IPA and DIPA homebrew not hoppy

I'm betting your water is too alkalinic. If your serious about brewing, invest in a pH meter and start measuring the pH of your water & mash. You may need to be adding some lactic acid, acidulated malt, or for IPA throwing some gypsum in there. Usually tap water is hard if unfiltered and can contribute to muddling down beer. Once you get your water straight, all the flavors should be sharper and pop more.

Good little article on water and mash pH - http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/10/05/beer-ph-hard-water-treatment-for-brewing/

pH meter I have and works really well - http://www.amazon.com/Oakton-EcoTes...id=1395935521&sr=8-1&keywords=oakton+ph+meter

that pH meter is waterproof and has ATC (automatic temp compensation), I been satisfied with it. Hope this helps.

 

MLucky, while only having 40 IBUs (assuming the hop utilization estimator is correct) is less than ideal, the principle concern of the OP is “zero hop flavors”. The recipe called for the 5 gallons equivalent of 1+ ounces for the last 5 minutes of boil and 1+ ounces for the end of boil. Needless to say that there is no estimator for hop flavor/aroma, but having over 2 ounces of hops for late hopping is fairly substantial. Do you have any insight on why mrchrisray is reporting “zero hop flavors”?

I think that adding some dry hopping to his process will add ‘more’ aroma, but I am still stumped why he perceives
“zero hop flavors”.

Cheers!

 

mrchrisray is brewing extract beers. Worrying about water that has high alkalinity is something for homebrewers who mash grains.

Extract brewing with high alkalinity water is not a major concern.

Cheers!

 

I stand corrected and can find no evidence to refute your claim. At this point I will resort to name calling, you boob-faced zebra fart.

 

Are you from Monty Python!?!

Cheers!

 

Below is what John Palmer discusses in his on-line book How to Brew:

"Water is very important to beer. After all, beer is mostly water. Some waters are famous for brewing: the soft water of Pilsen, the hard water of Burton, Midlands, and pure Rocky Mtn. spring water. Each of these waters contributed to the production of a unique tasting beer. But what about your water? Can it make a good beer? When using malt extract, the answer is almost always "Yes". If you are brewing with grain, the answer can vary from "Sometimes" to "Absolutely".

The reason for the difference between the brewing methods is that the minerals in the water can affect the starch conversion of the mash, but once the sugars have been produced, the affect of water chemistry on the flavor of the beer is greatly reduced. When brewing with malt extract, if the water tastes good to begin with, the beer should taste good. "

 

I was under the impression lower pH influences hop utilization.. But when I looked it up, it's opposite, high pH hard water increases utilization.

 

After skipping all the other posts except the original, there's a lot of reasons for a beer not to be hoppy enough. Just from reading your liist of hops, that's usually one addition for me on a 5 gallon batch. My pales usually come in from 10 tp 16 oz of hops total, with 3 to 6 in dryhop and the rest in the boil, most at flameout and the last 10 minutes.

 

I brewed the same dead ringer kit from northern brewer and mine wasn't very hoppy either, not bad just not hoppy enough for me.

 

I don't see how this recipe could possibly have "zero hop flavor," so I'm assuming that's an exaggeration. There must be some. Just to take a guess, I think maybe the low amount of bittering hops is contributing to an overall impression of lack of flavor in the beer, and perhaps oxidation during bottling caused the late hop additions to fade?

 

As @MLucky stated: "...perhaps oxidation during bottling caused the late hop additions to fade?" is a reasonable guess.

Cheers!

 

This is a quasi random thought about scaling down hops -- is it possible that when you scale recipes down, hops don't quite scale proportionally? I'm thinking about increases in the surface - volume ratios of the kettle and the fermenter, with the possibility that you lose some hop flavor compounds to surfaces. I suspect any impact is minor or it would be well-discussed in the homebrew literature. Whaddyathink?

My solution would be to add more hops to see where it gets me and not worry much about the costs. If doing a one gallon batch with a Dead Ringer kit, I'd probably but an extra oz to add split among late kettle and dry hop additions. Even though I might not be addressing the root of the problem, it seems like a pretty inexpensive solution. A couple-three bucks for an extra oz of hops?

