Why doesn't the hop character of my beers taste the same as commercial beers

[Clonefan94]

I'm with the others here who think you just don't have enough IBUs going. Personally, I wouldn't over think this one too much. On the recipe you posted, 45 IBUs in that beer, isn't going to give you an in your face punch. You probably have just enough to set a background to the malts. As has been said, first thing I'd try is upping the bittering hops. I really wouldn't expect what you are looking for until you get into the 60s or 70s with IBU.

I brew and Amber with a lot of crystal malt and cascade late additions in it and it comes in around 40 IBUs according to Beersmith. And it's far from what I would consider a Hoppy beer.

As riderkb said, up the bittering to accentuate the late additions.

 

[Shuznuts]

Are you using pellets or whole hops?


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[Pratty]

For me, getting the water chemistry understood made a huge difference to my pale ales and IPAs.

Now when ever i make a hoppy beer I always add enough calcium sulphate (gypsum) to get my calcium to 150ppm and sulphate to 300ppm and those hops shine right through. That amount for me on a 21lt batch is roughly 15g...10g in the mash and 5g for the sparge.

Water chem is complex and you will need to try some online calcs that give you amounts to add based do your current water profile and desired...check out bru'n water for a start.

Adding a bittering charge will help with a all cascade hopped pale ale, maybe to 15ibu for a 60min addition then just get the rest from 20m - flameout. With the amounts your dry hopping it should have given you a real good aroma.


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[grathan]

I would definitely try the RO water.

Again with some acid malt. half pound.

Gyspsum 2 tsp -> strike water + 2 tsp -> boil

I would switch out the crystal 70 malt in your recipe for all cara-pils (just so nothing detracts from the hop flavor for a test batch).

You need to up your hop amounts. 7 oz is weak. I agree with more IBU. I would try a clean bittering hop like German Magnum or even hop extract syringe (to retain a nice clean flavor in the beer letting the flavor hops stand out).

If you want in your face grapefruit, your gonna need at least 4oz just for the dry hop.

1 oz magnum 60 min

2oz cascade 20 minutes
4 oz cascade flameout
4 oz cascade whirlpool (under 190*F)
4oz dry hop.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

5 months later and I am not much closer to achieving my goal of better hop character. I have quit making 5 gallon batches until i can figure out the lack of aroma. Last fall, right at harvest I ordered several pounds of hops. I never tried leaf so I ordered all leaf of Cascade, centennial, citra, columbus, amarillo, chinook, simcoe, etc. I expected great things. I made a 5 gallon batch of all centennial. Essentially a two hearted clone, however went with 3 oz dry hop while the recipe had .5 or 1 oz. Again let down by the aroma, I went to 1 gallon batches to find out my problem. My first cascade recipe i used the equivalent of 2 oz at 1 min, 2 oz at flameout and 2 oz hopstand at 175f for 80 minutes. I though this must be enough to get a decent hop flavor and aroma. Nope after 2 weeks i tasted the beer and it was nonexistant. I dry hopped with 3 oz i the primary for a week and tasted again. Nadda. Racked off those hops and into secondary of 4oz more. Grabbed a sample after 5 days, nothing but a drying, astringent flavor but no aroma. What gives? How can the equivalent of 7oz of hops not result in anything but ridiculous aroma? I recreated the two hearted ale clone in a 1 gallon batch adding 3 oz at flameout and 3 more at 175F for 80 minutes. Dry hopped with 3 oz. Better, but still very weak. I have done several other and it seems that citra gives pretty good aroma. Each batch, I add gypsum to raise sulfate to 200-300 and ensure mash ph is 5.4-5.6. Can these hops just be aroma less. Were they picked too soon? They smell good but its amazing how little aroma I get witht the quantity I use. I even expected good aroma prior to dry hopping due to the late hopping and hop stands. Again any advice to reach my goal is appreciated.

