20 replies to this topic

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

So I made an APA with almost 11oz of wet hops thrown in towards the end of the boil. It might be a little over the top in terms of hop presence but this doesn't bother me too much. One thing that is a little strange is that after swallowing I notice a slight burning sensation in the back of my throat. I feel pretty sure it's not an alcoholic kind of burning b/c I can't taste any alcohol type flavors that usually accompany this. Is this the wet hops causing this? Will this sensation mellow out with age? I believe I brewed this beer about a month and a half ago.

[ncbeerbrewer]

Sounds like a nice beer to my Zym. I would attribute the burning sensation you describe coming from the high volume of hops. I love hops but I think the more you add the more it gets to resemblance of pure hops. What I am saying is have you ever tasted a small piece of a hop pellet while you were brewing, to me that can create an intense flavor and almost burning sensation. I am going to guess that with 11oz of hops you might have created that sensation. I do feel that it will fade over time. Wow I am impressed you got 11oz from your planted hops? Great job I barely got 2oz from my 4 bines. Enjoy your APA.

[Big Nake]

I was going to say what NC said... you added enough hops late in the boil to get some serious burning going on. Also, I have heard the "wet hop" term thrown around and I wonder if this just means home-grown hops or hops that weren't dried the normal way or what. I don't want to derail the thread by asking this... but I'm not sure about it.On a related note, I had hops growing in planters in the summer of 2007. I never really got a good handle on what to do when they shot up, so they didn't really do anything. I had plenty of commercial hops and eventually just let my hops die (long story). But I just pulled three lilac bushes out of my yard in an out-of-the-way spot that gets a lot of sun and I'm considering trying hops again... but I have to get clearance from the tower.

[HVB]

Zym,I did a wet hop IPA with 52 OZ for a 10G batch. I get no burning feeling and I added about 20 oz between 10 minutes and flame-out. I used Cascade and Centennial what ones did you use? I think that it will bitter as time goes on and the hops start to drop out. My beer came out good but has a weird Carmel like aroma but you cannot taste any Carmel. I only used 1# for the 10g batch so it was either from the hops or my element scorched the wort.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Going to try to answer all the questions:NC and Ken: Not sure if this is clear or not but when I say "wet hops" that means I didn't dry them out. I picked them during the boil and pretty much immediately threw them in the kettle. I've heard varying numbers on how much to divide the "wet" amount by to get the "dry" equivalent - usually a factor between 4 and 6. So NC, if you dried your hops we probably ended up with a similar amount of hops overall.Drez: These are cascade hops. I used pellet glacier for my bittering and for a 20 min addition. I used my wet hops in combination with some pellet cascade for a 10 and 1 minute addition. I divided the wet amounts by 6 and my hopping schedule was like this:1oz glacier @ 60min1oz glacier @ 20min1.8oz cascade @ 10 min (wet hops amount divided by 6)2oz cascade @ 1 min (wet hops amount divided by 6)other info:OG: 1.051FG: 1.01IBU: 41

[earthtone]

I think probably NC has it right. One time I accidently used some recycled brewers yeast instead of a baker's yeast culture a friend gave me (long story, they lived next to each other without labels in my fridge) and baked a batch of bread. When I cut into it I realised the mistake, as there were bits of hop pellet through the bread. Not to be deterred I buttered up a slice and bit in, only to start retching because of the burning intensity of the bitterness....Long story short.... compost bread.Probably something about the wet hops coupled with the volume of hops in the brew and the relatively young age of it. Has it been cold stored for long?Give us an update in a week or so!I have a Amarillo Wheat I did with a bunch of fresh, wet cascades that I'm racking into the keg tonight. I'll let you know if I get any burning from that one

