Differences in Hops

July 5, 2013July 5, 2013 ~ Steve ~ Leave a comment

I’ve gotten a number of homebrews under my belt. One way I decided to experiment was to make the same beer in terms of malt and process but change the hops. While it’s helpful to read the hop profiles that people have put together the only real way to figure out how I perceive the profiles is to dive in and and see what happens. The basic idea is that I’d be able to pick out differences in how well a hop bitters, flavors and adds aroma when it comes to my taste buds. So far I’ve only done two of these experiments but the results were enlightening!

The Rules

To do the experiments such that I could trust the results I needed to have rules in place:

1. The same DME and steeping grains (if used) must be used for all brews in the experiment
2. A standard IBU must defined to hit. I decided on 40 IBU
3. More than two hop additions must happen during the boil. One addition must be at 15 minutes or under
4. Dry hopping will always be 1 week and will be 1 oz
5. Only 1 variety of hops may be used

Experiment 1: Chinook

My first brew for the experiment was all Chinook. I read a bit about the hop and noted the conventional wisdom was that a little goes a long way. What better hop to try than one that most people think can be overdone! The result of a 40 IBU Pale Ale (closing in on IPA) was a beer that was complex enough to stand on it’s own. The bittering was strong and set up for the flavors to follow. The flavoring brought with it pine, earthy notes and a little orange and grapefruit like citrus. One person described it as “orange rind like”. Aroma is where chinook fell down. Dry hopping did not produce the strong aromas that I would have expected from such a potent hop. While present, the aroma was light. All in all this was both a success for the experiment as well as my taste buds.

Experiment 2: Citra

Citra is a very popular hop addition which is spoken of fondly by many homebrewers and avid IPA lovers. As the name implies it has a strong citrus side but also includes a lot of tropical fruit like characteristics. Citra also produced a good, strong bittering. This I expected based on the Chinook results. as both varieties have high alpha acids. However the flavoring and aroma differences were quite shocking. The flavor is much more citrusy than chinook. This itself was not shocking but what did get me was the simplistic nature of the hop when compared with chinook. I found myself highly enjoying the pint to start and, by the time I was 7/8’s through the glass being bored. The complexity that chinook has is not present with citra but more on this in a moment. The aroma that citra gives is strong and inviting. A combination of sharp citrus notes and smooth tropical fruits. Using this in a dry hop mixture seems like it would produce some great things! Unlike chinook it seemed like citra needs mixing to get the complexity that my taste buds want. The flavor and aroma was pretty much the same (and the bittering was bittering as one expects). So by the time the glass was nearing empty I was bored with citra. I think citra shines best when used with other hops, not as a single hop.

Conclusions

I didn’t expect the two to be that different in their usage. I figured there would be differences in flavor and aroma but not as much in the complexity ability. Both produced good beers but, of the two, the chinook based on is easier to drink more than one while the citra based beer is good for a glass (and fades through the glass). In other words the experiment has already proven useful to me and I’m only two hops into it. I’m eager to find out how other hops fit into the puzzle!

Second Homebrew: Great Success!

May 11, 2013 ~ Steve ~ 1 Comment

My first homebrew was an experience that taught me a lot but had poor taste results. My second attempt, an American IPA, turned out much, much better. As one would expect my IPA was full of hoppy goodness. Since I’m still new I decided to use a kit from the fine folks at American Brewmaster. The recipe I used called for Summit, Centennial, Cascade and Amarillo. I decided to add Columbus for a short dry hop as a way to make the recipe my own.

After brewing I kept in primary for 10 days and then racked into a secondary for dry hoping. While I probably didn’t need to move to secondary to dry hop I decided it was worth doing due to my worry about keeping the beer on the trub too long (I know now it takes a lot longer than a few weeks to cause a problem ..). Next I dry hopped in secondary for 4 days. Why four days? Mainly because I really wanted to find out if my brew worked out this time and couldn’t wait. So after four days I racked to my bottle bucket with my carb sugar, filled the bottles and capped.

After 1 week of bottle conditioning I decided to see how well carbonation was coming along. This is what I saw after an aggressive pour.

I was happily shocked. I was not expecting so much carbonation so quickly! My first brew never got half that carb’d! Like my first try the aroma was amazing but I knew the kicker would come with a first taste. So I took a few bottles and threw them in the fridge for tasting later.