 

[kpr121]

5 months later and I am not much closer to achieving my goal of better hop character. I have quit making 5 gallon batches until i can figure out the lack of aroma. Last fall, right at harvest I ordered several pounds of hops. I never tried leaf so I ordered all leaf of Cascade, centennial, citra, columbus, amarillo, chinook, simcoe, etc. I expected great things. I made a 5 gallon batch of all centennial. Essentially a two hearted clone, however went with 3 oz dry hop while the recipe had .5 or 1 oz. Again let down by the aroma, I went to 1 gallon batches to find out my problem. My first cascade recipe i used the equivalent of 2 oz at 1 min, 2 oz at flameout and 2 oz hopstand at 175f for 80 minutes. I though this must be enough to get a decent hop flavor and aroma. Nope after 2 weeks i tasted the beer and it was nonexistant. I dry hopped with 3 oz i the primary for a week and tasted again. Nadda. Racked off those hops and into secondary of 4oz more. Grabbed a sample after 5 days, nothing but a drying, astringent flavor but no aroma. What gives? How can the equivalent of 7oz of hops not result in anything but ridiculous aroma? I recreated the two hearted ale clone in a 1 gallon batch adding 3 oz at flameout and 3 more at 175F for 80 minutes. Dry hopped with 3 oz. Better, but still very weak. I have done several other and it seems that citra gives pretty good aroma. Each batch, I add gypsum to raise sulfate to 200-300 and ensure mash ph is 5.4-5.6. Can these hops just be aroma less. Were they picked too soon? They smell good but its amazing how little aroma I get witht the quantity I use. I even expected good aroma prior to dry hopping due to the late hopping and hop stands. Again any advice to reach my goal is appreciated.

It really seems like you should be getting aroma from what you are doing (I’d still say that other than the big dry hops addition you still have to up the overall weights in order to get a true hop bomb), but I’ll throw a couple qualifying questions that might help identify a problem:

What did you end up doing with the water? Still using tap or did you switch to RO?

The 1 gallon batch you did - you didnt mention any bittering hops additions, did you have any at all?

How long (number of days) and at what temperature were your dry hop additions? Was primary fermentation completed when you added the hops?

What yeast did you use and what was OG/FG for the two recent beers? A higher FG can tend to ‘cancel out’ the hops flavors (wouldn’t cause too much difference in aroma though). What was your mash temp?

I really feel like it’s your water, but any number of these can be contributing variables. You could do a test by doing maybe a 1 gallon extract recipe with only light DME in RO or distilled water, and keep the same hop schedule.

One last one: Have you had other highly hopped beer (home brew or commercial) recently? Maybe your sensitivity to hops has gone up (down?), and you just need to make something with like a lb of hops to satisfy your palette? I would try to nail down the other variables first before doing this so as not to ‘waste’ a lb of hops.

 

[grathan]

Also you don't mention where you got all these pounds of hops and what year they were harvested.

Also your hops scale could be off?

Also your not kegging these 1 gallon batches are you? Also what kind of headspace is in the fermenter/secondary and how stable are the temps there?

 

[BreezyBrew]

The biggest improvements that I made to the end result were the following:

- Keg Hopping. Seriously. Made a huge difference
- Fine tuning my water for pH and sulphate levels
- Masing at 150
- Getting the freshest hops I could get my grubby little hands on
- Using clean English ale yeast like 007 or US-04.

 

[mbbransc]

All my IPAs were blah-to-OK before moving to kegging. Once I started kegging, my IPAs finally tasted like commercial examples. Now I do close system transfers into my purged kegs with dry hops already in the keg. I prefer my IPAs to most commercial examples now. I finally get that hop punch in the face with a fresh pour.

IMO, bottled homebrew IPAs just can't compete. No matter how anal you are about oxygen, you can't avoid it when bottling.

 

[Sir-Brews-Alot]

All my IPAs were blah-to-OK before moving to kegging. Once I started kegging, my IPAs finally tasted like commercial examples. Now I do close system transfers into my purged kegs with dry hops already in the keg. I prefer my IPAs to most commercial examples now. I finally get that hop punch in the face with a fresh pour.

IMO, bottled homebrew IPAs just can't compete. No matter how anal you are about oxygen, you can't avoid it when bottling.

I hate to say it, but like others, I never enjoyed any of the IPAs I brewed until I started kegging. In fact, I just plain didn't brew IPAs because they never turned out good. You can be as careful as possible, but the fact is you will always get some oxygenation when bottling which will kill hop character IME. Now I adjust my water for hoppy beers, and do all my transferring in a closed C02 pressurized environment, and my hoppy beers finally live up to commercial examples.

 

[kpr121]

Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve had many good homebrew IPAs in bottles either. And to go further, I think I am going to start being extra careful to avoid O2 entering my beers during transfers, racking with C02 into purged kegs and all. Any extra burden is worth it to keep the hop-punch in the beer!

 

[BreezyBrew]

Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve had many good homebrew IPAs in bottles either. And to go further, I think I am going to start being extra careful to avoid O2 entering my beers during transfers, racking with C02 into purged kegs and all. Any extra burden is worth it to keep the hop-punch in the beer!

