Commercial vs. my beer

[The_Glue]

So i am drinking a Brewdog Jackhammer right now which seems kinda similar to Pliny which i have made a clone of.
I nailed most of the aspects of a good commercial IPA but i seems to lack the body of the commercial ones. Most of the time i get this nutty, sweet, malty, raisiny backbone behind the bitterness in commercial IPAs while my own beer lacks that. My Pliny clone started at 1.080 (mashing went better than i thought) and fermented down to 1.015 and it feels much drier and kinda thinner in taste than this commercial beer with an OG around 1.070.
Why is that? (i control ph, my water profile is before mashing is pretty hard, 100ish Ca, 300ish sulfate, 100ish Cl)
Is that simply because my attenuation is pretty high? (i use US05 and hit 80-85% attenuation regularly)
Or i mash too low? (i mash around 150 and it just goes lower during the mash but i add boiled water every 15 mins to keep the temp around 150)

edit: i do BIAB and don't sparge or do a mashout i still always above 70% in efficiency

 

[Braufessor]

You could try supplementing some of your base malt..... I assume you are using regular US 2 Row. Try maybe 25% Maris Otter or Golden Promise. Perhaps a pound of munich. This might give you the desired "malty" flavor. I like to add some wheat and flaked oats or barley to many of my beers for a bit more body/mouth feel..... about a half pound of each.

Could try slightly higher mash 152 or so.

I don't think 1.015 is too low on the attenuation..... too much higher than that and I don't think you would be real happy with the outcome either.

 

[The_Glue]

You could try supplementing some of your base malt..... I assume you are using regular US 2 Row. Try maybe 25% Maris Otter or Golden Promise. Perhaps a pound of munich. This might give you the desired "malty" flavor. I like to add some wheat and flaked oats or barley to many of my beers for a bit more body/mouth feel..... about a half pound of each.

Could try slightly higher mash 152 or so.

I don't think 1.015 is too low on the attenuation..... too much higher than that and I don't think you would be real happy with the outcome either.

So my problem is recipe related instead of technique?
Is it possible that my beer is just not old enough? (it was bottled around 6-8 weeks ago) I have seen posts here stating that some beers develop these tastes after some aging. It is possible that the bottles of commercial beer i am drinking are not really fresh. (my only source of american and english craft beer is a single bottleshop in the capital city of my country, the craftbeer boom just started about 3 years ago here)

Btw should a real Pliny have any of that malty, nutty, raisiny, sweet character behind the bitterness?

 

[Braufessor]

Did not realize you were buying the beer in another country.... Where? I have heard many people talk about how different beers taste when they are imports to other countries.... especially far away. I think what we get from Europe to the US is definitely not always the same thing as the "real" (and fresh) version in the country of origin.

Pliny is not raisiny...... at least not when I have had it. It is a pretty dry, crisp beer that is hop forward. There is enough malt backbone to balance the hops..... but, I don't think it is "sweet" by any means.

8 weeks is getting old for an IPA in my opinion, and the malt may be more forward at that point - but it is not by design, it is because the hops are fading.

Part of homebrewing though is finding ways to get the desired effect you are looking for - regardless of whether or not that is the way the brewery does it. If you want your IPA to be sweeter and maltier..... I would try what I suggested above - 60% 2 row, 20-30% maris or golden promise, 10-15% a combination of some munich, any crystal malt you might be using, maybe some wheat/flaked oats..... See if that gives you the desired effect you are looking for.

 

[Yooper]

Btw should a real Pliny have any of that malty, nutty, raisiny, sweet character behind the bitterness?

No! It sounds like you have some oxidized old Pliny. It's not the least bit as you describe.

"Raisiny" and "sweet" (like sherry) flavors develop with time and are generally considered flaws in most beers but especially IPAs and IIPAs.

 

[dyqik]

The description of Jackhammer on the Brewdog website says:

Start with huge grapefruit aroma. Pile on more bitterness than the human palate (or nipple) can detect, ride the anarchy and caramel craziness and let the devastatingly bitter finish drill straight through your taste buds.

which suggests there's a decent amount of crystal malt in there. The Pliny clone (Morebeer all grain kit) I brewed had a small amount of crystal 60L in it (6 oz), but certainly not enough to to give "caramel craziness". Brewdog could well be brewing something a bit closer in grain bill to an imperialized English or East Coast IPA with more crystal malt than a Pliny type West Coast DIPA. Brewdog tend to take pride in doing things their own way, so I wouldn't assume that they are intending to brew something that close to Pliny.

 

[The_Glue]

Well it seems like i had wrong assumptions from the beginning. Since all of the commercial double IPAs i tried featured some level of caramel, malty taste i thought that it is a must have for the style so when i did not tasted it in my beer i thought that my beer is defective somehow but it tastes exactly like that:

Pliny is not raisiny...... at least not when I have had it. It is a pretty dry, crisp beer that is hop forward. There is enough malt backbone to balance the hops..... but, I don't think it is "sweet" by any means.

