I recently brewed an IPA with all New Zealand Hops. This was my first time doing a hop stand. The aroma is great and the beer tasted great each time I tested it after primary, before each dry hop and prior to bottling. The soapy flavor developed after bottling. It has not really gotten stronger or mellowed as time has gone on. Any ideas what might cause it. Sanitation has not been an issue on any other beer I have brewed and I have never had this problem on another beer. I have also since brewed another IPA with the different hops on the same schedule and it turned out great. Could it be the combination of hops that give me that off flavor?
The Recipe is:
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine
8.0 oz Crystal 15
8 lbs Pale LME
60 Min boil,
:30 (0.5 oz each Green Bullet and Nelson Sauvin)
:10 (0.5 oz each Green Bullet and Nelson Sauvin)
:00 (0.25 oz each: Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Pacifica, Wakatu, and Motueka)
Hop Stand for :30 before chilling (0.25 oz each: Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Pacifica, Wakatu, and Motueka)
1st Dry Hop after Krausen 4 days for 5 days (0.25 oz each: Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Pacifica, Wakatu, and Motueka)
2nd Dry Hop for 5 days (0.25 oz each: Green Bullet, Nelson Sauvin, Pacifica, Wakatu, and Motueka)
Irish Moss and Yeastex
British Ale (White Labs #WLP005)
Bottle conditioned with corn sugar
OG 1.061 FG 1.014 IBU 52
I am willing to bet it’s the hops. I have read numerous reports on here about IPAs turning out soapy after some time in a keg. It must be a particular type of hop flavor that is masked as first but as those flavours that are masking it begin to drop out the soapiness creeps up.
I have not supporting evidence, this is just a strong hunch
I get soapiness from late additions of hops like fuggles and other earthy hops. I don’t know have much experience with the ones you used so not sure which ones might be contributing it.
I have used enough Nelson and Motueka to rule those out as the culprits (unless they are part of an ill-fated combo that produces that flavor). Wish I could be more help otherwise.
Soapy flavors can caused by not washing your glass very well, but they can also be produced by the fermentation conditions. If you leave the beer in the primary fermentor for a relatively long period of time after primary fermentation is over (“long” depends on the style and other fermentation factors), soapy flavors can result from the breakdown of fatty acids in the trub. Soap is, by definition, the salt of a fatty acid; so you are literally tasting soap.
Thanks for the input.
I ruled out the soapy glass issue by having it in several different glasses.
The beer only sat on the trub for 8 days, then I racked to secondary and added the second dry hop.
I think I will chalk it up to a combination of hop flavors that don’t play well together.
Perhaps it is as simple as that. There is a naturally occurring compound in hops called linalool, if you look at the ingredients in some soaps, it is also there. It could be that you’re picking up the compound as soapy because that’s where you are used to smelling that compound.
I had some soapy issues on my IPA and a smart person here on the 4M suggested addig a small amount of gypsum to the beer glass and it worked at scrubbing out much of the soap character. I now add gypsum to my mash for every IPA. Seems to have fixed the issue.
If one had a soapy beer, and adding gypsum to the beer glass fixed it, one could try CaCl2 in another glass. If the second is fixed it is the Ca, if not fixed it is the SO4.