What would you do to, 'hop enhance', a wort post-boil?

Seeing as this is an old hands thread, I will be fast and to the point.

I brewed some English IPA wort 18 months ago. When I brew wort, I brew a double batch. Half gets pitched immediately and the other half gets put into cubes (no-chilled). At the same time I brewed three, maybe five, other beers and they all turned out very well. The English IPA beer was crap though but neither myself, fellow brewers or judges could name the problem. Anyway, forgetting all that, one thing I do know is that this English IPA lacked hop character all the way through from bitterness to aroma.

And, that is what this thread is about.

Q1. How can I increase hop bitterness post-boil?
Q2. How can I increase flavour post boil?
Q3? How can I increase hop aroma post-boil?

I hope no one replies here in one or two sentences as I really need some detail here. For example, if you tell me about hop tea then please also tell me if you are making it with wort or water and for how long you steep or boil it and what weights of hops you are boiling and steeping and in what volume of water or wort. If you are dry hopping, what quantities do you use in what volume and when?

People might often wonder why my answers are so long. Hopefully the above para explains why. And this is a situation where the brewer (me) actually knows what questions to ask!!!!


PP

P.S. I have done some hop steeping experiments today but won't post them now. Too much written above already and, while writing the above, I missed one critical part .

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Sorry PP, couldn't resist! At least it wasn't one or 2 sentences

I think most answers you will get (if any) will be anecdotal

It may be helpful if you gave more info though;
You say the hop character was poor, but what did you use, quantities, addition time, estimated IBU's?
Also, what are you hoping to achieve with your corrections, types of flavour, aroma, bitterness, IBU level etc.
Are you hoping to keep the beer in style or change it to something else/hybrid?

I don't think if you answered those I would still be able to help (soembody else may though). I would just use up what I had left over from previous brews to see if it improved.

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PP

You can always look at my photo "how too" below. I have a hard cider that I made that is boring and dry. I have been using up a hop vodka to make it hoppy. I drank the cider rather than dump it!

http://www.stempski.com/hop_vodka.php

http://www.stempski.com/bbr03-01-12vodka.mp3 This is a podcast I did for them about saving crappy dull beer! (Shameless self promotion)

March 1, 2012 - Hop Infused Vodka
Home brewer Bob Stempski shares his technique for infusing vodka with hops to explore different varieties and add some punch to homebrew and commercial beers.

New BIAB brewers If your new too brewing look here for good experiments and detailed brewing tips. You have to weed through a few brewery tours and such.
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

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Hey thanks for all the thoughts guys ,

Mally, can't believe I didn't give any details on the beer . Mind you I had been sampling the new Little Creatures Very Hoppy IPA several times so my mind (and possibly body) was probably wandering.

The brew I want to fix is the Bierre De Linde which for 22.7 L (6 gal) Volume of Ambient Wort (end of boil volume - ambient) uses...

41 grams ( 1.43 oz) Challenger (8%AA) at 60 mins
43 grams (1.5 oz) Fuggles (5%AA) at 10 mins
43 grams (1.5 oz) East Kent Goldings (5%AA) at 0 mins

The IBU's for this sort of beer should be about 50. I reckon the first lot of this wort I brewed only seemed to have about 65% of the oopmph of bitterness, flavour and aroma that it should have.

Yeasty, I haven't pitched the cubed half yet. AS for the half I did pitch last year, see note to mally above.

By the way, would your expresso hop experiment josh linked have a role here?

joshua, the link king . Thanks mate. Have read over all those. Your hop oils thing is a beauty. It probably should be in a thread of its own in the hops forum so that it doesn't get lost I reckon.

Bob, is there any reason why you have to use the vodka as well? That's one bit I never really understood.

Richard, I want to get that book. I heard the podcast on the blending etc. Unfortunately I don't have any suitable beers to blend with .

Here's what I'm thinking...

I have all the hops on hand mentioned in the note to mally above.

To fix the bitterness, could I boil some of the wort for an hour with some hops in it? If so, any idea on what quantities of hops and wort?

To fix the flavour and aroma, can I do a hop tea with water or do I need vodka as well? If so what quantities and how long do I let it steep for in a French Press?

If the above will work, should I do the flavour and aroma steep post-fermentation or pre-pitching?

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Expresso hops would add some bitterness I'm sure my tongue is still numb from the experimental tasting !
if its bitterness you want I think this would work.

or:

I would take 5L and work out your boil off. Add this volume to the wort then proceed with a mini boil with a repeat of your original hop schedule/times. You may have to adjust/take a guess at the quantities, which would depend upon what you perceive as what's lacking in the first half of the batch. Add this back to the batch and ferment.

Just wondering if putting the recipe into Biabacus and scaling to 5L would help you work out quantities of hops to use

Yeasty

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PP

Bob, is there any reason why you have to use the vodka as well? That's one bit I never really understood.

