236 replies to this topic

[MtnBrewer]

miccullen, on 27 Jun 2013 - 3:43 PM, said:

a little????

 

 

miccullen, on 27 Jun 2013 - 3:44 PM, said:

defective, you are

 

At least he has good taste in breasteses.

[zymot]

ettels4, on 26 Jun 2013 - 6:55 PM, said:

Not familiar with green bullet. Never heard a complaint about Simcoe... it's a natural in hoppy american styles.

miccullen, on 26 Jun 2013 - 7:07 PM, said:

I love Simcoe, but I can name at least 1 board member who loathes it , only experience I have with GB is in Steinlager, meh

I used Simcoe and my first reaction was "Who poured Pine Sol in my beer?" I had a hard time drinking it. I ignored the beers for a while, eventually the Pine Sol faded into an drinkable beer.  

ColdAssHonky, on 26 Jun 2013 - 6:17 PM, said:

Do you like the Honey Malt? I'd be careful with what % you use unless you're familiar with it.I've used it a couple of times and didn't care for the flavor very much. 

miccullen, on 26 Jun 2013 - 6:20 PM, said:

I like it myself, but it is a distinct flavor for a sure

I think honey is misleading. It does not taste (to me anyway) like honey. It has a dry grainy presence.If it is your first timeto use honey malt, I suggest using a light hand.

Edited by zymot, 27 June 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[Mya]

this thread proves one thing, people's taste perceptions vary, a lot

Edited by miccullen, 27 June 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[HVB]

miccullen, on 27 Jun 2013 - 4:55 PM, said:

this thread proves one thing, people's taste perceptions vary, a lot

+1

[Gus13]

brewed a small partial mash batch last night.  Citra and Simcoe hopped pale ale that came out to 1.048.  Didn't use bittering hops just started at 20 min and came out to an estimated 47 IBUs.  Will dry hop after primary fermentation is complete.  Then cold crash and bottle this beast.

[neddles]

Gus13, on 28 Jun 2013 - 4:18 PM, said:

Then cold crash and bottle this beast.

I don't know if you keg or not and I don't know about other people's experiences but my hoppy ales have stayed hoppy much longer when kegged as opposed to bottling. I would guess its from all the O2 introduced during bottling vs. racking to a CO2 flushed keg. Just my $.02

[Gus13]

ettels4, on 28 Jun 2013 - 7:15 PM, said:

I don't know if you keg or not and I don't know about other people's experiences but my hoppy ales have stayed hoppy much longer when kegged as opposed to bottling. I would guess its from all the O2 introduced during bottling vs. racking to a CO2 flushed keg. Just my $.02

 

 

Yeah I don't keg.... yet.  but very soon I will.  This small 3 gallon batch will probably bottle 2.75 gallons so I won't have to worry about it not staying fresh.  It should be taken out quick if it tastes with a damn.

[zymot]

Do not overlook the British style of Pale Ale. One of my favorite styles of beer.

 

A British Pale Ale is not hopped as aggressively as the American version and it does not use the American citrus hops, English hops of course. My personal opinion, use EKG hops, stay away from fuggle hops.

 

Bass is the most common English Pale. Bass Ale in England is excellent, the stuff in America OK. My personal favorite is Fuller's 1845. Listed as a Strong Ale, but it is ~6.3% ABV, the balance and flavors still make it a good example.

 

Within the Pale Ale category, English Bitter. Poorly named because they are not bitter, as in hoppy bitter. Lower ABV, moderately hopped, nice polite malty session beer. Good beer to introduce homebrew to your BMC friends.

[Mya]

zymot, on 30 Jun 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

Do not overlook the British style of Pale Ale. One of my favorite styles of beer.

 

A British Pale Ale is not hopped as aggressively as the American version and it does not use the American citrus hops, English hops of course. My personal opinion, use EKG hops, stay away from fuggle hops.

 

Bass is the most common English Pale. Bass Ale in England is excellent, the stuff in America OK. My personal favorite is Fuller's 1845. Listed as a Strong Ale, but it is ~6.3% ABV, the balance and flavors still make it a good example.

 

Within the Pale Ale category, English Bitter. Poorly named because they are not bitter, as in hoppy bitter. Lower ABV, moderately hopped, nice polite malty session beer. Good beer to introduce homebrew to your BMC friends.

good points

 

from what I have heard, American hops are getting more popular in British Ales these days, still not as aggressive as ours though

[denny]

MolBasser, on 27 Jun 2013 - 2:16 PM, said:

 

Never heard a complaint?  Well here is one.

 

It sucks balls.  If you want to drink a litter box, use Simcoe.

 

MolBasser

 

Thank God you don't know what you're talking about....

[Gus13]

Crashed my APA last night and will be bottling tonight.  Smelled really great.  I'm hoping it comes out much better than my last.  I'm going to carb the 3 gallons with just under 2oz and hopefully in a week or so it will be ready to taste.

