Hop matter in suspension

[soupdragon]

Hi all

I've been doing a few trial brews.......
I've removed the stupid bazooka filter from my ace brewer and now use a 200 micron spider for my hop additions. There's still a small amount of hop debris getting into my fermenter. About 4 days before kegging I've been adding 150g of mixed pellets, loose. At kegging time most of the debris has settled but some still finds it's way into the keg through the filter sock I use during transfer. I've no means of cold crashing so that's why I use the sock.

Non specific recipe info.....

Appx 4kg pale malt
200g Vienna
100g crystal

5g magnum at start of boil
60g mixed pellets at flame out
90g mixed pellets when cooled to 80c (20 mins)
150g mixed pellets dry hopped in primary 4 days before kegging, total 14 days in primary

Now to the point......

The resulting beers, while being full of nice fruity flavours and aromas are as cloudy as hell, have an overly bitter taste and the beer looks like one of those neipa jobs. I'm wondering if my "problem" is my lack of a reliable way of removing the dry hops and the cause of the flavour is hop debris?
So does anyone know what flavour the fine hop solids might impart on the finished beer?
The keg is usually empty in 2-3 weeks and the last glass is the same as the first. Serving fridge is set to 12c

Got another brew day tomorrow but when kegging time comes around I'll use a piece of voile instead of the small nylon sock (one from the festival kits) as it's a bit finer.
I know that using a good amount of hops can throw a haze but I'm sure I shouldn't be getting this harsh bitter taste too

Cheers for any wisdom. Tom

 

[Slid]

Hi all

Non specific recipe info.....

Appx 4kg pale malt
200g Vienna
100g crystal

5g magnum at start of boil
60g mixed pellets at flame out
90g mixed pellets when cooled to 80c (20 mins)
150g mixed pellets dry hopped in primary 4 days before kegging, total 14 days in primary

Now to the point......

The resulting beers, while being full of nice fruity flavours and aromas are as cloudy as hell, have an overly bitter taste and the beer looks like one of those neipa jobs. I'm wondering if my "problem" is my lack of a reliable way of removing the dry hops and the cause of the flavour is hop debris?
So does anyone know what flavour the fine hop solids might impart on the finished beer?
The keg is usually empty in 2-3 weeks and the last glass is the same as the first. Serving fridge is set to 12c

Cheers for any wisdom. Tom

At 300g of finishing hops, surely this is as extreme as it gets?

Not much point in looking much further for the cause of haziness.

As to the cure, have no ideas beyond chilling it hard for as long as you can wait.

There might be some info if you try looking on line?

 

[soupdragon]

It's not the haze I'm bothered about really just the overly harsh bitterness. 5g of magnum and 60g of flame out (bout 15 mins addition worth of bittering) shouldn't make it that bitter.
Might chill immediately tomorrow to minimise isomerisation from the 60g, or just chuck them in with the 80c ones.

Cheers. Tom

 

[dad_of_jon]

you wont get extra bitterness from hops at room temperature. best to look elsewhere for the culprit. :hmm:

 

[soupdragon]

That's why I'm wondering if hop matter that's carried over is much of an issue? It's more the vegetal mass I'm curious about. I've read a few reports describing the same sort of issue and they've dry hopped for 3-4 days like I have.
So with that in mind I might leave my hop additions as they are and dry hop for 7-8 days like I have previously without issue

Cheers. Tom

 

[foxy]

You will get extra bitterness with your flame out hops, pellets only need a couple of minutes and I doubt you are cooling the wort quick enough.
https://byo.com/bock/item/1762-hop-polyphenols-advanced-brewing

 

[soupdragon]

60g of flame out (bout 15 mins addition worth of bittering) shouldn't make it that bitter

I allowed for the flame out hops. I allowed the wort to cool naturally down to 80c before adding the next dose of hops and chilled immediately to 20c, took about 20-30 mins

Cheers Tom

 

[foxbat]

It's not the haze I'm bothered about really just the overly harsh bitterness. 5g of magnum and 60g of flame out (bout 15 mins addition worth of bittering) shouldn't make it that bitter.
Might chill immediately tomorrow to minimise isomerisation from the 60g, or just chuck them in with the 80c ones.