I use vodka for just about everything! For me its like duct tape (duck tape). I use it to fill my airlocks so that if anything gets sucked in, it will be sanitized(?) and up the alcohol lever? I used to use StarSan. I would dump it when I didn't need it anymore. With vodka, I drink it!

The reason I used vodka to make hop tea is to dissolve the hop resin. I thought it would dissolve better than water? When I started making hop tea I used a hop shot. A "hop shot" is pure hop resin and it is like sap from a tree. I thought the vodka would dissolve it quickly? It did not! So I just changed to hop pellets. I kept the vodka for the same reason to dissolve the resin. The water is used to capture any vodka left in the hop pellets.

Maybe the water would be enough? My system of freezing it to clarify the vodka was so I could use it for adding to beers for competition. Clear is better! I tried to just drink it plain but it is harsh! Adding it to a dull beer seems to work just fine! It's great to use to get the essence of a new hop variety and I still get to reuse the hops for bittering after I am done extracting the volatiles.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/hopshot.html

EDIT: PP how long was this wort sitting around?

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Sorry guys, have run out of steam trying to decipher a recipe in another thread.

Thanks for the heads up on the vodka Bob .

It looks like Yeasty is the only one so far to even attempt thinking through trying to give me a definite course of action to follow. Am I right in saying that none of us really know what to do here? Or, am I wrong and can someone tell me, for instance, exactly what I should do to add 15 IBU's to my post-boil wort?

I need to pitch this one tomorrow because I have it all sitting there sanitised etc. This brew wants to be pitched - it's been waiting since the Easter before last!!!


PP

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PistolPatch ,

I am very curious as to how this beer will taste after sitting this long? Let me know whats happening with this one!

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Aces, brewing is a hobby for me, not a job. (I often have to tell some of the people I work with, "Come on guys, it's a job, not a hobby." ) Have just done another very long day today and you want me to re-boil/brew the whole wort !!!!



Meant to re-listen to the John Palmer Beersmith podcast on hops done a few months ago today but never got a chance. I mainly wanted to check on the latest thoughts as to whether they still think you have to boil hops in wort, rather than water, to get the bitterness out. (I don't think you do.)

Anyway, what I would like to do/want to do, on reflection, is pitch this beer now and try and do all the corrections post-pitching, with hops touched with water only. In other words, keep it as simple as possible.

Couldn't be bothered writing it up now but I do have a plan. Whether it will work or not, who knows?

Stu, would like to talk to you more on this. Bob, I'll post here as to what the wort smells and tastes like as soon as I crack it for pitching. This will probably be not until the weekend at the current rate.


PP

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Hi Pat
Been away for a while - big lifestyle change, fled from Queensland but I'm still a Beachbum, living on the Glorious Mid North Coast of NSW in a lovely little village North of Forster and South of Port Mac, one street back from the beach

God arranged for the ceiling hatch in the garage to be right over where my urn sits, to hang my skyhook and still brewing like a maniac.

I've been having some wonderful success venturing into UK ESBs of the Fullers style and getting some knockout hop character that I'd been missing in some brews.

For excellent hopping of these styles I've discovered two brilliant hops: Northdown Plugs in the boil and Aurora (Super Styrians) at the end of the boil. The base bittering hop is Challenger which imparts some "marmalade" as well as IBU and the slightly citric Northdown (2 plugs) also contributes to flavour and a bit of aroma.

I'm not much into water chemistry but religiously sort of Burtonise my water (which is quite soft here off the Barrington Tops) with a flat tsp of Gypsum and a flat tsp of Epsom Salts.
How's the water there in Perth ? Have you tried RO water plus salts and see if that cleans up the hop profiles?

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WRT extracting bitterness, make a plunger of hop tea (say 20g of your chosen hop) in boiling water, don't even continue to boil it. Then sip a teaspoon and learn the true meaning of "pucker up".

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Skip to end of post to get back on topic. Sorry .

Lol Stu. Am actually planning to do a lot of sorting and cleaning tomorrow and maybe two double batches on Sunday or,if not, next weekend. Come around and help please!

Beachbum wrote:Hi Pat
Been away for a while - big lifestyle change, fled from Queensland but I'm still a Beachbum, living on the Glorious Mid North Coast of NSW in a lovely little village North of Forster and South of Port Mac, one street back from the beach

Michael, great to hear from you. Believe it or not, I was actually looking over old PM's this morning and saw your name and once again thought, "I said I'd call for a chat ages ago and I still haven't!!!" Blame writing about beer .

You have moved to a great spot - I love that greenery. Sounds like all is going well for you. Good on you .

Reverse Osmosis

And here's the other funny thing. Guess what I got a few weeks ago? I was putting a new kitchen into someone's place and on ripping out the old kitchen found a RO system that they didn't want anymore. It even has a 20 litre storage tank .

