Very Low Tropical/Citrus Flavor In Citra IPA (Double Sunshine Clone)

[mmmhops]

Hey everyone. I recently brewed a Double Sunshine Clone from an issue of BYO.

The beer has only been carbonating in a keg for a week but I just tried a sample and there's barely any tropical/citrus flavor going on, and the smell isn't that great either. It's there, but the malt is coming through a lot more, as is some other taste. It's not bad, so much as not what I expected here.

My mash temp and mash/kettle pH were fine, FG is fine. The only thing I can think of is oxidation; maybe it got oxidized when I transferred to secondary for dry hopping, or maybe a vacuum was created when I cold crashed.

Any thought as to what could be going on with my hoppy beers? Where are those juicy, fruity and tropical aromas/flavors that I can't seem to capture?

 

[Adaman05]

If you are worried about oxidation, dry hop in the keg. Purge with co2 , rack, and purge again.


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[mmmhops]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm definitely worried about oxygen pick up, and will stick with keg hopping next time.

The only issue is I'm not sure if oxygen is the cause of the off flavors. I'm sipping another sample now. There's a nice hop bitterness, but the flavor and smell is predominantly sweet malt.

With the amount of hops in this recipe, I don't see how that malt flavor can dominate.

 

[bigdongsr94]

So you did keg hop? I never get hop flavor aroma where I want it. My next brew I am going to increase my sulfates to chlorides ratio and aim for more of a 5.4 mash pH rather than 5.2. I also planned to keg and maybe keg hop as those are supposed to be the way to great aroma. It kills me when I see people talking about great recipes or clones of beers and only adding 4-6 oz total hops. I can add 10+ and not get it where I want to. These are of coarse most late hopping. Although I have kegs I have not kegged in quite a while and have come a ways in my brewing since I have kegged.


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[ryancrook]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm definitely worried about oxygen pick up, and will stick with keg hopping next time.

The only issue is I'm not sure if oxygen is the cause of the off flavors. I'm sipping another sample now. There's a nice hop bitterness, but the flavor and smell is predominantly sweet malt.

With the amount of hops in this recipe, I don't see how that malt flavor can dominate.

I brewed this a couple of months ago with great success. What temperature did you dry hop at? I know the recipe called for dry hopping at 55 for a week. It'll take longer for the hop flavors to come through at this low of a temp. Also, did you dry hop in your primary, or rack it to a secondary?

 

[biertourist]

Many of those tropical flavors actually result form biotransformation by yeast.

Meaning: that the essential oils that are actually contained in citra itself, aren't actually the intense tropical fruit flavors that your looking for (Citranol if I remember correctly), but yeast take the oils that are provided and end up converting them into citranol which gives you the tropical fruit / "stone fruit" flavors.


Now the practical application for this is that you should "go big" with your late hopping and / or start hopping in primary fermentation even though the yeast will carry more oils with them to the bottom. -The flavors that you'll get with late kettle hopping are different than dry hopping because of this issue of biotransformation of essential oils by yeast.


The science is pretty new but there are SOME yeast strains that people regularly report as working well with citrusy IPAs, like the "Vermont ale / Conan" strain. -Is this because this strain is better at bioconverting hop essential oils, or does less essential oil stick to the outer surface of these yeast cells so that they simply pull less essential oils out of solution when they flocculate?? -No idea, but there's way too many people reporting some great citrusy, fruity, tropical flavors out of IPAs made with this yeast strain.


My $0.02, anyway.
Adam

 

[PrinceOfThePoint]

We can't say for sure what the cause is, but my hops flavor/aroma was getting killed by my old bottling process due to excessive oxygen exposure IMO. I would suggest trying to skip the secondary, and then split the dry hops between 1) final 5 days in primary and then 2) the keg. Cheers

 

[b-boy]

I think water is a big factor. I've been chasing this problem forever. I've tried emulating different water profiles, and I use 50% distilled water now to eliminate some issues with my town water. They've helped, but I'm still not there yet.

