I can never seem to get a good hop aroma in any of my beers, despite adding 100% of my hop bill within the last minutes. I always use aromatic hops with low a alpha percentage. My beers always seem to turn more bitter than aromatic.
I even dry hopped once and that didn’t improve the aroma, it just seemed more bitter. I’m not sure what’s wrong. I’ve been brewing for years and have never been able to produce a good aromatic beer.
Do you adjust your water chemistry and pH?
As someone who brews hoppy beers, I can give you a couple hints to get better aroma.
1/ In ales, take all the hops you’d have added in the last 20 minutes and add them post boil after cooling to 170F. Let them steep for 30 mins, gently stirring frequently, then replacing the lid. Then cool as normal.
2/ If you keg, purge the keg before filling by filling the keg with sanitizer and pumping the keg empty. This gives you a purged keg, as air contact oxidizes hop character very quickly. This helps greatly to avoid hop aroma oxidation.
3/ Again if you keg, dry hop in the keg using a 5 gallon paint strainer bag, zip tied shut. This traps the hop aromas in your keg and that’s a good thing. I leave the hops in there.
Hope this helps!
I don’t adjust water chemistry nor PH
I agree with all of the above except I’ve never tried keg dry hopping.
I would add that I use Beersmith and I adjust my water profile using its water tool. I adjust my water to a target called Tasty’s hoppy water. It’s from a guy on the brewing network. I’ve never not been happy with the results.
I recently have been underwhelmed by my hoppy beers. For me, it was making the decision to stop buying hops from previous crop years that are on blowout sales. I think quality of the ingredients (hops) is an important consideration as well.
-Tony
All the advice here is very good but it’s assuming you keg and are an all grain brewer. If you are an extract brewer don’t worry about the water chemistry other than making sure there is no chlorine.Purging and dry hopping in the keg is great if you keg but you can still do great if you don’t.
As to the bitterness problem it’s probably not from the late hops. I would back off on any boil additions. Just, using an online calculator, add one 60 minute dose for a modest amount of ibus, like 50. Then don’t add any until the 170 degree or less whirlpool that Hoosier mentioned. Then dry hop in a bag when primary is about done. Use lots of hops in these late additions. If you keg add more in the keg but if you bottle that’s fine. Once the bottles are carbed drink them soon. Also, when I pour a hoppy beer I finish with a flourish as I hold it up to my nose to get the full effect.
How much hops are you using? You want at least 1-2 ounces per gallon in the whirlpool or dry hop.
Jon, when you go this route do you notice added hop haze or do the beers pour fairly clear given time?
I’m assuming you mean particulate haze, and not the initial oil haze that you get. Very little particulate haze with one bag, but some initially. Basically zero if you use a bag inside a bag - that’s what I’m doing. Those bags are pretty fine mesh and the extra filter layer of the second bag gets it done.
Ahhhh, the old two bag approach, huh? Interesting sir.
I always use the white nylons that you can get at Walmart. 25 cents for a little egg with two in there. Works great for pellets or whole hops, and I’ve packed up to about 4 oz leaf hops in a bag with no problem. It’s like a hop sausage when you pull it out later on! No problems with any hop particulate whatsoever.
I use muslin bags to keg hop with. I get a lot of debris for the first week while it carbs and I take small samples.
Just make sure you are using enough hops. I never got the results I wanted until I considerably increased my late and dry hop amounts. I am still pretty conservative compared to most but like my results.
Oh yeah hop selection is important as well. Hops with higher oil content will pack a bigger punch.
I bottled my beer for the first 4 years that I brewed. I was adjusting my water, whirlpool, dry hop etc but my hoppy beers always had the same dull bitter flavor and aroma by the time they were ready to drink. I tried a few times throughout the years but eventually just decided I’m better off just buying ipas. The IPA I did recently now that I’m kegging was much much better. I know not everyone has room/ money for a kegging setup but if you do kegging/reducing oxidation will be a big improvement
There’s a lot of good information here but to reinforce nothing kills hops aroma and flavor faster than oxidation. while you do want to aerate your beer prior to pitching yeast you want to make sure you aren’t blasting the hop aroma out by over aerating or running the air at too high a volume.
Also, high fermentation temperatures can tend to mask some hoop aroma with fusel alcohols that will detract from hoppy goodness.
On the topic of hop aroma, do people find that they get different hop character when dry hopping at different temps. It could be all in my head, because the difference isn’t huge, but when I dry hop at lagering/kegerator temps, I swear I get more grassy flavors than dry hopping at room temperature.
I agree with that. I don’t like hopping at cold temps at all (imo, yymv, fwiw, etc).
Cheers. I’ve never heard it mentioned before. I wanted to send you a pm to ask, but are you making your own hop extract to dry hop inline? If so, do you have a tutorial? I’ve looked up co2 extraction units and they seem marketed towards the marijuana enthusiast and cost thousands.
Everything stated below is my own experience and is not a suggestion that it will work for you. If anything sounds fact-based then dismiss it because it is not:
I’ve personally experienced the same grassiness from cold temperature dry hopping, and I’ve concluded that it’s simply a function of temperature and time. Just like hop storage can be improved 10-50x by limiting oxygen, light, and freezing temperatures - but eventually they will lose their muster just like everything else. So, I find that 5 days of room temperature dry hopping is equal to about 30 days of cold-serving temp dry hopping, which is to say that you’ll find the same level and character of grassiness on days 1-2 at room temp dry hopping that you’ll find in 1-12 days of cold-temp dry hopping. As you move beyond those 12 days, the grassiness begins to fade away leaving the nicer characters of the hop; and by about day 30 at cold temps nearly all of the grassiness is gone leaving behind only the qualities you are generally striving for. So, that said, when I keg hop my beers I will leave them at room temp (65-70) for 5 days before putting the keg into cold storage and that solves the problem for me.
I haven’t had any bad experiences with keg hopping. I will note that with my processes my beer seems to have a VERY pungent/grassy character for the first week while it carbs and I get some hop debris. The hop character normally reaches a good level at about 2 weeks and is about perfect at 3 weeks in the keg. This is good for me because I tend to start drinking beers when they aren’t fully developed.
I don’t hop in the keg for better results but more out of laziness. A traditional dry hop could very well be more effective. It’s easier for me to just keg the beer when fermentation is finished, throw some hops in, and forget about it…