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I think probably NC has it right. One time I accidently used some recycled brewers yeast instead of a baker's yeast culture a friend gave me (long story, they lived next to each other without labels in my fridge) and baked a batch of bread. When I cut into it I realised the mistake, as there were bits of hop pellet through the bread. Not to be deterred I buttered up a slice and bit in, only to start retching because of the burning intensity of the bitterness....Long story short.... compost bread.Probably something about the wet hops coupled with the volume of hops in the brew and the relatively young age of it. Has it been cold stored for long?Give us an update in a week or so!I have a Amarillo Wheat I did with a bunch of fresh, wet cascades that I'm racking into the keg tonight. I'll let you know if I get any burning from that one

I think it's been in secondary (cold storage) for about a month or so.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

So this beer still tastes pretty weird to me. I think it has something to do with the hops but I've never experienced this before. I don't know if it's resiny or what. I'm hoping it smooths out with age...

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

has anyone used way too many cascades at the end of the boil that can share with me what that tastes like?

[DaBearSox]

well I know the SNPA clone uses 1 oz cascade at 10 and 2 oz at flameout....I have only done that clone with amarillo and chinook so I can't exactly answer your question....but with those pales I never got the burning sensation...however you did use .8oz more

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

well I know the SNPA clone uses 1 oz cascade at 10 and 2 oz at flameout....I have only done that clone with amarillo and chinook so I can't exactly answer your question....but with those pales I never got the burning sensation...however you did use .8oz more

well - I possibly used more than that "equivalent" b/c I maybe should have divided by 4 instead of 6.

[jayb151]

I've done a super hopped pale with only cascades. I didn't notice any "burning" as I drank it, but I did notice a very "corse" bitterness. It was what some some people call "palete scrapping," but not to a great extent. It was actually my first award winner. I would probably think the wet hops are the culpret, rather than the cascades themselves. And as was mentioned already, it has the posability of fading with age. A month is still relativly young in the life of beer.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I've done a super hopped pale with only cascades. I didn't notice any "burning" as I drank it, but I did notice a very "corse" bitterness. It was what some some people call "palete scrapping," but not to a great extent. It was actually my first award winner. I would probably think the wet hops are the culpret, rather than the cascades themselves. And as was mentioned already, it has the posability of fading with age. A month is still relativly young in the life of beer.

yes - the burning has faded and kind of left me with the coarseness you speak of. it's just a rough beer and not in the way I have ever tasted before.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

yes - the burning has faded and kind of left me with the coarseness you speak of. it's just a rough beer and not in the way I have ever tasted before.

does anyone else have any experience with wet hop beers? I've tried one commercial variety (a local brewery) and I couldn't necessarily tell from the taste that it used wet vs dry.

[HVB]

does anyone else have any experience with wet hop beers? I've tried one commercial variety (a local brewery) and I couldn't necessarily tell from the taste that it used wet vs dry.

I have had my own and some commercial examples. Like you said it is hard to tell if the commercial ones are "Wet Hops" or "Fresh Hops". Mine were wet, picked and used the next day. If I would have thought I would have sent you a bottle to compare. Most of the wet/fresh hop beers i have tried seemed to have more of a grassy hoppyness to them. Not as crisp as dried hops.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I have had my own and some commercial examples. Like you said it is hard to tell if the commercial ones are "Wet Hops" or "Fresh Hops". Mine were wet, picked and used the next day. If I would have thought I would have sent you a bottle to compare. Most of the wet/fresh hop beers i have tried seemed to have more of a grassy hoppyness to them. Not as crisp as dried hops.

It could be a grassy taste but I'm not so good at identifying these sort of things. It certainly seems like a taste that comes from hops.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

This beer is slowly mellowing out. Hopefully it will eventually not seem as grassy/harsh to me.

[harryfrog]

This beer is slowly mellowing out.

Is is mellowing - or are you getting used to it, trying it every evening!

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Is is mellowing - or are you getting used to it, trying it every evening!

good question

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

served a bunch last night to some people - everyone seemed to like it. guess it was just a little green at the beginning of the week or something...