Tips for the Infamous "super hoppy" IPA/IIPA

[Nomofett]

That happened to my latest beer but I found out my fridge was just really cold, it took 20 minutes for it to warm up enough to get the flavor back. Have you tried leaving one out overnight to see if that does anything? I have no idea other than that

 

[Deckers_Beers]

Thanks, I'm going to try that

 

[FatDragon]

On a similar note, someone mentioned in another thread sometime back how he runs warm water from the tap over a bottle for a minute or so before opening it if the fridge temp is too low for the style. I've done that several times with HB IPAs and they do indeed taste better that way. Hop flavors and aroma seem to come out better around 45-50F, while most fridges run significantly lower than that.

The other possibility is that your IPAs just aren't holding their hoppiness in the bottle. Serving temperature isn't necessarily the only factor in your underwhelming IPAs, time is also a significant factor. Keeping an IPA as hoppy as the day it was born is a question that brewers at all levels deal with, but homebrewers have a much harder time than professional brewers between techniques, experience, and equipment, and among homebrewers, bottlers have a much harder time than keggers. Oxygen is the biggest culprit and when we bottle on a homebrew scale it's really difficult to keep out oxygen like the pros do on their closed systems or even keggers do with their ability to purge their kegs with CO2. One option is to absolutely slam your beers with late and dry hops, making up for the flavors and aromas that age out all too fast by making a beer that's still hoppy even after 75% of those aromas and flavors have dissipated.

 

[Deckers_Beers]

That happened to my latest beer but I found out my fridge was just really cold, it took 20 minutes for it to warm up enough to get the flavor back. Have you tried leaving one out overnight to see if that does anything? I have no idea other than that

So I took the two IPAs that had been in the fridge for 3 weeks out for a few days... put one in the fridge last night and it tastes pretty ok. Not as good as the one I drank the other day, that had not been refrigerated, then room temperature, then refrigerated again.

 

[shawnsanchez]

Great post Calichusetts! It was really very informative

 

[bobeer]

Great post! Thanks for all the research and for the willingness to write it up and share it.

I do cold crash all my beers before I keg. Not because I want them clear but because I want to drink it asap and the cold beer seems to absorb the c02 better than room temp beer. I'm actually cold crashing a hop bomb IPA right now...
You say that cold crashing could/does drop out the hop oil thus stripping it from the beer. Now, I take pride in my racking ability. I'm pretty anal about getting every last drop of beer out of the fermentor and into the keg without racking over any trub. Do you think by me being able to rack about 99% of the beer into the keg I'd still get the hop oils?

Back when I didn't have the ability to cold crash my pop-its would get totally clogged with hops and I"d have to waste a lot of c02 by purging, taking the keg apart, cleaning the spring, and refilling the keg with c02.... Since cold crashing it helps with this issue. I guess to fix this I'd have to dry hop with a muslin bag or something... Anyway, I supposed that would an "added bonus" of cold crashing.

What are some thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

[mattbeer]

I dry hop often in my primary and secondary. My issue is that I leave behind over a gallon of trub throughout the process, leaving my kegs with too much head space. I make 12 gallons per brew and store it in two-6 gallon carboys. By the time I'm done racking into the kegs it's about 4 gallons each. Suggestions?

 

[couchsending]

When you use lots of hops you gets lots of trub... no two ways around it. You can bag the hops but extraction can go down significantly.

Why is that much headspace bad? Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I believe you might get slightly quicker carbonation with that extra gallon of headspace.

 

[chris000]

you always have headspace, if it is all CO2 it makes no difference how much. depending on the technique filling the keg (air in keg or filled with CO2), a higher gas column gives better separation, but since there are purge valves on the very top it is a mute point.
It also doesn't matter regarding carbonation if you have it sit in the fridge, since the surface area is always the same and therefore only the pressure (along with time & temperature) are the variables.

 

[fragged]

I dry hop often in my primary and secondary. My issue is that I leave behind over a gallon of trub throughout the process, leaving my kegs with too much head space. I make 12 gallons per brew and store it in two-6 gallon carboys. By the time I'm done racking into the kegs it's about 4 gallons each. Suggestions?

Your losing 4 gallons to trub?

 

[kevink]

Your losing 4 gallons to trub?

I lose 6.5 gallons for a 10 gallon batch of finished beer. Nothing you can do about it.

 

[tld6008]

I dry hop often in my primary and secondary. My issue is that I leave behind over a gallon of trub throughout the process, leaving my kegs with too much head space. I make 12 gallons per brew and store it in two-6 gallon carboys. By the time I'm done racking into the kegs it's about 4 gallons each. Suggestions?

Sounds like you need to start cleaning/filtering sooner, maybe put your hops in bags. Do this in the boil kettle for sure. If I am transferring wort with a lot of debris I always bag the end of the discharge hose as this catches 95% of debris. I have even had to leave the bag in the primary after tying it closed. I always do this when transferring to a keg. I use 6.5 G carboys as fermentors don't do a secondary and usually use 6 oz for DH which are loose. Usually get at min 4.75 gal in the keg. Can't imagine what you are doing to create so much waste.