 

I think the whole "lacks hop character" can be attributed to lack of IBU's in some cases. It's not always the case, but I've brewed some IPAs back before I started really playing around, and said, "damn these are weak on the hops". I had added what would be the average and ample amount of hops, but the bitterness didn't lead in and carry the beer or the hoppy flavor.

There's aroma, which is important, but it's the hardest to capture effectively. But I think if you brewed what you think is an IPA, and don't have ample IBU's, despite the flavor and aroma of the beer, it will seem a little floppy without some harsh bitterness to play along.

 

“ …is it possible that when you scale recipes down, hops don't quite scale proportionally?” Peter, I was sort of wondering the same thing but the 1 gallon Dead Ringer was a kit put together by Northern Brewer. I typically do not homebrew with Northern Brewer kits but a couple of times I have received Northern Brewer kit beers as presents from relatives. Every one of those kit beers turned out tasty and exactly as they were described in the information that Northern Brewer provides. IMHO, the Northern Brewer 1 gallon Dead Ringer beer kit should result in a hoppy beer; a beer very similar to Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

I really think that something went awry with the brewing of the Dead Ringer kit beer. I do believe that an addition of some dry hops will improve hop aroma, but for the OP to report that the beer has “almost zero hop flavors” is somewhat baffling to me. The beer as per the kit should have plenty of hop flavor/aroma and the addition of dry hopping should just make it have more hop flavor/aroma.

In seems to me that @MLucky has the best guess that the beer got oxidized during bottling and this resulted in hop fade.

Assuming that the issue is oxidation during bottling, then the best thing that @mrchirsray can do is improve his bottling process (e.g., greatly minimize splashing & other forms of air/oxygen exposure). Simply adding more hops will not greatly improve a hoppy beer if the beer gets oxidized during bottling.

Cheers!

 

Jack, by all means, the OP should do everything in his control to minimize oxygen presence and oxidation of his beer! It may be helpful for him to taste the beer before bottling to figure out if he had hop flavor and whether it faded rapidly in the bottle. If so, I'd entertain oxidation as the issue. In fact, fear of oxidation in the bottle was a key reason for my switching to kegging.

However, I would not rule out compensating for fading hops with more hops. It may be a question of what is the limiting reagent -- oxygen or hop compounds. An excess of hop compounds relative to the oxygen present should leave more bright hop character in the beer.

My other helpful solutions:
Bottle when the beer is ready to minimize oxygen diffusion into the fermenter.
Make sure the crown sealer works well.
Rack gently
Keep your beers cold once they are carbonated.

Cheers,
Peter

 

Others may have better advice for you. My own experience is that it is really difficult to get good hoppy beers from bottling, but I know others do it. I got discouraged and started kegging. I felt like when I was bottling I tried a few things that didn't work well.

Limiting splashing eliminates O2 pick up during transfer. Find equipment that lets you rack smoothly. For me, I use a stainless steel racking cane and the attached tubing runs all the way to the bottom of the receiving vessel, a bottling bucket with spigot. I attach a spring loaded bottling wand to the spigot, which allows you to smoothly fill bottles from the bottom up.

Another thing you can do is eliminate oxygen from the bottle. There are not a lot of beginner level tricks that let you do this. Keggers with counter pressure bottle fillers can flush bottles with CO2. If you want to invest in a CO2 tank, you could rig some approach to bottle flushing even though you are not kegging, but once you have made such a step, you are probably going to want to go all the way and keg your beer. I suppose you could add dry ice to bottles and let it sublimate? I've never heard of people doing this in homebrewing but it could be worth trying for small batches. You can rely try to fill bottles higher to have less airspace. I did this with some still meads that I made by depressing the bottle wand trigger near the lip of the bottle after doing a normal fill.

Another thing you can do is use oxygen absorbing caps. There is some debate about their effectiveness. I don't feel like I've come across a definitive answer.

 

Yes, it increases utilization, but the perception of bitterness and flavor is lower. That said, the water here is not the culprit. It is the recipe or the ingredients. I think dry hopping would help and it wouldn't be a shocker if the hops aren't very fresh.