Receipe review, no hop flavor?

[gratefulgolfer14]

First brewing in years, tired to make a simple IPA and brewing full boil for first time. Here are the details:
7lb light LME
1 lb extra light DME
1lb pound crystal, seeped until 165
2 oz cascade boil 60 min
1 oz Willamette 10 min boil
2TSP gypsum
2 packs US-05 re-hydrated

Seeped grains, in 1 1/2 quart of water 30 mins, did not exceed 165 degrees
boil 6 gallons
added DME 30 min into 60 min boil
added LME to wort, boiled 10 min
used paint strainer bag as a hop spider,

chilled wort with immersion chiller, transferred to carboy , shook carboy 10 min to add oxygen to wort pitched yeast around 70 degrees, shook carboy another 5 mins
had good fermentation, and OG of 1.052
left in primary for three weeks, FG 1.012
dry hopped for week with 1 oz Citra
transferred to keg, slowly force carbonating,
When racking to keg had nice hop aroma, in the glass, not so, and little to know bitter hop flavor and beer has an odd after taste? Also, beer never did really clear up in the carboy, keep temps between 65-72 entire time?

Not sure what I did wrong, according to Brewers Friend the recipe should be just fine for IPA.

Looking forward to hearing from the group as to why I don't have a good hop flavor?

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

What were your IBUs supposed to be? The recipe doesn't look very hoppy. Your 60 min addition will give you only bitterness without almost any aroma or flavor. A lot of folks on HBT seem to advocate using only late addition and/or flameout hops in their IPAs. You might also want to add another ounce or two to your dry hop. I will usually dry hop with 2 or 3 oz for a good aroma. Even so, I never managed to get that great combination of aroma and flavor until I started doing a hop stand with 2 oz at 170F. I now always do that for my IPAs.

 

[chickypad]

Looking forward to hearing from the group as to why I don't have a good hop flavor?

Mainly because you have almost no flavor hop additions in there. I'm not really counting the willamette as it's pretty mild and not that great for an American IPA IMO, assuming that's what you were going for from the rest of the recipe. Next time try 4-5 oz more of bolder american hops in the 15 to 0 range and include a hop stand and/or up the dry hop. Also what was your batch volume? I think you should have been up in the 1.061 range for 5 gal, so either you had a bigger volume or your measurement was off given it's extract.

 

[blueseamonkey]

Your recipe is very similar to mine for an English IPA, though yours is extract rather than all-grain and mine had a further flame-out addition of Williamette as well as the late addition.
If you are expecting it to taste like an American IPA it probably won't. English IPAs are a bit more malty and not quite as hop dominated. But this could explain why brewing software told you your recipe was good as an IPA.
I agree that knowing your batch volume would help us a lot, I'm basing my answers on the fact that you mentioned a carboy, so I am assuming 5 US gallons? If you made a larger batch with these quantities you wouldn't have much flavour of any kind.

 

[gratefulgolfer14]

Mainly because you have almost no flavor hop additions in there. I'm not really counting the willamette as it's pretty mild and not that great for an American IPA IMO, assuming that's what you were going for from the rest of the recipe. Next time try 4-5 oz more of bolder american hops in the 15 to 0 range and include a hop stand and/or up the dry hop. Also what was your batch volume? I think you should have been up in the 1.061 range for 5 gal, so either you had a bigger volume or your measurement was off given it's extract.

Thanks for the reply:
The volume of boil was 6 gallon and the target IBU according to Brewers Friend was 59.25. The reason I used Willamette as that is what the local shop had, they are not a true HBS, they have some products.
New questions,
what is hop stand?
Could I dry hop in the key if I put hops in a bag?

 

[gratefulgolfer14]

Mainly because you have almost no flavor hop additions in there. I'm not really counting the willamette as it's pretty mild and not that great for an American IPA IMO, assuming that's what you were going for from the rest of the recipe. Next time try 4-5 oz more of bolder american hops in the 15 to 0 range and include a hop stand and/or up the dry hop. Also what was your batch volume? I think you should have been up in the 1.061 range for 5 gal, so either you had a bigger volume or your measurement was off given it's extract.

The boil volume was 6 gallon

 

[chickypad]

The boil volume was 6 gallon

Then either your boil volume was off or your OG measurement was. Those ingredients in 6 gal finished would give you 1.052, and I assume you boiled off about a gallon? With extract you can't really miss your target OG, unless you don't add all the ingredients or your volumes are not measured accurately.