Are you dry hopping with high alpha hops? I didn't think that bitterness could be extracted from dry hopping because the alpha acids won't get isomerized but there's enough compelling evidence around to suggest that it does. There's an interesting thread here about it.

 

[soupdragon]

Galaxy, Citra and Mosaic. So, yes

Will peruse that thread later (thanks) as I have a brew on at the moment, half way through the mash. Got some hops to weigh out.
Oh, I've bottled out of the planned brew. It was going to be another of the same but I want to get some "normal" beer made till I can sort this bitterness thing out.......

Cheers Tom

 

[Duxuk]

60g of pellets at flameout will give a harsh bitterness, in my experience. 60g of leaf won't but is best left for only 5 minutes before chilling. I'd first try doing as you suggest and moving the 60g to the 80C point. Pellets are finely divided and isomerise much quicker, again, in my experience. I would never add pellets at above 80C as a "flameout" hop. Then I'd crash cool ASAP to avoid that bitterness.
Or get some leaf!

 

[soupdragon]

60g of pellets at flameout will give a harsh bitterness, in my experience. 60g of leaf won't but is best left for only 5 minutes before chilling. I'd first try doing as you suggest and moving the 60g to the 80C point. Pellets are finely divided and isomerise much quicker, again, in my experience. I would never add pellets at above 80C as a "flameout" hop. Then I'd crash cool ASAP to avoid that bitterness.
Or get some leaf!

Do you recon it's almost the equivalent of double the amount of leaf at flame out? That would go quite a way to explaining it

Cheers. Tom

 

[JapanBrew]

Dang that's a lot of hops. You're way into 200 grams. I don't speak for all of us but a usual brew is around 80 to 100 grams. I'd back off and go back to 20 minute, 10 minute and flameout additions and see the difference. Just divide them up on what amount of bittering and aroma you're looking for.

 

[soupdragon]

One of the chaps over at Jim's has suffered the same problem. He now uses those new fangled cryo hops to dry hop and he now just gets all the juicy flavour and non of the harsh bitterness. Might give them a go next time I order a sack of malt

Cheers. Tom

 

[soupdragon]

There's an interesting thread here about it.

Now that IS interesting :thumb:

Cheers. Tom

 

[BeerCat]

I am just about to bottle some beers dry hopped with cyro hops. Will let you know how it goes. I have recently been not getting the flavours from my hops i really want. Next thing i will try is only one bittering addition and hop teas made at 80c just before fermentation. Another thing i used to do which i will try again is adding water at the end of the boil to cool it down. I get getting too high an OG so not a problem in my case. Around 3l should bring it down to a decent temp fopr hops. That article about hops is really interesting.

 

[soupdragon]

Good news

Will be good to get some more perspective on them. Fingers crossed they're the answer.
The more I read up on dry hopping with a bucket load of pellets the more I read about harsh bitterness :-(

Cheers Tom

 

[DoctorMick]

If you dry hop wth pellets and they stay in suspension you'll get bitterness, whenever I try a sample of a fairly heavily dry hopped beer before it has been crashed it has an awful bitterness but after a few days cold crash it's fine.

 

[soupdragon]

Don't suppose that my serving fridge at 12c is cold enough to crash cool? Either way whatever is causing the harsh bitterness it stays till the last glass

Cheers. Tom

 

[DoctorMick]

Don't suppose that my serving fridge at 12c is cold enough to crash cool? Either way whatever is causing the harsh bitterness it stays till the last glass

Cheers. Tom

How is the beer when you pour it? Clear or cloudy?

Try pouring a glass and sticking it in a normal fridge for an hour, if the hops are in suspension they'll drop out and there will be less bitterness. If nothing else it'll discount a possible issue.

 

[soupdragon]

Really cloudy just like a neipa. I'll give that a go tomorrow

Cheers. Tom