Unprecedented hop fade!

[BlackSands]

25g of Southern Cross at 10min and then 100g of both SC and Taiheke whirlpool additions (30 min @49ºC - ish) in my NZPA ... completely gone in 4 weeks!   

I'm aware of hop fade and have up until now thought it mostly affected dry-hop additions.  Rather than dry-hop this one, and experience the inevitable disappointment I instead just used a decent post-boil addition of 100g.   As expected it wasn't an overly aromatic beer but the hoppy flavour was certainly there on first tastings.   And now at only a mere 4 weeks since brew day this PA is almost completely devoid of any hoppiness at all.     

I really need to figure out methods to retain the hoppiness in these beers...   ideas anyone?    

 

[RepSpec]

Drink quicker?

It was an interesting article Christina put up...not quite sure how to combat it.

Could you possibly hop tea it? Rather than boil the late additions

[Worthog]

1 hour ago, BlackSands said:

.....I really need to figure out methods to retain the hoppiness in these beers...   ideas anyone?    

 

Is 49ish too cool? Keg or what type of container? I ask for my info benefit, not because I can advise, although my AG view is "load late and drink early".

Cheers

[Worthog]

Also, you could ask @Otto Von Blotto the benefit of his cube hopping (on bottling) and keg hopping and what he thinks of the hop longevity of that.

Cheers

[Otto Von Blotto]

I had one just blow last night, the keg hopped one which also contained my usual 10 minutes, flameout and cube hops. I didn't dry hop this one. It sat around for about 3 weeks before I put it in the kegerator to chill and carbonate, with the keg hops going in the day before (will do this a day or two earlier next time). It lasted about 2 weeks as I had some people over, so around 5 weeks all up. Its hop flavour didn't really fade and neither did the aroma. Could smell it when it came out of the tap right to the last glass. 

Not really doing anything special and the amounts weren't huge either. Maybe it retains better in a keg than plastic bottles? Never really had this problem in glass bottles either, and those ones weren't cube hopped. 

[BlackSands]

15 hours ago, RepSpec said:

 

Could you possibly hop tea it? Rather than boil the late additions

Only 25 was a late boil... the remaining 100g was post-boil so essentially the same as a hop tea.  

 

15 hours ago, Worthog said:

Is 49ish too cool? Keg or what type of container? I ask for my info benefit, not because I can advise, although my AG view is "load late and drink early".

Cheers

There's a number of volatile hop oils that contribute to flavour and aroma and they each have differing temperature at which they evaporate.  The theory is that steeping/hop tea at a relatively low 49ºC -ish ensures minimal loss of these oils.   I steeped my 100g of hops at around this temperature for 30 odd minutes before transferring the wort to my fermenter.   

Up until this batch my post boil hops had usually been added at a higher temp but is known to be below AA isomerisation, around 75 - 80ºC.

14 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Maybe it retains better in a keg than plastic bottles? Never really had this problem in glass bottles either, and those ones weren't cube hopped. 

I've never really had this problem before in PET's.  Dry-hop aroma fade definitely regardless of whether it was PET or glass bottles but this dramatic fall off in this particular brew is hard to accont for.  As mentioned the only thing I really did differently was the lower temp post-boil steep which, if that's something to do with this, then it seems it's had the opposite effect to what has been suggested.   

And just to put this into a little more perspective, I think anyone tasting this beer for the first time as it is now would still consider it hoppy but as I had a taste just a week ago (refer Supernova NZPA in RDWHAHB, April 12) I know what it WAS like just one week ago!  

[BlackSands]

I just read a Brulosophy trial re: 49ºC hop stands:

Quote

...tasters were unable to reliably distinguish a beer made with a flameout temperature hop stand from one where the hops were added at 120°F/49°C.

Hmmm...       I wonder what the results would have been several weeks later?  

Either way, seems like lower temp hop stands don't make much difference anyway based on this one experiment.   

[Beerlust]

Hi BlackSands.

17 hours ago, BlackSands said:

I really need to figure out methods to retain the hoppiness in these beers...   ideas anyone? 

1. Lose the lager can you use for a base of almost all of your beers. The back-end bitterness it contains is using valuable IBU space that you could be short boiling hops that can carry more flavour into the beer.

2. Using an unhopped base, start your hop additions from 30mins down to flameout so you can get the weights up & introduce more pronounced flavour from those hops. The Coopers DIY recipe: Chubby Cherub is a very good example of how to do this. Good size weights/short boil times.

Longevity of hop flavour comes from hops that were added during the boil (IMHO).

Although the weights weren't huge, I'd expect some slight improvement in this area from the brew you put down on April 4. Hopefully you did dry hop it with the Riwaka. 

Stick with it mate, we'll get you there eventually.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

[BlackSands]

1 hour ago, Beerlust said:

Hi BlackSands.

1. Lose the lager can you use for a base of almost all of your beers. The back-end bitterness it contains is using valuable IBU space that you could be short boiling hops that can carry more flavour into the beer.

2. Using an unhopped base, start your hop additions from 30mins down to flameout so you can get the weights up & introduce more pronounced flavour from those hops. The Coopers DIY recipe: Chubby Cherub is a very good example of how to do this. Good size weights/short boil times.

Longevity of hop flavour comes from hops that were added during the boil (IMHO).

Although the weights weren't huge, I'd expect some slight improvement in this area from the brew you put down on April 4. Hopefully you did dry hop it with the Riwaka. 

Stick with it mate, we'll get you there eventually.

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

I only base my beers on these cans because of the cost - 1.7kg of LME from the local supermarket is notably cheaper than a can of unhopped extract.  But it is certainly true that the OS lager robs me of some IBU real estate.   But whether the 20g Moutere @ 40 mins in the later beer results in any noticeable improvement over the OS lager's bittering remains to be seen I guess.   It's a lighter malt base this time so I expect the hop presence to be a little more prominent because of that anyway.  But as for longevity....   we'll see!  And yes, 50g of Riwaka went in dry.   

I think with my next PA effort I will try increasing late boil additions.  Even using the OS lager I reckon I can still introduce up to 75g of medium AA% hops like Motueka or Taiheke @20 and then say 10 mins.   That'd be around 40IBU. 

[Beerlust]

On 4/19/2019 at 11:33 AM, BlackSands said:

I only base my beers on these cans because of the cost - 1.7kg of LME from the local supermarket is notably cheaper than a can of unhopped extract.

I found THIS PRODUCT in a home brew shop over in your neck of the woods. Although the malt weight is lighter, I thought the configuration & price point may interest you.

There appeared to be 4 different hop inclusion options at that same price point.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[BlackSands]

3 hours ago, Beerlust said:

I found THIS PRODUCT in a home brew shop over in your neck of the woods. Although the malt weight is lighter, I thought the configuration & price point may interest you.

There appeared to be 4 different hop inclusion options at that same price point.

Cheers,

Lusty.

That's one of my LHBS...  AND the store I actully managed for a year... up until mid January this year!  And, those were a new product I added to the inventory not long before I left.   They're pre-hopped brew enhancers -  a combo of malt, malto-dextrine and dextrose.   Never actually tried them though...