 

[mmmhops]

Wow thanks for all of the great replies, sounds like I'm not alone out there in the search for that ultimate citrus fruit flavor.

bigdongsr94- I did not keg hop, I crashed and racked onto hops sitting in a smaller carboy. I had a mash pH of about 5.2, and I used the "Pale Ale" water profile in Bru'n Water. I hadn't heard that a higher mash pH accentuates those particular hop flavors, I'll have to give that a shot too.

ryancrook- I dry hopped closer to room temperature, like 67 degrees (had to make room in the carboy). Unfortunately I did rack to secondary to dry hop, per the instructions. Next time I'll try keg hopping. It still seems crazy that we had such different results with the same recipe. Did you use dry or liquid yeast?

biertourist- Your post reminds me that I definitely have to finish reading "Yeast." Have you read anything that mentions the ideal temperature for late kettle hopping so as to get more of those oils that are precursors to citranol? I'll have to look into ordering some Conan.

PrinceOfThePoint-I'm with you, in that I'm pretty sure oxidation during packaging is at least partially to blame for this. I'm going to dry hop in the keg, cut 1/2 inch off of the dip tube, and hope for hoppy godness.

b-boyI can definitely see water profile playing a role in the way the hops express themselves. I think my water profile has the right mineral content for this style of IPA, it's just missing that citrusy/juicy flavor.

 

[reuliss]

Wait until the beer is carbed before you judge. You're going to get a lot more hop aroma coming off of the beer at that point.


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[afr0byte]

biertourist- Your post reminds me that I definitely have to finish reading "Yeast."

The book he is referencing is the Hops book in the same series, I believe. I think Stan H also mentioned some of the same info at the NHC.

 

[carvetop]

Did you whirlpool/hop stand at or near 180F? I brewed this 2 weeks ago and the sample taken before dry hopping was intensely peachy and tropical owing mostly to the large amount of hops dropped into the whirlpool and the yeast. The dry hops seemed to have taken over the peach notes for the most part and replaced them with a fresh hop/slightly dank aroma. FWIW, I did use Conan yeast harvested from a can of Heady.

 

[masonsjax]

IME, Conan works well with tropical hops because it has a tropical/peach ester profile itself that complements those characteristics in hops. Also, it leaves a sort of slick mouthfeel that kinda makes you think theres more hops, perhaps because many AIPAs are on the thin/dry side to accentuate hops while Conan leaves the impression of a higher gravity less fermentable beer. If there's a legit reference for the claim about yeast converting oils I'd like to read it. This is a claim I'd love to confidently repeat all over HBT

I was chasing this problem myself for a while and believe I have everything sorted out. Dry hopping works very well for me when kept at 70F or higher (always in primary after yeast have mostly flocced out). Below 70F was a waste of hops. Hop stands have been very good at adding massive flavor boosts for me, but only contribute a tiny bit to aroma. I've experimented with the range of temperatures and durations. Increasing my gypsum additions seems to have made a big difference in the perception of hoppiness while drinking, it's worth exploring. I've had mixed results with keg hopping, but my conclusion is that it's not worth the trouble.

 

[biertourist]

If there's a legit reference for the claim about yeast converting oils I'd like to read it. This is a claim I'd love to confidently repeat all over HBT

It IS in in the BP hop book, but spending 10 seconds typing search criteria into Google has yielded (you'll likely need university login creds to access most of the full publications):

• http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._hop_aroma_terpenoids_by_ale_and_lager_yeasts Cardiff University
• THIS publication directly applies directly to the Citra-flavor issue (bio transofrmation of geraniol to Beta Citronellol, which is our "citra flavor" http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf1000524
• References a paper by the Laboratory of Enzyme, Fermentation and Brewing Technology, Leuven: http://www.cerevisia.eu/pdf/2011/abstract-4-vol36-2011.pdf
• Thesis of Peter Wolfe from 2012 at OSU -he studied under "Dr Hop" himself, Thomas Shellhammer; paper specifically focused on flavors extracted by dry hopping. (Excited to get to meet Dr. Shellhammer @ Hop and Brew School in Yakima tomorrow!! Woohoo!) http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/34093/Wolfe_thesis.pdf
• Journal of the Institute of Brewing -publication on the Geraniol Citrus Flavor (B-Citronellol) connection back in 2010 -I believe this is the research doc that first kicked off this whole discussion on where that Citra flavor comes from. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2010.tb00428.x/pdf

Search engines are magical things.

Adam

 

[masonsjax]

Awesome, thank you!

I suppose it didn't come across as such, but I was asking in more of a "if you can remember where you read that" kind of way, not a "I'm too lazy to search so will you do it for me" type way. I'm more than familiar with the magic of Google, I worked there for ten years
Thanks again, I'll dig into these references if I can.