[MolBasser]

ettels4, on 28 Jun 2013 - 7:15 PM, said:

I don't know if you keg or not and I don't know about other people's experiences but my hoppy ales have stayed hoppy much longer when kegged as opposed to bottling. I would guess its from all the O2 introduced during bottling vs. racking to a CO2 flushed keg. Just my $.02

 

This is mostly correct.

 

MolBasser

[Mya]

MolBasser, on 09 Jul 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

 

This is mostly correct.

 

MolBasser

goin straight to a cold fridge and staying there vs. having to stay warm to bottle condition may affect it as ell

[Gus13]

SO what if it went 2 extra days dry hopping?  I just had stuff come up and couldn't get it into bottles.  I"m going to do it tonight though.

[Mya]

doubt it will effect anything much

[MtnBrewer]

No big deal in my opinion. Some people have reported a grassy aroma when the hops are left in too long. In my experience it works the other way around. The chlorophyll (which causes the grassiness) fades after a few days.

[SchwanzBrewer]

I've started using a couple dry hop additions for a couple days at a time in lieu of one long one and it has improved my aroma, IMO.

 

And in contrast to what Mtn said, I get grassiness from long dry hopping times. Maybe that isn't the correct descriptor, but there is an unpleasant aroma and sour vegetative flavor that comes from really long dry hopping times.

[zymot]

My hypothesis supported by nothing other than my personal observations, when ever possible, dry hop with whole leaf hops, do not use hop pellets. Hop pellets give a grassy, mowed lawn quality that I do not like. In fact, I would rather go with no dry hop than use pellets.Think about it. Hop pellets are plant matter that has been chopped up, much like a lawnmower does to grass. So there is a possible explanation for it.I know some people will respond with "I use pellets to dry hop all the time. I have never noticed any fresh lawn aroma." So take my opinion as just home brewers opinion. FWIW: I bottle, no kegging, might make a difference.

Edited by zymot, 10 July 2013 - 04:19 PM.

[MtnBrewer]

I used to believe that too, zymot. I dry-hopped a beer a long time ago with pellets and it didn't have a lot of grassiness but it also didn't have a really fresh hop aroma. IrishJny urged me not to use pellets for dry hopping. The local homebrew store at that time had a huge selection of whole hops so that's mostly what I used anyway. So I took Johnny's advice and any time I needed to dry hop, I used whole hops, right in the keg.Fast forward to post-hop crisis time. I don't buy from that store much anymore because he's focusing more on making beer (it's now a brewery/homebrew shop). I buy most of my hops by the pound from places like Hops Direct and Hop Shack. I don't have storage space for very many varieties of whole hops so I've turned back to using pellets for the most part.Earlier this year I volunteered to brew an IPA, put it in the club firkin and bring it to Big Brew. This beer is dry hopped with 1 oz/5 gal of Amarillo. Whole hops weren't practical so I used pellets. The hops were put into the cask along with the priming sugar and some gelatin 3 weeks before the beer was to be served. The beer sat at about 65° the whole time. Come Big Brew I was worried about all sorts of things. I'm serving a beer to the whole club that I haven't even tasted. Could be horrible. I was worried about grassiness and about the beer not having a good hop aroma. We tapped the cask and low and behold, it had a wonderful fresh hop aroma. I got tons of compliments on that beer and it was probably one of the best I've ever made. Since then I've made a couple more that were dry hopped in secondary with pellets and they all came out great too.So zymot, I'm not saying your experience is invalid because I've been unhappy with dry hopping with pellets in the past too. All I'm saying is that it is possible to successfully use pellets. If it wasn't, Stone Brewing wouldn't exist.

[SchwanzBrewer]

I think I saw a video from hopsdirect that said that pellets were the way to go since all the flavor and aroma compounds are released from the pellets easier than the whole hops. The flower petals are designed to hold the lupulin in, not get it out. Others would say that the pelletization process takes away some of those precious oils compounds that really make your beer pop. I think you could argue either way and when it comes right down to it, it's a matter of personal preference.

 

Personally I've use both whole hops and pellets when I brew and dry hop. Sometimes I'll have both in there at the same time depending on what was available when I bought it. I use mainly whole hops in my recipes because my set up leans that way and they provide extra filtration when I'm chilling and they don't clog my plate chiller.

 

I mainly dry hopped in the keg until recently. Both types of hops have their drawbacks for that purpose. Whole hops tend to swell up and when I try to remove them before the beer gets that grassy taste/aroma the bag can barely fit through the opening and a bunch of super hoppy juice gets squeezed into the beer, which can give some off flavors. When I used pellets, they would fall apart and some material would make it's way through the mesh in the bags and into the beer so you get floaties in your beer. One time I had some DC RIPA that gave us all uber beer farts because of all the hop debris in our beer.