Flavorless beer- why?

[kshuler]

So I made a beer out of the leftover ingredients that i had in my freezer. I bottled it on the 1st of this month, and now about 3 weeks later, I am trying it for the first time, and it is essentially completely devoid of flavor. The odd thing is that I designed this one to be especially flavorful. 3 ounces of hops between 15 minutes and 5 minutes, several ounces in a hopback and several ounces of dry hopping. What could have gone wrong?

Here is the recipe (7 gallon recipe):
11.5 lb maris otter
1 lb flaked wheat
8 oz crystal 60L

0.75 oz Cascade FWH
1 oz simcoe at 15 min
0.5 oz centennial at 10 min
1 oz simcoe at 5 min
0.5 oz amarillo at 5 min

Hopback additions:
0.5 oz simcoe
1 oz columbus
0.75 cascade

Dr Hops- all additions for 10 days
1 oz amarillo
1 oz columbus
0.5 oz centennial

This beer was intended to be a hop bomb, and I am absolutely STUNNED how little flavor and aroma there is in this beer. I use a plate chiller, took maybe 10 minutes to move everything between the kettle and fermentor. Anyone have any thoughts on why this might be? It did ferment too warm, which contributes a bit to some fruitiness (used pacman yeast), but that is really the only flavor that comes through.

Klaus

 

[Homercidal]

I am guessing you burned the taste buds off your tongue, or you have a sever cold.

That recipe looks like a hop bomb to me!

 

[COLObrewer]

Yea yea, what he said ^^, looks delicious though.

 

[phatuna]

you mentioned leftover ingredients from your freezer, could that be the culprit? how old?

 

[DrinkinSurfer]

Were the hops stored properly, airtight and all that? And how leftover were they?

 

[MetallHed]

Congrats you made Miller Lite!

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

How warm is too warm? I recently did an IPA with WLP002, which is estery to begin with. It fermented a little warm (right around 70) and all I can taste is esters. It reminds me of apple juice despite the generous amount of hops that I used.

 

[MTMuggs]

In addition to what others have said, have you tried a different serving temperature, especially if it is cold out of the fridge? I've found that can indeed make a big difference.

 

[HickoryMike]

Wow, that should be a hop bomb. Hops too old and/or not stored in the best conditions? Served too cold? Boy, that's tough.

 

[phatuna]

I'm getting a little worried about the OP. it's odd when someone posts a question, then never checks back. KShuler, you out there? you ok? should we send a search party?

 

[HiGravShawn]

I couldn't resist...

 

[phatuna]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT0ONFgWZEM


I couldn't resist...

Man, I miss Hedgeburg... good call higrav

 

[joeldp144]

I have only been brewing a few years, so I may totally be off base here. My understanding is that very little bitterness is contributed by late hop additions (less than 30 min in boil) and dry hopping.....including by hopback. This can be demonstrated by plugging it in to your brew software and adjusting the soaking time. Therefore, almost all of your hop additions (albeit a lot of them) were made later in the process and ultimately didn't make much of an impact on the flavor.

So, the 0.75 Cascade was left to do all of the bittering work while the rest of the hops simply contributed minor bittering and a lot of aroma. I am guessing that your beer is quite fragrant but not very bitter at all.

I plugged it all into Promash, and the IBU's were pretty low.....but, I may be missing something.

 

[HickoryMike]

I have only been brewing a few years, so I may totally be off base here. My understanding is that very little bitterness is contributed by late hop additions (less than 30 min in boil) and dry hopping.....including by hopback. This can be demonstrated by plugging it in to your brew software and adjusting the soaking time. Therefore, almost all of your hop additions (albeit a lot of them) were made later in the process and ultimately didn't make much of an impact on the flavor.

So, the 0.75 Cascade was left to do all of the bittering work while the rest of the hops simply contributed minor bittering and a lot of aroma. I am guessing that your beer is quite fragrant but not very bitter at all.

