Not Hoppy = Not Happy!

[jonmuni]

Hi fellas,

I am fairly new to the home brew scene and have started out all grain from the get go.

I have about 13 brews under by belt since November and have been making small batch, about 15L at a go to nail down some recipes. I can see over time that as I refine my processes the beer is definitely getting better especially since sorting a temperature controlled fermentation fridge and moving to liquid yeast with stir plate in January.

Now, my question...

I'm a hop head but cant seem to brew a beer hoppy enough, apart from my last single hop brew ( Amarillo ) which was good and got great reviews on Untappd. It contained 150g of hops mostly added at flame out and dry hopped.

I have compared my recipes to quite a few online and even if I double the hop quantities I still dont seem to get the "fruitness"or "grapefruit" hop profiles I was hoping for. That said the beer is still good, but not fantastic. The hops are as fresh as I can get them, 2015 crops generally and are stored in a air tight pouch in the freezer.

For a laugh last weekend I did another brew and have added 10g Falconers Flight 7Cs at 30 mins, 100g of Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe ( 30g each at 5 mins and 70g each hop stand at 90c for 20 mins. ). Checking in on it yesterday the fridge smells divine but should I really have to add this much hops to get a hoppy beer? Especially at €8 per 100g of hops!

I can get the bittering and aroma to play nice but the flavour seems more difficult to achieve.

Am I missing summat stupid here or are my processes for hop additions all wrong?  I can post a recipe if needs be...

Any suggestions would be welcome!

Jon

[Leann ull]

What's your 60min addition?
Have you a Dry Hopping Schedule?

[jonmuni]

it can range from 25g to 70g from 7 days in secondary for 7 days, then bottle for most brews that I decide to do it on

One brew had over 150g and was good but not great....

[nigel_c]

Where are you based? It could be your water.

[jonmuni]

Im in south Dublin but am using bottled water from Dunnes ( it's pH 7.7 I think ) but am also using a pH stabilizer ( 5.2 stabilizer ) for mash and sparge...

[Leann ull]

All beers are a balance of various Malts and hops, if you are looking for a Pliny clone you need to "load it" with the appropriate hops that complement each ether.
Go to a meet and get recipes of guys hoppy beers you like or pull one off the award winning recipes section on the forum.
Any other details about the water on the bottle?
Eitherways keep trying, I had three attempts to get my Pliny clone where I wanted it, 40quids worth of hops each time!

[nigel_c]

Like cider head says, you've got some pretty handy brewers around that area. Meet up and they might be able to advise you or share their water report with you.
I think your water might just need a bit of tweaking to turn a good beer into a great beer.

[DEMPSEY]

All drinking water is around PH 7.5 as if it was lower or higher you would not drink it. The reason you want a lower PH is for mashing the grains as the enzymes prefer this level but you need to focus more on what salts are in your water to understand its effects.  

[BrewDorg]

The late additions and dry hopping sound ok. As the others have mentioned, water chemistry will make a difference. Unfortunately, even bottled water in Ireland contains a high amounts of bicarbonate which will contribute to a higher mash pH and a more muted hop flavour. Gypsum is your biggest ally when fighting this.

Have a look at this guide. The best hoppy beer I've brewed was based on this guide and I swear by it now. http://www.brewunited.com/index.php?blogid=91

[jonmuni]

Thanks for that....

Ok, so where do I get gypsum and is there some formula that I can use to add it?

[nigel_c]

Software like beersmith will work it all out for you. Unfortunately you will need to know your water chemistry. 

[BrewDorg]

You can buy gypsum from any of the homebrew stores. It's relatively cheap and you'll only be usng a couple of grams at a time.

The best calculator I've found for working out mineral additions for water is Bru'n water - https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

There's a bit of a learning curve on it but once you figure it out, it's brilliant. The mineral and acid additions have always been very accurate for me, I barely use my pH meter anymore as I trust what the spreadsheet is giving me. I've attached an example of the spreadsheet filled out for one of my own beers.

If you need a hand with it, I can try to help you out and I'm sure a lot of the lads here would know even more than me again.

[jonmuni]

Brilliant! Thanks...

On first glance it looks like I'll need a hand alright. I'll mull over it and see if I can make sense of it..

[BrewDorg]

Software like beersmith will work it all out for you. Unfortunately you will need to know your water chemistry.

That's the handy thing about using bottled water. Your mineral content is on the bottle!

[jonmuni]

well I do use Beesmith and obviously bottled water...so will look at that