I have no idea if the filters are still good but want to set it up this weekend. Found out Little Creatures RO's all their water here so maybe it will be an interesting thing to try. I bought all the salts to day and am assuming I just set the base water profile as having no salts and then adjust accordingly.

Back on topic - Your Ideas

I have never even heard of Aurora before. I do have Challenger, Styrian and East Kent Goldings on hand. I think I'll taste the wort pre-pitching (tomorrow) and then make a decision based on that.

When you say you put Northdown in the boil and Challenger as the base bittering hop I wasn't sure when you were adding the Northdown?

Totally agree with you on the bitterness in unboiled hop tea. All brewing software formulas are wrong on this. A lot of bitterness comes out instantly I reckon.

Once again, great to hear from you Michael ,
Pat

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Hope you can make it Stu. I have heaps of IPA questions for you .

Bring me some Citra too if you have some please .

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Hi Pat, great to be back.
The UK ESB I referred to is:

2013 comps English ESB


Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.800
Total Hops (g): 78.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.061 (°P): 15.0
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014 (°P): 3.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 6.10 %
Colour (SRM): 9.1 (EBC): 17.9
Bitterness (IBU): 34.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 90

Grain Bill
----------------
5.000 kg Maris Otter Malt (86.21%)
0.300 kg Crystal 60 (5.17%)
0.300 kg Wheat Malt (5.17%)
0.200 kg Cane Sugar (3.45%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Challenger Pellet (6.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.3 g/L)
28.0 g Northdown Plug (7.3% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
20.0 g Aurora Pellet (9% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Wyeast 1968 - London ESB Ale

Notes
----------------
Mash 66 degrees 60 mins
Mashout 68 degrees 10 mins

Ferment 20 degrees 10 days.

Fine

Recipe Generated with BrewMate


So the Northdown was added later.

As it happens the NSW comps results were out yesterday and it bombed out totally However, pending return of judging sheets, I think it's probably due to the London ESB yeast conking out at around 1018 and having to re-warm, rouse etc and I think this particular brew turned out a bit sweet and fruity.


On the subject of comps

WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T MAKE A HALF DECENT LAGER WITH BIAB

NSW comp, judged at weekend, was huge this year, around 550 entries. I entered four, but had a good result with my Australian Premium Lager, came in third in the Pale Lagers so I can put one in the Nats. My Classic American Pilsner came in fifth but if it had only got an additional two points I would have had a place. Very tight category. Always the way, hey.

I've just re brewed the Aussie today, should be ready for the Nats in November. I wasn't really happy with the State entry, too much sediment and wrong yeast: used S-189 as I had no Wyeast Danish. See how it goes. Wort tastes like an angel crying on your tongue.

Edit: I was going to mention another part of an angel's anatomy but this is a family friendly forum

Cheers

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[EDIT: BeachBum, you must have been writing while I was writing. I better read and answer your post tomorrow .]

Ended up only chatting to Aces on Sunday on the phone so didn't get any of his great IPA .

I did however pitch this beer which was brewed 17 months ago . The wort out of the no-chill cube was fine but like the other half of this batch which I chilled, it also had bugger-all bitterness.

My Fix

This wort was 1.070 and the recipe asks for 1.062. I needed about 2.5 litres to dilute the wort to get it to 1.062. What I did was took 3 litres of the wort, and added 2.5 litres to it. I then boiled this 5.5 litres for 60 minutes and did hop additions as for a normal brew but with a third of the hops the recipe called for. Let's see how it tastes after fermentation.

Cause of the Problem

I think one cause (but not all) of the problem is one of maths/formulas. Brewing Classic Styles gives all its recipes in both extract and all-grain forms. This does not mean that every recipe has been brewed in both forms. There are lots of scaling (let lone typing) problems that can occur especially when using a Rager formula, instead of Tinseth, to estimate an all-grain's IBU's.

Anyway, now you are all asleep, I better answer Homemade's question here as he is about to copy a BCS type recipe.


PP

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Cheers mate on the clarification of the Challenger and Northdown additions

[Off-Topic Reply to BeachBum]

Bummer on the no medal on the ESB however, as you would know, luck also plays a part in comps. You can put in the best beer ever but if the judges taste an awful one just before, you've got no hope .

Much better news on the lagers - good on you . I always get bronzes and silvers on lagers/pilsners and am very lazy with them so anyone that says you can't brew then with BIAB is definitely speaking from some prt of an angel' anatomy .

More synchronicity with you Michael... I am going to brew my first Aussie lager in the next few weeks. I've bought some POR hops and I know what I want to achieve - the smell and aroma of a beer brewed years ago when I was only tiny - long story.

Cheers to you ,
PP

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