or distilled water if you read the supporting documentation but it has a large impact on your final product imo.

Yeah atleast there is an abundance of places that sell distilled water here, so that's good. Not too hard to come by, thankfully.So basically, distilled water contains very little minerals, so you have to add them in to achieve whatever water profile you are going for? I tried to use 100 percent dillution in the calculator and go from there, can't say i understand how to use it yet but will try to read up on it. Thanks for the info :)
 
Correct - my LHBS sells containers of brewing salts, hopefully you have access to the same. My tap water is pretty low on minerals so I treat it as if zero, and used the bru'n water spreadsheet to figure out what to add, which is 6g / one and a half teaspoons of gypsum for hop forward beers.

Also consider you can just crank the hop quantities. A thread on HBT somewhere had a guy talking about his hop ratios to get hugely hoppy beers, he reckoned 7-10g/L at flameout plus 7-20g/L dry hop. That means for a 20L batch you could be adding 140g at least at each stage.

It's a lot of hops but still is way cheaper than buying craft beer (my current batch has 420g total, 160g at flameout, 180g dry hop but works out $2.50 per 750ml bottle compared to $9-10 for 500ml commercial stuff) so I don't mind. Going big on hops certainly made a difference.
 
Correct - my LHBS sells containers of brewing salts, hopefully you have access to the same. My tap water is pretty low on minerals so I treat it as if zero, and used the bru'n water spreadsheet to figure out what to add, which is 6g / one and a half teaspoons of gypsum for hop forward beers.

Also consider you can just crank the hop quantities. A thread on HBT somewhere had a guy talking about his hop ratios to get hugely hoppy beers, he reckoned 7-10g/L at flameout plus 7-20g/L dry hop. That means for a 20L batch you could be adding 140g at least at each stage.

It's a lot of hops but still is way cheaper than buying craft beer (my current batch has 420g total, 160g at flameout, 180g dry hop but works out $2.50 per 750ml bottle compared to $9-10 for 500ml commercial stuff) so I don't mind. Going big on hops certainly made a difference.

Holy! Sounds like a plan ;) I just ordered brewing salts and distilled water actually so I am gonna give that a go, as well as upping the hops ;) thanks for the ratio suggestions, that helps!
 
Correct - my LHBS sells containers of brewing salts, hopefully you have access to the same. My tap water is pretty low on minerals so I treat it as if zero, and used the bru'n water spreadsheet to figure out what to add, which is 6g / one and a half teaspoons of gypsum for hop forward beers.

Also consider you can just crank the hop quantities. A thread on HBT somewhere had a guy talking about his hop ratios to get hugely hoppy beers, he reckoned 7-10g/L at flameout plus 7-20g/L dry hop. That means for a 20L batch you could be adding 140g at least at each stage.

It's a lot of hops but still is way cheaper than buying craft beer (my current batch has 420g total, 160g at flameout, 180g dry hop but works out $2.50 per 750ml bottle compared to $9-10 for 500ml commercial stuff) so I don't mind. Going big on hops certainly made a difference.

Update: Did a brew yesterday, bittered with 20g of mosaic for about 20 mins (as i know it will "boil-ish" for longer since GF has an immersion chiller), then added 150 g of hops (mosaic, simcoe) and let that steep for 10 mins, then transferred to fermenter. I used 6 gallons of distilled water, added 1tsp gypsum, 2% acidulated malt and 1tsp calcium chloride. Sparged with tap water as an experiment. (well, only had enough distilled for the mash water anyway)

I took a sample from the fermenter today and holy smokes - it smells and looks like a NEIPA. goldish yellow color, hazed and smells heavily of tropical fruits and citrus.
and that's before any dry hopping, which i plan on being another 150g.. unless this is already a hop bomb.
So... so far so good I guess :)

edit: forgot to mention its a 50/50 pale and pilsner grain bill, with 400 crystal (a pale ale recipe from on here).
Hope it works out this time
 
Nice one mate, sounds like you're on the right track!

I'd still dry hop it too - can always dial it back in future brews, but you'll lose some aroma in bottling/kegging I expect.
 
Nice one mate, sounds like you're on the right track!

I'd still dry hop it too - can always dial it back in future brews, but you'll lose some aroma in bottling/kegging I expect.

hehe thanks man, I'll go the full 150 grams of dry hopping too, they're going in on sunday. Then, after a week, I'll have a taste. Thanks for all your help
 
If you want to make a NEIPA or "very fruity/juicy" IPA it is very simple, 225g in whirlpool, 225g in dry hop, no boil additions. Thats it, pretty simple! Once you get your water chemistry straight you will be on your way to many tasty brews all in time for your wedding. Do be careful though, you can definitely get some overpowering hop character from certain high AA strains that are already kind of sharp in their flavor profiles. But you cant go wrong adding stuff like citra with a little cascade to balance it out.