I pulled the bottle and shared it for a testing. Both of us agreed it was quite good. It cleared up a bit compared to the above picture but it still needed some time to settle. Here is my review (of my own beer so take it with a grain of salt…).

Sciential Ale Labs: Test Batch #2

Appearance

Hazy. Color similar to Lagunitas IPA. A finger and a half of slightly off white head which slowly dissipates into small layer of persistant head.

Smell

Slight pine with earthy/herbal notes. Nothing overpowering. Reminds me more of a pale ale.

Taste

Nice and bitter but balanced well with a malty backbone. There is also a very slight ester profile as well which surprisingly works in the brews favor adding a bit of fruit complexity. The hop profile is hard for me to really explain but the closest comercial beer I can equate the bitterness portion of flavor with would be Sierra Nevada‘s Torpedo. As the ale warmed up the bitterness came through even more. Even nearing room temperature the beer still was tasty!

Mouthfeel

Medium mouthfeel with consistant carbonation. Possibly a little creamier than should be due to things still not being settled.

Overall

Happily surprised. For me this is a pretty unique beer (though is probably pretty common in homebrew circles). My rating is 4/5 stars.

Others

I’ve gotten two pieces of feed back so far on my first successful homebrew. The first was simply “Oh, that’s good!” during the shared tasting. The other was an unsolicited text from a friend when he popped the cap and gave it a whirl: “Your beer is excellent.” That feedback made me feel pretty good.

On Deck

I’ve since brewed an Abbey Dubbel and a single hop American Pale Ale of my own design. Both are in primary. If both of these come through successfully I’ll feel pretty confident in my process.

That Darn First Homebrew

April 21, 2013April 21, 2013 ~ Steve ~ 1 Comment

While some people remember their first homebrew as something that brought great fun and great taste it’s not my story. My story is one that is far greater than the simple beer that started it all for a hobbyist. See, it was a comedy of errors that taught me much more than a simple yet tasty first batch could have.

My very first attempt at homebrewing was a hefeweizen. I chose a hefeweizen for a few reasons. First it’s one of my favorite styles of beer. There is something about the esters and light ody that draws me in. Then there was the temperature control factor. I believed, correctly I might add, it to be easier to keep my place warm than keep it cool even in winter. Since esters are wanted in the hefeweizen style and esters are more common in higher brewing tempature it seemed like the perfect fit.

What I didn’t think about was that my first try was going to be with such a delicate style. In fact Big Beard Brewconsin even noted this after I wrote my first Homebrew post. It’s not like attempting a hop bombed IPA or a malty stout where mistakes can be overpowered by the primary flavors. With a lighter beer hiding defects isn’t so easy and my beer was full of mistakes.

The first big mistake was in my boil. As I noted previously I let it boil over. Luckily it was only for a second and I was able to recover before losing too much. This was probably the most minor of all your mistakes.

Up next was a common rookie mistake. I didn’t know that the tempature in the primary could be 5 or more degrees warmer than the outside. I had my ambient temperature at 72F thinking that I was keeping the fermentation somewhere around there. In reality in was keeping things somewhere in the upper 70s! I’m sure this caused the yeast to be stressed and put out byproducts.

But the mistakes kept rolling and I let the beer stay in primary too long. The beer really was done after a week and half, maybe two but I kept it in primary for almost three weeks. Why? Because it seemed like that’s what many homebrewers were recommending on forums, blogs, etc.. Keeping that beer for a week and a half after fermentation was done is one of the causes for an infusion of extreme bitterness to not the back end. When it was time to dispose of the trub it had a very distinct smell which was present in the bitter aftertaste of the beer.

When it came time to bottle I misused the autosiphon. I should have had the primary higher and the bottle bucket lower but I put them on the same level. This caused me to more or less pump the beer from bucket to bucket causing a lot of aeration. The taste of cardboard that seeped in is likely from this error.

I believe the first process showed me what can happen when specific things go wrong. So far I’ve avoided all of the mistakes I made with my first try with my second homebrew: A partial grain American IPA. It’s currently in primary and resting inside a slightly larger water container (to help keep temperature). More to come soon, I’m sure!