The next guest in the Ask the Experts series will be Mitch Steele, author of the new book “IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale”. Mitch will be taking questions about IPA (believe it or not!) the week of Oct. 22-29. Answers will be posted on Nov. 12. Unlike previous Ask the Experts sessions, this one will be conducted here on the forum and open to everyone, not just AHA members. Please do not post questions before Oct. 22. I wanted to give everyone a heads up to start thinking about what you might like to ask. I’ll post more as we get closer to 10/22 to remind everyone and let you know when the question period is open. Please keep questions related to IPA, but any aspect of IPA or anything you read in the book is fair game.
This looks like it will be a really interesting and informative experience, so start thinking up those questions!
I just got the AHA “What’s Brewing” email promoting Mitch Steele’s visit to the forum next week. Looking forward to the Q&A session for sure. Should be a great session.
Good. Although I am in the process of reading it. Just got to the IPA’s of the United States part. It’s a really good book. I can’t read it without having some kind of hoppy beer to accompany it.
I have been homebrewing for 10+ years - bottling & kegging. I never have gotten good results from dry hopping. Currently, I put whole leaf hops in a hop bag, drop in keg & rack on top. I then remove after 5-10 days & add another charge the same way (hop bag) if called for.
However, every time I’ve gotten just vegetal, grassy flavors regardless of the varietal used. Because of this, I have cut out dry hopping in all my beers 100% & just add those same hops at flameout which provides exactly what I am looking for.
Do you have any clue what could be cause the unpleasant flavors in dry hopping using the procedures above? Is late hopping just as effective & dry hopping unnecessary?
I have been homebrewing for just over 12 years and finally, finally found a solution for great hop flavor and aroma. I should state this works great FOR ME. I use a water filter housing as a torpedo (Sierra Nevada) and recirculate the freshly kegged wort for 2 days at cellar temp (60-65 F). I use 2 to 6 ounces of hops in a bag. The flavor and aroma does start to diminish after 2 to 3 weeks.
So, I would like to hear what Mitch would have to say concerning extending/preserving hop characteristics in packaging. My process is pretty tight. I don’t filter and would like to know how much hop character is removed by the residual yeast flocculating/settling in the keg?
I have thought about re-torpedoing, but have been too lazy to try that yet.
I do remember Ballantine IPA from when I was young, though it was brewed in RI then. Have plenty of Cluster and Bullion and a little Brewer’s Gold to give this, or Jeff Renner’s recipe from the HBD a try. Jeff’s recipe used 6-row as the base malt, and Sazz late in the boil. The recipe by Fred Scheer was interesting, as was his statement that there were a 100 recipes for that beer over the years.
My question for Mitch: What is the suggested length to leave a beer on dry hops? What is also the maximum length of time (days, weeks, month, etc.) one could dry hop for? I’ve heard varying preferences from brewers from anywhere between 4 days to 2 weeks. Will leaving a beer on dry hops for 3 weeks really make a difference? Obviously, tasting the beer is one way to tell when to rack off hops, but I wanted to know if there was any set standard to abide by. (For the record, I haven’t bought or read the new IPA book yet - in case this is covered within the book.)
In addition, what are the deciding factors besides “time” for when to rack off hops: %AA, total hop mass, leaf/pellet/plug form, temperature, etc.?
I wonder if dry hopping is sort of like the old idea of racking your beer off yeast to prevent autolysis and off-flavors from developing. Similar in vein, will leaving a beer too long on dry hops really give you harsh hop qualities, or is this just a perceived threat that’s been passed on from homebrewers over the years?
I’m pretty excited about this Q&A session. Thanks for organizing it. Here’s my question:
I’ve read in a couple recent homebrewing books (The Brewer’s Apprentice, the IPA excerpt in Zymurgy) that cohumulone is related to the harshness of bitterness, with more cohumolone seeming more harsh. However, I’ve also read in scientific papers that this is somewhat outdated and incorrect information and that cohumulone is no more bitter than other alpha acids, although it might be more soluble/survive to the finished product more than the others (Schonberger and Kostelecky’s 2011 article in the Journal of the Institute of Brewing titled The Role of Hops in Brewing, see p. 262). Can you weigh in on this? Does cohumulone contribute a more harsh bitterness? Are there recent experiments confirming this?
Thank you. And thanks for all the information you’ve shared with the homebrewing community.
For hopping rates do we use the IBU listing and work the numbers around to keep the percentages right? I tried to make it work for the Meantime IPA and it came out to an obscene amount of hops - about 4 lbs per barrel vs. the 2 lbs per barrel mentioned in the recipe. Can we assume a more efficient use of hops at the professional level vs. homebrew level?
Can you be more specific for yeast strains? The homebrew strains that are typically available are purported to be from some of these breweries: Brakspear, Worthington, Whitbread, Boddingtons, Timothy Taylor, Fullers, Ringwood.
My question concerns stability in kegs. The flavor and aroma in my hoppy ales start to diminish after two to three weeks. I rack under co2 with a closed system. I would appreciate any thoughts or recommendations you would have concerning increasing stability in packaging. My typical hop additions are FWH, 15,10, 5 and then 2 to 3 ounces in the hop rocket before plate chilling. I then slowly recirculate beer through 2 to 6 ounces of hops in my “torpedo” for two days after kegging; this is done at cellar temps (60-65 F). All of this is done completely under co2. Thanks and love your beers. Cory
When designing an IPA, what specific component or combination of chemical components in the hop am I looking for? I want to venture out more, and try new hop varieties in an IPA. Besides looking for the freshest hops, should I be looking at hop components such as, total oil, co-humulone, beta-acids, alpha-acids, myrcene, humulene, or farnesene?
Often times I can’t find the classic IPA hops, such as, Simcoe, Citra, or Centennial. So I would like to know what exactly to look for in a hop variety before I buy it and run a test brew.
I haven’t finished the book yet but I would like to ask a question that may be answered in the book but might be informative to those without the book.
I was wondering if you could just outline the top 3 (or 4 or 5) things you think makes a great IPA. Where should we really be concentrating our efforts and what is your process when designing an IPA?
