Whats happening to my hop aroma?

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mtbmatt
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:23 am

Whats happening to my hop aroma?

Post by mtbmatt »

G'day, I would like to consult the collective experience, and wisdom available on this mighty forum, to try and improve my beer.

My recent brew is some kind of strong pale ale/IPA.

After a couple of weeks in the FV, I threw it into a secondary with 100g of NZ Wai-iti whole leaf hops. After a week, I tasted it at 20deg C, straight out of the secondary, and it was ludicrously hoppy. Like a fruit salad almost. It was too much, and I was hoping it'd soften a bit with age.

I put some in some bottles, but most went into the corny keg with about 50g of DME (to clean up oxygen). When i transfer to a corny from the FV, i fill my keg with water (usually with a small amount of iodine), and push that out with Co2. Then i take off the lid, and use a hose and gravity, to fill from the bottom with a minimum of sloshing. It's the best i can do to eliminate oxygen from the process.

one week later, the hop aroma and taste had softened massively. It tasted really good, and I was very happy.

however, it continued to lose hop aroma and flavour, to the point that now, 4 weeks later, there is no hop aroma or flavour at all. Just bitterness. I can still drink it fine, but i'm curious. What aspect of my process, do you guys think would have so dramatically killed off the hop flavours/aromas?

cheers,

matt
Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Re: Whats happening to my hop aroma?

Post by Capn Ahab »

Hop aroma dies dissipate over time but that sounds way too quick. Could be any of a number of faults like oxidation or infection but you would need to bring it to a meeting to identify which.

How do the bottles taste?
Eat sh*t or die trying
mtbmatt
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:23 am

Re: Whats happening to my hop aroma?

Post by mtbmatt »

I've only got three bottles. I was thinking about brining them along to a meeting, or perhaps this summer comp next month.

I too, will be very interested in comparing between the keg and bottles. In the past I've seen definite differences between my keg and bottled beer, and I attributed that too oxidation. I then read an interesting article on a better way to purge my keg of O2, which I've now introduced (hence filling the keg with water and forcing it out with CO2).

There is another level that can be achieved where you lightly pressurise the FV with CO2 as you fill the keg, but I can't see how I can get the various hoses to marry up at this stage, so i'll have to say, i'm currently doing the best I possibly can.

As for infection, I would have thought that would introduce off flavours, but I haven't heard of a foreign yeast killing off hop aroma? Anyone else heard of that?

cheers,

matt
PMowdes
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 4:29 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Whats happening to my hop aroma?

Post by PMowdes »

I had a similar problem using cornie kegs, My hoppy beers would hit a sweet spot after about 3 weeks, after which the hop aroma began to die very rapidly.

I've managed to overcome it by racking twice.

I rack the beer into a cornie once it's been dry hopped, pressure the keg just enough to seal it then leave it somewhere at ambient for a week just to left the remaining yeast clean up. I then chill it for a few day to drop as much of the remaining yeast as possible.

I transfer to a sanitised sealed cornie that has been purged with co2 by connecting the two out posts with a length of 5/15". That way the beer doesn't come into contact with any air during transfer and it doesn't sit on too much yeast in the keg.

I found doing it this way gives me a far more stable beer.
60 percent of the time it works every time.
mtbmatt
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:23 am

Re: Whats happening to my hop aroma?

Post by mtbmatt »

Cheers!

I'll try that with the next beer i do then. I was worried that if i left it with any yeast activity, i'd end up having the yeast destroy those volatile oils i want. But it sounds like that's not the case.

Definitely worth a go.

matt
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