I plugged it all into Promash, and the IBU's were pretty low.....but, I may be missing something.

Good eye. I didn't even look at the bittering hops. .75 oz for a 7 gallon batch is really weak.

 

[ekranzusch]

Plus it was a first wort hop. In my experience a FWH addition will isomerize differently than a normal during the boil bittering hop addition.

 

[carnevoodoo]

To me, that beer really doesn't have much going on with it. A neutral malt profile and a smattering of hops.

I'm guessing the aroma of the hops is being blown out by the esters you have. Just try to control your temps better. Up your bittering addition. Try to aim for actual numbers and you might get something more drinkable.

 

[kshuler]

Yeah, I'm still here. Been a few bad days of work and too tired to check the computer. Sorry about that.

The hops were all oldish... and had not been stored in exactly ideal conditions. They were in the freezer in airtight containers, BUT not vacuum sealed. And they were mixed in age- none less than 2 months old, oldest about 6 months old. Does it make THAT much difference that they be fresh??

The temp control is an issue. I think it got up to 74 degrees initially. You can definitely note the fruitiness. Am considering buying a fridge as fermentation chamber for future brews.

Do you really think that 60 minute additions are very important? By Beersmith the bitterness should have been around the middle to the top of normal for an APA (using tinseth). I was not going for an extremely bitter brew, mostly wanted hoppy flavor profile with mild to moderate bitterness. The bitterness does show through, I get that, but it is the flavor that is the problem. Another thing I note is that it certainly was very floral and fragrant when bottling, but the aroma seems to have waned substantially as well. Could there be something wrong with the bottle caps? I clean them by soaking in starsan, but do not boil them. Is that OK?

There is another possiblity-- I have been drinking quite a few IPAs lately, real hop bombs like ruination, BLue Dot and Pliny.... could this be the dreaded (and I am not at all sure it exists) Lupulin Threshold Shift? I think I read somewhere that that isn't real. And if it IS, then does that affect your ability to appreciate hop flavor or just bitterness?

Sorry for not being here for a few days! thanks for the comments.

Klaus

 

[dfc]

I'm getting a little worried about the OP. it's odd when someone posts a question, then never checks back. KShuler, you out there? you ok? should we send a search party?

He kept drinking more trying to find the flavor. I'm guessing kidney failure.

 

[dfc]

And now see that he's OK. Me = fail.

 

[kshuler]

No problem. And my kidneys are fine. I do have a little jaundice and some right upper quadrant pain, though. Maybe 7 gallons in 2 days searching for flavor isn't so good for my liver.

Klaus

 

[dfc]

:d

 

[kshuler]

I think I figured it out. I just did another batch that was not designed to be quite as hoppy as the flavorless batch, but it is brimming with hop flavor. The procedures I used for brewing were essentially the same. The big difference... about 7 grams of various minerals added to the mash. I had not been adjusting my native water, which in Seattle is not that far from distilled. The last batch I added additions of minerals to bring it up to the level I had read that Russian River uses in their brews. Can't remember exactly where I heard their numbers.

The difference is STUNNING.

I had no idea the few grams of minerals added could be so powerful.

Good learning experience.

Klaus

 

[Justibone]

Glad you solved it!

 

[CircaChris]

Just reading this thread now for the first time. Thankfully read til the end. I was actually going to suggest what you apparently solved. When brewing with my filtered water I usually condition the water with three steps. One brew I forget to add a kosher salt addition of 2g for a 5g batch. The flavor profile of the whole brew changed. Even though I added the Gypsum and Cal Chloride the hops were still super muted (not dependent on the huge volume or hop additions).

This brew actually did wind up coming around in flavor but it took a couple of extra weeks after kegging to taste decent. Granted this mistake was never made again.

Accidentally stumbled across this post when looking for a thread on warm IPA fermentation and how yeast and temp affect esters. Glad to have read, however much later. Cheers!