in which case every beer is a SMaSH - some malt and some hops... yeay, we've made the term meaningless :rockin:Well SMaSH still works. Some Malt and Single Hop...
in which case every beer is a SMaSH - some malt and some hops... yeay, we've made the term meaningless :rockin:Well SMaSH still works. Some Malt and Single Hop...
I tossed some recently in a saison with Nelson Sauvin.
AnOldUR said:Entered a handful of beers into a competition. Three were all Belma; an Amber Ale w/ 15% rye, a Blonde and an APA. Wasn't expecting anything other than to see what a blind taster would think of this hop. All the Belma hopped beers were checked for diacetyl by six different judges.
The recipes and methods were the same as I've used before except for the Belma hops. The other non-Belma beers entered (along with beer from past competitions) did not get checked for the flaw even though they were fermented using the same procedure and temperature control throughout the process.
So, the question is, has anyone experienced a flavor or aroma that could be termed as diacetyl while using Belma hops? (or should I be looking somewhere else?)
No. All were force carbed in kegs and bottled from the keg. Conditioning time before kegging was the same as I always do for the gravity of beer being packaged.Bottle conditioned and if so, for how long before judged?
AnOldUR said:No. All were force carbed in kegs and bottled from the keg. Conditioning time before kegging was the same as I always do for the gravity of beer being packaged.
I was thinking the same thing about the slickness from reading posts in this thread. Along with slickness, the judges comments mentioned things flavor and aroma related to diacetyl like butterscotch or artificial butter.
One of the things that is confusing is the both Pacman and Denny's are not known for producing diacetyl and shouldn't require a D-rest. Pacman specifically say "little to no diacetyl" in their yeast profile.
I'd love to blame it on the hops and move on, but want to be sure I'm not missing something.
Can't speak to the quality of all the judges. I just don't know. But it was a large competition. Over 800 entries. And this was three all Belma beers judged by 6 different judges. None of the non Belma beers I entered had any mention of diacetyl, but all of the Belma's did by every judge. Could simply be something I did wrong and can't put my finger on, but sure makes me wonder.Sounds like bad judging to me. Small comp?
Can't speak to the quality of all the judges. I just don't know. But it was a large competition. Over 800 entries. And this was three all Belma beers judged by 6 different judges. None of the non Belma beers I entered had any mention of diacetyl, but all of the Belma's did by every judge. Could simply be something I did wrong and can't put my finger on, but sure makes me wonder.
More strangeness there. The worst offender was the Belma Amber Ale. I bottled a six from a keg a couple of months ago for the competion after rushing the carbonation. (No shaking, just bumped the pressure for a day or so.) I have been serving from the keg with no reports of diacetyl. Last night I opened one of those original bottles. Yup, it's a D bomb, but the keg is fine.What do you taste in those beers with Belma? Do you taste diacetyl?
Yeah. I'm just frustrated and grasping at straws. I'll have to place the blame on something in my process. I fermented on the cool side and all of these beers were cold crashed. I normally only D-rest before crashing for specific yeast strains that I feel need it. From now on, I'll add a D-rest before crashing, regardless of the strain.I haven't noticed any diacetyl like flavors in any beers that I have made with Belma . . .
Agreed on Belma not being the case if you're getting the classic strong movie butter popcorn kind of flavor. Maybe they caught a bug at bottling? Nov/Dec 2012 edition of Zymurgy has a good article about beer spoilage organisms and notes that some strains of pedio can cause big diacetyl flavors. How are you bottling out of keg? I have yet to work out a good method for this. I will typically just drop pressure on keg and fill straight from tap if I am filling a growler, and I have done bottles this way also with ok results, but I just got a good look at my tap the other day and its due for a serious breakdown and cleaning, so probably time to throw together a Biermuncher ugly junk bottle filler.
Anyways- Topic wise.. Has anyone dry hopped a Saison with Belma?
I added like an ounce late in the boil, with some Nelson Sauvin in a nice simple saison. Figured the berry note would go well with the sweet berry note of the golden naked oats in there. Decided to dry hop it with some Belma leaf for a week, been in there for 3 days now.
Anyone see a difference between leaf and pellet? The pellets have a lower AA % (not sure if this is normal, I normally only use leaf hops)
I don't work on a hop farm so I can't speak from firsthand experience, but I have read that sometimes older leaf hops will get converted to pellet hops. Especially if the supplier sees that the pellet hops are in higher demand. As the hops age they lose alpha acids. Therefore this might explain why some pellet hops might have lower AA than some leaf hops of the same variety. I am not saying that this is in fact what is happening in this case, but it could apply to some cases.
TNGabe said:As this is the first year this hop was harvested, probably not the case here.
kpr121 said:I don’t see a difference in this variety specifically (I only bought leaf), but its fairly common for leaf/pellet to have different AA%. Sometimes they are taken from different parts of the field, different farms, different processors, etc.
I've used Warrior, Citra & Belma together four times now with different hopping schedules. I dislike what Belma brings to the mix. Belma is a citrusy/herbaceous mess with grassy/hay qualities. It makes an American IPA taste cheap. List a dozen other American hops and I guarantee they all taste/smell better than Belma in an IPA, Palisade being the exception.
Sub Belma for Amarillo and realize a better final IPA by 1000%.
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