I won't even take a gravity sample until kegging day.

 

[masonsjax]

I didn't read every post, but for me the big eureka moment was dry hopping temperature. I was normally dry hopping at fermentation temps, low to mid 60s until someone suggested trying in the 70s. Ten degrees and I now get all the aroma I ever wanted from fewer hops.

I had already experimented with water chemistry, hops stands, hop teas, massive and multiple dry hop additions, CO2 purging, etc. All of the above contributed something, (water chemistry took my beer from good to awesome IMO), but the aroma was still lacking until I raised the dry hop temps. I've been satisfied ever since.

 

[riderkb]

I didn't read every post, but for me the big eureka moment was dry hopping temperature. I was normally dry hopping at fermentation temps, low to mid 60s until someone suggested trying in the 70s. Ten degrees and I now get all the aroma I ever wanted from fewer hops.

I had already experimented with water chemistry, hops stands, hop teas, massive and multiple dry hop additions, CO2 purging, etc. All of the above contributed something, (water chemistry took my beer from good to awesome IMO), but the aroma was still lacking until I raised the dry hop temps. I've been satisfied ever since.

I'm going to try this when my basement is warm enough. My woman is a hop fiend and is never satisfied.

 

[cjgenever]

Is that 5.4-5.6 ph at room temp or mash?

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

The last four 5 gallon batches i used ro water and adjusted with salts using brunwater. I went back to tap water though carbon block filter for 1 gallon batches. I still adjust for 200-250 sulfate though. I use my ward labs results and input them into brunwater and adjust for salts and ph. Ph is measured at room temperature. I cool the sample down to around 70F the take the reading after calibrating using the ref solutions.

Most of my recipes have a 60 or 30 minute bittering addition that accounts for roughly 50% of ibus, with the rest coming from late additions and hop stand.

I dry hop normally for 5-7 days at room temp 70F. I'm sure Its not stable with my wife and I preferring different ambient temperatures. Could range 68-72f. I have tried up to 2 weeks dry hopping and little as 2 days. I dont notice much difference after a couple days. If its in there at 2 days its usually the same after a week or two. Vise versa if i dont detect much at 2 there isnt much more after a week. I usually wait 2 weeks before dry hopping with my pale ales or low

 

[kpr121]

What your mashing temps like and what fg do you get, typically?

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

I mash at 152 for pale ales and a bit cooler for ipas maybe 148-150f. Final gravity is usually 1.010 plus or minus a couple.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Original gravities are 1.054 for the cascade and 1.68 for the cent ipa.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Even though my tastes have changed demanding more hop character, a mild hopped beer like snpa reminds me i am nowhere near my goal.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Last falls hops were from 2014 harvest and labeled as such. I guess i have to believe thats what i was shipped. They smell good.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Kegging is in my future however i have not yet obtained the necessary equipment

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Concerning headspace, i fill my primaries to 85% full and secondaries are usually 60% or so after losses

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

1 gallon batches i have been using dry yeast us04 and us05. For 5 gallons i made starters with liquid

 

[Backslide]

I never secondary! I also dry hop my ipa's 1.5oz per gal for 5 days at 68°.

 

[grathan]

Last falls hops were from 2014 harvest and labeled as such. I guess i have to believe thats what i was shipped. They smell good.

That still doesn't say where they're from. A reputable dealer would put their name on the bag.

Concerning headspace, i fill my primaries to 85% full and secondaries are usually 60% or so after losses.

I would consider getting a smaller jug to dry hop in. Hop oils are hydrophobic and will move out into the headspace. Also everytime you take a sample or open the top those oils are flying out.


Also you mentioned liking Citra. Start keeping track of hop flavors/aromas you like. Another very pronounced flavor/aroma hop you could try is Mosiac.

Also you could mention which commercial beers you're comparing too.

 

[mdbrewer1]

I never secondary! I also dry hop my ipa's 1.5oz per gal for 5 days at 68°.

Whoa. So that would be 7.5oz for a 5 gal batch?

I don't know anything about the science involved, but I imagine at some point you'd be running into diminishing returns. Did you work your way up to that amount or did you start at that high of a number? I would think that you could cut that back a bit and still achieve pretty much the same results.

 

[johnsoncurt1980]

Hopsdirect

 

[lazarwolf]

How fresh are your hops?

How fresh, and pellet or leaf. ..

 

[lazarwolf]

This has been a great thread. Learning a lot, and feeling blessed to live in a place with great water.