See here for a description of hop stands, also referred to as whirlpool additions. Basically it's adding hops after flameout, sometimes at different temps as the wort cools, and allowing longer contact times to increase aroma and flavor. Lots of pro brewers using the technique these days. I've only been experimenting myself but I have done a couple beers with no additions after 60 min except big hop stand and dry hop and getting nice flavor and aroma from that.

You can certainly dry hop in the keg to boost aroma. If the keg is already carbed and full you need to be ready with the lid, dumping in the hops creates nucleation sites and it can foam pretty impressively IME.

 

[gratefulgolfer14]

I did hit an OG of 1.052, I wound up right at the 5-gal mark on the carboy. I just realized the recipe I was hybridizing was for a 1 gallon boil, so instead of an IPA I have a light ale. Just had a taste from the keg, carbination is almost ready and the taste is good, as long as you are not expecting an IPA.

 

[gratefulgolfer14]

Thanks for the feedback all, time for a trip to the local HBS and make a real IPA. Looking forward to trying this hop stand idea...

 

[mrdail87]

On a quick note, if you're looking to really maximize hop flavor, you'll wanna add somewhere around the 20 minute mark.

Here's a handy chart to show how different addition time lend different things to your beer:

Also a little helpful reading on hops and timing:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-1.html

Edit: I should also note you'll still get slight flavor from a hop addition at any time. In the case of an IPA though, I imagine whatever you add at 60 minutes will probably get masked by your later additions. A lot of people use something Magnum at 60 minutes in IPAs because of it's high IBUs but relatively neutral flavor.

 

[chickypad]

I've seen that chart but it seems like in practice it's a lot more complicated and there are many ways to achieve similar results. For one thing a huge part of our sense of taste is derived from smell so to completely separate the aroma from flavor is in my mind a losing battle. Of course I have had beers with a big aroma that surprisingly did not "taste" that hoppy to me. The chart also doesn't have anything for hop stand additions. I just finished a keg that had a 60 min bittering charge but all the rest of the hops were whirlpool and dry hop with no late boil additions. It had what I perceived as a nice hop flavor. YMMV.

 

[pablosbrewing]

US-05 seems to eat hop aroma - dry hop in keg is my best result although after yeast drops out in fermenter is also pretty good.

 

[ReformedBrewer]

you just need more hops at the very end of your boil.

 

[ReformedBrewer]

Funny you mention this. I just fermented a recipe with uUS-05 that I normally ferment with WLP001 and it much more yeasty flavored and the fruitiness from the cascade is almost non-existent. I know people rave about 05 but this recipe is usually like hop candy and its just kinda dull this time and has way too much yeast flavor.

Do most people rack to secondary with US-05 because unless I am dry hopping I just keep it in primary for 3 weeks and rack to keg.

US-05 seems to eat hop aroma - dry hop in keg is my best result although after yeast drops out in fermenter is also pretty good.

 

[pablosbrewing]

unless I am dry hopping I just keep it in primary for 3 weeks and rack to keg.

Same - I also always use gelatin at keg time, and I don't have any yeasty flavor - crystal clear after tapping 1-2 pints.

A local brewery told me biofine is what most commercial guys are using in place of gelatin (biofine is vegan). I'm looking to try that in the future.


Edit: AND - US-05 is much less tolerant of temperature range compared to WLP001 / WY1056 - 65-68 seems to be the sweet spot.

 

[ReformedBrewer]

gelatin in the keg or in the primary before racking? been thinking of doing this for awhile now just don't know what is best practice?

Same - I also always use gelatin at keg time, and I don't have any yeasty flavor - crystal clear after tapping 1-2 pints.

A local brewery told me biofine is what most commercial guys are using in place of gelatin (biofine is vegan). I'm looking to try that in the future.


Edit: AND - US-05 is much less tolerant of temperature range compared to WLP001 / WY1056 - 65-68 seems to be the sweet spot.

 

[pablosbrewing]

gelatin in the keg or in the primary before racking? been thinking of doing this for awhile now just don't know what is best practice?

In the keg. Best added after cold crashing, but I have had fair results as warm as 65F adding it to the keg before chilling. Warmer temp may not do much for chill haze but in my opinion it helps floc this yeast.

http://youtu.be/cYaVaCyT2yY

 

[ReformedBrewer]

In the keg. Best added after cold crashing, but I have had fair results as warm as 65F adding it to the keg before chilling. Warmer temp may not do much for chill haze but in my opinion it helps floc this yeast.

http://youtu.be/cYaVaCyT2yY

Do you then put it on pressure or can you do both at the same time?

 

[pablosbrewing]

Do you then put it on pressure or can you do both at the same time?

Usually I put on CO2 on right after I rack and add the gelatin. Many cold crash first - something I cannot really do in my current setup.