 

[cjgenever]

It sounds like you are brewing a great iipa. 1.012 is a good fg for this style. 1.015 is getting a bit high for my taste ( I shoot for 1.008). There should be a whisper of malt, but the whole point of west coast ipa is that it is not balanced. It is a bitter, hop forward brew. A good brewer will use proper yeast management to achieve the needed attenuation. Some simple sugars may be used to get the crisp, dry finish of a great iipa.

Many bottled ipa's I've had were oxidized and missing their original hop aroma and flavor. Those taste the way you described your commercial examples.

The BJCP style guidelines is a great resource that you should check out

 

[The_Glue]

What interesting is that i miss that taste.
I have not tried many american IPAs/IIPAs because they are not really available here but the ones i tried featured that caramelly taste.
They were Anderson Valley Hop'Ottin, SN Celebration Ale, Green Flash West Coast IPA (it was more like an IIPA i think) and Rogue Yellow Snow.

It is not impossible that all of they were older bottles because i think they get sent to Belgium first into a big beer supplier/reseller/market warehouse type of thing then the owner of the bottleshop in my country goes there by car about 4 times a year and bring back as much beer as he can and sells them here so some of these bottles can be quite old.

None of them were cardboardy btw.

 

[cjgenever]

Cardboard is an oxidized flavor more prevalent to pale lagers and other clean beer. Ipa oxidation tends to be caramel and raisin like.

If you like those flavors try some c40 or c60 for some caramel and some c120 for the raisin.

 

[flars]

What interesting is that i miss that taste.
I have not tried many american IPAs/IIPAs because they are not really available here but the ones i tried featured that caramelly taste.
They were Anderson Valley Hop'Ottin, SN Celebration Ale, Green Flash West Coast IPA (it was more like an IIPA i think) and Rogue Yellow Snow.

It is not impossible that all of they were older bottles because i think they get sent to Belgium first into a big beer supplier/reseller/market warehouse type of thing then the owner of the bottleshop in my country goes there by car about 4 times a year and bring back as much beer as he can and sells them here so some of these bottles can be quite old.

None of them were cardboardy btw.

What time of the year was SN Celebration available to you? This is a seasonal beer, only available for a few months, at least in my area. If you tasted this one in July, it was suffering from old age.

 

[The_Glue]

What time of the year was SN Celebration available to you? This is a seasonal beer, only available for a few months, at least in my area. If you tasted this one in July, it was suffering from old age.

I tasted it in July 2013 lol


@cjgenever

Thanks, we dont have c*number* malts here, we have cara*whatever* malts but i have heard that they are interchangeable if i can match the EBC values.

 

[The_Glue]

So i checked out my malts on hand:

70% Maris
20% pale Ale
10% C60

Would that malt bill bring the caramel or i need some more C*number* malts?
I also have carapils, wheat, chocolate and roasted barley but i don't think that they are caramellish.

 

[cjgenever]

That's worth a try. The MO will add nice malt flavors. I stopped using pale ale in ipa because it left a residual sweetness, so I think you'll like that. The c60 is good by itself but you could also try darkening half in your oven. The c120-140 will give you that raisin flavor you are looking for. There are diy resources around that can help you with that.

If all else fails, just oxidize your present ipa with poor packaging procedures. Give it two weeks and enjoy! Just don't expect any shelf life :-(

... Never thought I would be saying that, haha!

 

[TheMilkMan]

I agree with the other posters on this one. Sounds like the IPA/IIPAs you are getting a hold of are old. The hops and bitterness fall out over time and leave the malt. Sounds like that is what's happening. Even here in the states every once in a while I'll pick up a six pack of an IPA off the back shelf of a supermarket, forget to check the date on the beer, take it home, crack it open, and...blahh, all malt.

 

[The_Glue]

That "cooking some c60 till it tuns c120" thing sounds good, i remember i bookmarked an article about home roasting malts once.

Btw i have 6 months old homebrew IPAs without that caramel taste and i am pretty sure that the commercial guys can keep out more oxigen than me.
On the other hand both of these old IPAs of mine were single malt only.

 

[cjgenever]

That "cooking some c60 till it tuns c120" thing sounds good, i remember i bookmarked an article about home roasting malts once.

Btw i have 6 months old homebrew IPAs without that caramel taste and i am pretty sure that the commercial guys can keep out more oxigen than me.
On the other hand both of these old IPAs of mine were single malt only.

Yes and no... There are a lot of good breweries, but a lot of bad as well. Just because they get paid doesn't make it better. That goes both ways. I like to drink homebrew because I know I'm buying a fresh, well brewed (most the time) beer. Even good beer is ruined by poor distribution. I.e. I'm on the east coast usa and it is hard to find a Sierra Nevada that isn't lacking. My distribution network is small enough to ensure fresh beer .

 

[The_Glue]

At 8-9 weeks the beer started to move into that caramelly direction, you guys were right.