National Homebrew Club Ireland

Did a simcoe PA in november using pretty standard procedure but its like all the character was stripped out of the ale  .
Its as clean as a whistle (used Protofloc)in the bottle but there is no flavour or character.

Did a stout before that which was nice.
Any Ideas what would cause this?

Am A novice

How much and when in the boil and dry hopping
How old were hops, stored?

Also, which yeast?

Can you post the full recipe?

If the hops were old and stored poorly allowing the oils dry out then they would not give you any umph :(.

Yeast was Safale US-05.

Simcoe was 2013

80g of rye malt is going to make little or no impact in that recipe, even though the batch size is 8 litres.

The word "character" is a little vague.. Were you expecting it to be maltier? If so, up the gravity next time, or use more specialty malts. If not hoppy enough, simply use more hops, or as Dempsey suggests, make sure you have fresh hops.

Did you actually hit your intended original gravity?

Never checked.
Was just chancing it

Quote from: CH on January 08, 2016, 09:37:10 PM
stored?

Not much in the way of hops there anyway, even for 8 litres. And from November to now you'd expect the hop character to dissipate a little. US05 should help the hops, but I don't think it'll do much for your malt character. I've no experience of rye, but Bubbles makes valid points. Although your FG implies a high mash temp, I think US05 will drop it lower, thus losing any body you would have expected.

stored in a campbell tea tin at room temp

So you know exactly what I am going to say next

I can guess.
I learned something new today

I suspect the old enemy "campbell's tea tin" off flavour, the fear of every brewer

Invest in 2 things, beersmith, it will auto calc HSI, the amount hops lose in varying environmental storage conditions and your NHC membership
There is nothing wrong with using 2 year old hops if stored well, you just need shed loads, potentially double depending on variety.

Quote from: phelixoflaherty on January 11, 2016, 12:30:55 AM
stored in a campbell tea tin at room temp

sweet jesus...  ;)

- Store hops in the fridge.
- Buy them only as you need, or as much as is practical, i.e. don't buy up a years worth at a time
- Recognise that once you open the bag, they start to deteriorate quicker (difficult to combat when you're brewing small batches, I know..)
- Use lots of hops in American styles like pale ale, IPA etc. It's pretty hard to overhop styles like this, so load the hops in. Just watch your IBUs?

Did you actually use any black pepper??

Quote from: CH on January 11, 2016, 10:28:54 AM
There is nothing wrong with using 2 year old hops if stored well, you just need shed loads, potentially double depending on variety.

Perhaps.. if you're talking about bitterness.. but what about flavour and aroma? Even if stored well, the 2 year old hops will have lost their punch.

Quote from: Bubbles on January 11, 2016, 10:37:40 AM

Quote from: CH on January 11, 2016, 10:28:54 AM
There is nothing wrong with using 2 year old hops if stored well, you just need shed loads, potentially double depending on variety.

Perhaps.. if you're talking about bitterness.. but what about flavour and aroma? Even if stored well, the 2 year old hops will have lost their punch.

An experiment of using 10 year old Williamette which led to pretty similar beers may be of interest here.
http://brulosophy.com/2015/09/28/the-impact-of-age-hops-exbeeriment-results/

It's a single data point, but interesting to add to the conversation nonetheless...

Thanks for all tea help.

2 year old as in harvested Oct 14 pellet, vac packed and frozen used Nov 15 drunk jan 16, did you not see all those hops I threw out last year

Quote from: CH on January 11, 2016, 03:18:03 PMdid you not see all those hops I threw out last year

I did, and I shed a tear myself...  ;) 8)

What if I blocked the ventilation holes in the tin?


Only kidding

I always use fresh hops. I threw out some 2014 hops there as I didn't want to risk using them in my competition entries. As Bubbles says, only buy what you need.

In hammering home the freshness, let's not forget: needs more hops.

That recipe has, essentially, no late hops; therefore, no aroma/character/mojo.
I'd double the dose and triple the additions: 15g at 5min, 1min, and flameout.
Dry hopping optional.

Hop age is not all it's cracked up to be lads.



http://brulosophy.com/2015/09/28/the-impact-of-age-hops-exbeeriment-results/

Would you bake bread with 3 year old flour? Don't answer that

Quote from: CH on January 17, 2016, 02:34:11 PM
Would you bake bread with 3 year old flour? Don't answer that

If it was a lambic bread...

Wouldn't that just be a sour dough ?  ;)

Quote from: Eoin on January 17, 2016, 08:27:19 AM
Hop age is not all it's cracked up to be lads.



http://brulosophy.com/2015/09/28/the-impact-of-age-hops-exbeeriment-results/

I like Brulosophy a lot but the more experiments they do the less convinced I get. They never seem to be able to tell the difference between anything. I know they don't claim to be proof and I appreciate their efforts but I've given up trusting their results much.

Quote from: Qs on January 20, 2016, 12:10:48 PM

Quote from: Eoin on January 17, 2016, 08:27:19 AM
Hop age is not all it's cracked up to be lads.



http://brulosophy.com/2015/09/28/the-impact-of-age-hops-exbeeriment-results/

I like Brulosophy a lot but the more experiments they do the less convinced I get. They never seem to be able to tell the difference between anything. I know they don't claim to be proof and I appreciate their efforts but I've given up trusting their results much.

Tbh I just take it to mean that a lot of the BS that Brewers spout as absolute truths is in fact BS.

They are a single point of data, but nonetheless they've gone and done some of these things and give the full detail for your own comparisons. It's just another point of information to consider.

I'm going to use their quick lager method this weekend, as there's good additional sources quoted and everything has been laid out clearly.

Remember that just because its written down does not make it anymore accurate  ;)

If somebody is trying to tell me 3 year old aroma  "c" hops have the same vibrancy as 6 month old I'm gonna have disagree.
Bittering is a different story.

Quote from: CH on January 20, 2016, 12:54:17 PM
If somebody is trying to tell me 3 year old aroma  "c" hops have the same vibrancy as 6 month old I'm gonna have disagree.
Bittering is a different story.

+1

You can give me all the stats in the world, I won't put 3 year old hops into a beer.

As regards bittering, if hop age is not an issue, then why do tools like BeerSmith allow you to compensate for loss of alpha when using aged hops? The rationale behind this is obviously based on somebody elses equally convincing research. Who to believe?! :)

Quote from: molc on January 20, 2016, 12:46:14 PM
They are a single point of data, but nonetheless they've gone and done some of these things and give the full detail for your own comparisons. It's just another point of information to consider.

I'm going to use their quick lager method this weekend, as there's good additional sources quoted and everything has been laid out clearly.

Let us know how the quick lager method goes its something I want to do soon.

I like the site a lot, read the articles and find it useful in lots of ways. I even have a Brulosophy t-shirt. I'm just amazed how little difference they discern in their group tastings for most experiments. I usually take what the author says as a better indicator.

Are they watching us?  :-X

http://brulosophy.com/2016/01/21/investigating-the-bad-palates-argument-a-graphical-look-at-xbmt-performance-based-on-experience-level/

Lies, damn lies and statistics, it's beer ffs!