EDIT: I would also experiment with excluding the crystal from an IPA, crystal in IPAs give it a very unique character which in my opinion can take away from hop flavors/aromas and add a tad too much sweetness to a fruity IPA. Crystal is great for IPAs in general though and is very often what people expect to round out a classic "American" IPA That is just my opinion. I love 100% pilsner IPAs.
 
If you want to make a NEIPA or "very fruity/juicy" IPA it is very simple, 225g in whirlpool, 225g in dry hop, no boil additions. Thats it, pretty simple! Once you get your water chemistry straight you will be on your way to many tasty brews all in time for your wedding. Do be careful though, you can definitely get some overpowering hop character from certain high AA strains that are already kind of sharp in their flavor profiles. But you cant go wrong adding stuff like citra with a little cascade to balance it out.

EDIT: I would also experiment with excluding the crystal from an IPA, crystal in IPAs give it a very unique character which in my opinion can take away from hop flavors/aromas and add a tad too much sweetness to a fruity IPA. Crystal is great for IPAs in general though and is very often what people expect to round out a classic "American" IPA That is just my opinion. I love 100% pilsner IPAs.

100% pilsner? i used about 60% pilsner here, along with maris otter and about 400g crystal. Never tried 100% pilsner before. Is that to focus purely on the hops? That being said, I love the taste of pilsner malt in general. I guess this will sort of like a hybrid NEIPA/Pale Ale I guess, but time will tell.
 
100% pilsner? i used about 60% pilsner here, along with maris otter and about 400g crystal. Never tried 100% pilsner before. Is that to focus purely on the hops? That being said, I love the taste of pilsner malt in general. I guess this will sort of like a hybrid NEIPA/Pale Ale I guess, but time will tell.

What kind of crystal? I find that it's easy to overdo it.
 
100% pilsner? i used about 60% pilsner here, along with maris otter and about 400g crystal. Never tried 100% pilsner before. Is that to focus purely on the hops? That being said, I love the taste of pilsner malt in general. I guess this will sort of like a hybrid NEIPA/Pale Ale I guess, but time will tell.

Yeah if you love the taste of pilsner malt there are a ton of styles that are great just going 100%! I definitely enjoy it, it does give the hops a better spotlight but also it makes for a clean bright tasting beer. I used to do 2row and crystal ect for most of my IPAs, and still brew them for that classic style, but its almost a different style when you go 100% pilsner it is kind of hybrid between like a neipa and a pilsner.
 
It's probably worth getting a municipal water report if it's convenient (here in the UK water companies post them on their websites as a matter of course, it may well be an EU requirement) - if nothing else you might be able to get some municipal water off a neighbour if it's any good, which may be rather more convenient than buying distilled water. Sometimes the municipal water analysis will be pretty close to well water, if most of the municipal water comes from ground water (eg London), but that won't be true if most of it comes from surface water. Burton is a great example of the latter - much of the Peak District has wonderfully soft water, but Burton made its name on sulphate-rich water from wells drilled into layers of gypsum below the town.

Just going back to this :

making sure to add bittering hops @ 60 mins to avoid too much bitterness
Err - this doesn't make sense. You boil bittering hops for 60 minutes to _maximise_ the bitterness you get out of them. The simple version is that hops have alpha acids which aren't bitter, but boiling them makes them change into a different form which is bitter.

But generally some bitterness is helpful, to add balance and complexity to the beer. I'd feel the same way about using non-pilsner malts - you're not conducting experiments on your guests to show off a particular hop by making the grist as neutral and pils-y as possible, you just want the best beer possible. To my mind that means a complex, balanced beer, so I wouldn't be afraid of bringing moderate bitterness and Maris Otter to the party - quite the opposite!

I am getting married i 3 months

Congratulations! On the other hand, it's now getting a bit close to be making big experiments, you just need to get some beer out. So go with what you've got. But in future, you might want to start playing with some more interesting yeast strains and messing about with fermentation temperatures - the Tree House Julius thread is now up to four different yeast at different temperatures, which may be a bit excessive for your purposes but gives you an idea about maximising fruitiness and mouthfeel. That thread is also talking about anything up to 20% caramalt as well, rather than crystal.

But for now, I'd just get some beer out....

PS You should check out Lars Garshol's blog - he's the expert on Norwegian farmhouse beer and Lithuanian beer culture, which are both unique - far more interesting than another me-too NEIPA....:)
 
For a NE IPA style. I usually do very small amount of hops in boil for bitterness. Then I drop it to about 170f and add about 4-6oz of hops. I let it sit there for 30 mins, then start chilling again. I also will add 6-8 oz of dry hop usually around day 2-3. Usually creates a good combination of fruity/citrusy taste/smell.
 
Yeah if you love the taste of pilsner malt there are a ton of styles that are great just going 100%! I definitely enjoy it, it does give the hops a better spotlight but also it makes for a clean bright tasting beer. I used to do 2row and crystal ect for most of my IPAs, and still brew them for that classic style, but its almost a different style when you go 100% pilsner it is kind of hybrid between like a neipa and a pilsner.

