I have brewed this recipe a number of times before using Wyeast 1318 (London III), but this time I wanted to give Cosmic Punch Yeast from Omega a try. Based on what I’ve read and have been told by my LHBS I should add some mash hops and potentially reduce the dry hops.
Does anyone have some suggestions for how much I should add to the mash and how much I should dial back the dry hops?
Also, what hops would you recommend in the mash?
I would just throw a bit of caution to the wind and experiment, but I’m really need the beer to be drinkable for a Christmas Party next month.
I brewed an IPA using Cosmic Punch recently, and while it came out great, I didn’t notice the tropical thiol-boosted flavors I was expecting. I can’t mash-hop (I feed my spent grain to my chickens and ducks), and I didn’t have access to Phantasm at the time. It just tasted like a good, but otherwise normal, IPA.
That being said, Great Fermentations has Phantasm powder in stock currently. I have some on hand, but I haven’t brewed with it yet. From what I understand, it’s the best way to boost the thiol precursors in your wort. I’m looking forward to trying it with Helio Gazer in the coming weeks.
I interviewed people from Omega, Phantasm and YCH about this stuff. Recommendation was for 2 oz of mash hops. Saaz is supposedly to work really well as well as Cacscade. If you use Phantasm, recommendation was to add to DO at the rate of 1-2 lb/bbl. No one said anything about reducing dry hops.
I assume 2 oz would be for a 5-gallon batch and I would need to simply double for a 10 gallon batch?
I think I’ll just leave the dry hops the same and see what happens. At my LHBS store he said he used Helio Glazer and thought the Guava was so intense that he didn’t know if he’d be able to finish the 5 gallons.
“In our previous Helio Gazer announcement newsletter, we provided a slightly confusing bullet point that stated “Dry hopping absorbs thiols” in the “Some technical points” section. We would like to add some context to that technical tip regarding dry hopping and thiols as it’s a little more nuanced than the tip would convey. Though we are still investigating the precise mechanism, we have good evidence that T90s in the whirlpool and heavy dry hopping rates can reduce thiol content in the beer. From our experiments and brewing trials with customers, the best approach for balance of hops and thiols is a late dry hop (post-fermentation) with a lower addition rate. Too heavy of a dry hop may mask the thiol aromas from the yeast, no dry hop leans more to a New Zealand Sauvignon blanc-like thiol perception, and a modest dry hop (e.g., 2.5 oz per 5 gallons) gets the best of both worlds. The latter will strike a good balance of hop aroma and guava/passion fruit thiols from the yeast.”
From one of Omega Yeast newsletters. I had also emailed Lance, he had said there are plenty of precursor in malt so mash hopping isn’t strictly necessary. I had asked because I was crunched on time and wanted to do an extract only batch. Hopefully the info above helps, otherwise I’d check out Top Crop.
I’ve tried Cosmic Punch along with all the other “Thiolized” yeasts from Omega. If mash hopping works (I tried Saaz once and Cascade another time) I can’t tell the difference. I also read to cut back on the dry hops but my best beers were dry hopped as normal.
Can’t say I cared for Phantasm. Only used it once but whatever it added wasn’t Tropical to me.
Interesting. I had already dialed back my dry hops (haven’t done it as it’s still fermenting), but I’m wondering if I should go back to the usual amount of dry hops.
“Though we are still investigating the precise mechanism, we have good evidence that T90s in the whirlpool and heavy dry hopping rates can reduce thiol content in the beer. From our experiments and brewing trials with customers, the best approach for balance of hops and thiols is a late dry hop (post-fermentation) with a lower addition rate. Too heavy of a dry hop may mask the thiol aromas from the yeast, no dry hop leans more to a New Zealand Sauvignon blanc-like thiol perception, and a modest dry hop (e.g., 2.5 oz per 5 gallons) gets the best of both worlds. The latter will strike a good balance of hop aroma and guava/passion fruit thiols from the yeast.”
Just had to jump on here and say something, because I’ve been loving playing with different thiolized yeast strains! IMO mash hopping is a must to fully take advantage of it. Thank you for sharing all this information!
I’ve also really been enjoying Phantasm, both what I’ve brewed as well as beers in the market. Thank you so much for the Great Fermentations link - I haven’t been able to find Phantasm in such small quantities - this makes it FAR more affordable.