Cidery flavor, not much hop aroma despite 4.5oz dry hop and 4oz in whirlpool. And other problems.

[BrewBarrymore]

[This was also posted in all-grain brewing.]

I've tried brewing an NEIPA and after tasting it I get a cidery flavor and not much in aroma or hop flavor. I understand that acetaldehyde/cidery flavor come from not giving yeast time to clean up, but this yeast dropped very fast and I wanted to make sure I followed instructions on NEIPA and dry hop while beer was still fermenting. Could anyone please give me some ideas as to what might be going on and how to fix it?

My recipe is about 70% pale malt, 10% vienna, 15% flaked wheat, 5% flaked oat. My water is about 150ppm of chloride and 70ppm sulfate added to RO water. The yeast I used was US-05. 2 packets for 5 gallons. Here are some additional notes:

Day 1- Pitched at and fermented at 65f. About 12 hrs later I could see the yeast starting up.
Day 2- Fermentation was vigorous.
Day 3- Fermentation slowed down significantly. There was almost no bubbling at all at this point. I gave the fermenting vessel a good swirl and it started bubbling again.
Day 4- Virtually no bubbling going on anymore. The krauzen had dropped already. I took a gravity reading and saw I was nearing expected final gravity. I threw in the dry hops at this point at 70f
Day 6-8- Didn't see any change in gravity so I started cold crashing it.
Day 12- Kegged it and sampled some.

OG: 1.057
FG: 1.018
Mash Temp: 156f
Fermentation temp: 65f inside of plastic buckets using a temperature controlled chest freezer.


Appearance: Hazy, but not "milky" like I wanted it to turn out.
Aroma: A bit fruity like I expected out of the hops used, but nothign like an NEIPA should be. Was no more hoppier than another "normal" IPA I brew, despite having used 3x the amount of hops in whirlpool and in dryhop.
Flavor: Also lacking in flavor. Did not have much hop flavor as expected. Didn't taste any more hop flavor than I do out of my "normal" IPA.
Mouthfeel: Did not feel "round". Felt a bit thin. Expected there would be more roundness considering I used took the Chloride a notch up and mashed at 156f to get more body out of it.


Can anyone give me advice on what could've gone wrong? Also, how can I achieve more "roundness" if I am already doing what is required to achieve that feel in the beer (high mash temp, higher chloride, flaked oat)? How can I achieve the more "milkiness" that a lot of NEIPA have without doing something like putting flour, apple puree, or lactose in it?

 

[BrewBarrymore]

To add that although the beer seemed to attenuated to the expected % and stay consistent over 3 days, I'm still surprised that the krausen dropped so quickly. This leads me to the question of using a chest freezer as a fermenter. So the way it works is the same with any temp controller. I set it to 65f and if it goes a couple degrees above that, then the freezer kicks on until it gets back to 65f again. However, the probe is only stuck to the side of the bucket and perhaps the beer inside is actually getting way colder? I'm not sure. Does anyone have advice on this as well? Thank you!

 

[GPP33]

Never brewed a NEIPA and don’t particularly enjoy them so take my following comment for what it’s worth. Minus the cider flavor and clarity issues, your description is basically how I perceive all NEIPAs.

156 is not particularly warm. Read the thread on mash temp vs mouth feel. Pretty strong consensus that you’ll need to go warmer if you want it to be noticeable. FG doesn’t always give a good indicator of perceived mouthfeel or thinness.

Get your temp probe into the beer. You’ve invested in a temp controller and a chest freezer, finish it off right. Sticking it to the side of the bucket is not measuring the beer temp, it’s measuring the air temp. I’d bet the beer is actually warmer, air cools off much faster than a liquid.

4 days is plenty of time to wrap up the bulk of fermentation. If you have a sufficient qty of healthy yeast, they have plenty of O2 and nutrients and use a quick acting yeast (which I understand US-05 is) 4 days is probably on the long side to complete fermentation active enough to give off visual cues.

You didn’t mention your hop schedule which is kind of important for this type of beer. Did you only do whirlpool and dry? What was the temp during whirlpool? What hops did you use?