Yeah i do love the taste of pilsner malt ;) I've mostly bought all grain kits with recipes done for me, this is me going off recipes found here plus upping the hops to suit my taste buds. Funny enough, both the pale ale and amber ale recipes i found uses pilsner... so I'm excited to see how it turns out.
Used german pilsner from bestmaltz i think it was
 
Just going back to this :


Err - this doesn't make sense. You boil bittering hops for 60 minutes to _maximise_ the bitterness you get out of them. The simple version is that hops have alpha acids which aren't bitter, but boiling them makes them change into a different form which is bitter.

Yeah my bad i don't know what I was thinking, I meant 30 minutes, at the 60 minute mark. Bad wording from me :)
 
Congratulations! On the other hand, it's now getting a bit close to be making big experiments, you just need to get some beer out. So go with what you've got. But in future, you might want to start playing with some more interesting yeast strains and messing about with fermentation temperatures - the Tree House Julius thread is now up to four different yeast at different temperatures, which may be a bit excessive for your purposes but gives you an idea about maximising fruitiness and mouthfeel. That thread is also talking about anything up to 20% caramalt as well, rather than crystal.

But for now, I'd just get some beer out....

PS You should check out Lars Garshol's blog - he's the expert on Norwegian farmhouse beer and Lithuanian beer culture, which are both unique - far more interesting than another me-too NEIPA....:)

Thank you for all your info man, appreciate it. Will check out the thread you mention. It's not like I'm gonna stop brewing after the wedding, so more room for experiments ;)
 
For a NE IPA style. I usually do very small amount of hops in boil for bitterness. Then I drop it to about 170f and add about 4-6oz of hops. I let it sit there for 30 mins, then start chilling again. I also will add 6-8 oz of dry hop usually around day 2-3. Usually creates a good combination of fruity/citrusy taste/smell.

This is the first thing I will try on my next batch. Do you only dry hop in one stage?
Also, Since i use fermenters with lids that have got tiny holes in the for the airlock, I have no way of adding dryhops without removing the lid.
Some people have suggested this can ruin my beer or at the very least mess with my hop flavors... so i dunno what to do about that really.
 
Yeah my bad i don't know what I was thinking, I meant 30 minutes, at the 60 minute mark. Bad wording from me :)

So what, you put hops in a bag in at 60 and take them out at 30?

Boiling your bittering hops for 60 min does improve the _quality_ of the bittering, it softens it a bit, it can be a bit "raw" after just 30 minutes. So boil them for 60, if you want to reduce the amount of bittering, use fewer hops.

I have no way of adding dryhops without removing the lid.
Some people have suggested this can ruin my beer or at the very least mess with my hop flavors... so i dunno what to do about that really.

It is what it is. The point of doing it 2-3 days into fermentation is that yeast are still active and can scavenge some of the oxygen introduced, but short of going to a system where you're purging everything with inert gas, there's not a lot you can do. You can still make really good beer that way though, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.


It's not like I'm gonna stop brewing after the wedding

That's what they all say.... :D Like you're going to have any time or money for homebrewing once you've fixed those shelves, repainted the bedroom, rebuilt the kitchen....;)
 
It is what it is. The point of doing it 2-3 days into fermentation is that yeast are still active and can scavenge some of the oxygen introduced, but short of going to a system where you're purging everything with inert gas, there's not a lot you can do. You can still make really good beer that way though, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.




That's what they all say.... :D Like you're going to have any time or money for homebrewing once you've fixed those shelves, repainted the bedroom, rebuilt the kitchen....;)

Haha! touche I guess. I'm sure it'll be good :p Anyway, does that mean you use ONE dryhop addition (for a super hoppy beer let's say 6 ounces) 2-3 days into fermentation and then just leave it for a couple of weeks? no further additions after that?
 
Personally I'm less paranoid about opening my bucket and I tend not too brew the super-juicy style beer, so I kinda prefer to do it in 2 additions, but a single dry hop is fine if you're feeling paranoid. And they don't need long - you get the full effect of the dry hops after 2-3 days. As a style you shouldn't be leaving these kinds of beers "for a couple of weeks" - normally they use English yeast which are done fermenting in little more than a week, once you've reached a constant FG then it's time to package. And natural carbonation will help fight oxidation, as the yeast scavenge any oxygen that make it into the bottle/cask/keg. However, that's less of an issue for a one-off event like the wedding where hopefully a keg will go in one night, and you don't want to be making changes to the wedding beer that you don't have to. But after the wedding, I suggest bottling future batches with priming sugar.

If you're looking for some ideas, people seem to like this Tired Hands Alien Church NEIPA clone - you could probably simplify the hop mix to start with, as he's trying to replicate a specific beer there. This is the actual recipe of the new Fullers-Cloudwater NEIPA - Olicana is a new English hop, you could probably substitute Cascade or a NZ hop like Motueka if you can't get it.

Personally I'd look at replacing the oats with 20% carapils, oat malt may not be easy to get and oats generally are good for a soft mouth feel but may slightly reduce the hop aroma.
 
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