Bad Brewing Ingredient Combos

[///]

Hot Caustic, thongs and an open tap. Luckily there was a pool in the immediate vicinity, unfortunately it was the middle of winter ....

 

[mckenry]

My opinion only, but I reckon POR hops + late kettle addition = bad combination.

 

[jbirbeck]

bad combination = chinese hops and wort h34r:



.... or is the dust still settling ....


to be fair I only dared use the MP, but the oily bitterness put me off the rest. I'm actually toying with the idea of applying them coffee press style so no bitterness, but that's another thread and I'm not sure if this post will survive <_<

I've used a few of the chinese hops and I consider the MP to be very similar to Columbus...I certainly wouldn't throw a lot of columbus in to bitter unless I wanted to get a good mouth puckering. Use it as a late hop and its great. Hell I used it at 20 and 5 in a kit and beautiful.

Inbalance. Lots of malty malt with not enough hops...that's a bad mix.

I made a malty ale not long ago that I thought would be great, Vienna, Maris Otter, a little pale and a touch of pilsener for sweetness. Perle hops bittering to just under 20 IBU. I thought it would be great but it was WAY too malt focused. Came out just like Montieth's Summer Ale, I hated it!

a lack of balance goes the other way as well... over done hops without the malt to back it up. Of course hop heads will disagree.

Pacific Gem hops in an english bitter...that's a bad combo.

 

[T.D.]

For me its amber malt and american hops. Particularly Amarillo. Just grate against each other I reckon.

 

[zebba]

Maybe earth/mushrooms + passionfruit (nelson and fuggles) might be odd if you used them both late but again it's as much about making it work by brewing it right - similar to fusion food. I'd never say never but I wouldn't recommend it (might try it quietly and suck up the failures) until I was confident I knew what the flavours were and what I wanted from them.

Got one in the fermenter now that has a small amount of late cascade and a big(ish) dry hop of fuggles. The intention is just a small amount of cascade will freshen it a little. Hopefully it works.

 

[argon]

Well... I read a post just yesterday... I think from Tony... who said, (paraphrasing) "It's like eating a mars bar with a diet coke"

That is... adding Carapils with an adjunct such as rice or flaked maize. One adds body the other thins the body. So technically probably not a good combination of ingredients.

 

[Fents]

Got one in the fermenter now that has a small amount of late cascade and a big(ish) dry hop of fuggles. The intention is just a small amount of cascade will freshen it a little. Hopefully it works.

trying to freshen up that dirty sock taste from fuggles?

cant polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. :lol:

 

[argon]

Bad combinations are maybe possibly possible but bad balancing is probably more an issue.

Maybe earth/mushrooms + passionfruit (nelson and fuggles) might be odd if you used them both late but again it's as much about making it work by brewing it right - similar to fusion food. I'd never say never but I wouldn't recommend it (might try it quietly and suck up the failures) until I was confident I knew what the flavours were and what I wanted from them.

Actually thinking this through a bit, Rogue tend to do a lot of brews with a combo of Cascade and Willamette. And Im a big fan of their range. Now Willamette is a US hybrid of Fuggles and has a similar profile. And everyoneknows that Cascade has a floral/fruity profile one would assume that the 2 dont mix well.

Although, Rogue do qualify that the Willamette they use is Rogue Farm Free Range Willamette whatever that means so maybe it has a slightly different profile.

Willamette is described as a hybrid of the Fuggles hop that were released by the USDA in 1976. Mild having an herbal, woody, and earthy aroma. Whereas Cascade is described as Aroma: Strong spicy, floral, grapefriut character.

So it has been done I guess with a relative amount of success.

 

[jbirbeck]

cant polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. :lol:

:icon_offtopic: yes you can... Mythbusters polish a turd

 

[zebba]

trying to freshen up that dirty sock taste from fuggles?

cant polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. :lol:

LOL. I love my fuggles. Like, REALLY love them. All you haters can GTFO

And seeing as the beer in question is hopefully going to be my Vic swap beer, I might dry-hop your bottle with some toenail clippings for some extra bang

 

[Tony]

My opinion only, but I reckon POR hops + late kettle addition = bad combination.

Yes and no. 1/2g per liter at 10 min in an aussie ale is great. really hop it up and it can be a bit much. Use it corectly and it will reward. Fresh whole flowers are best!

Well... I read a post just yesterday... I think from Tony... who said, (paraphrasing) "It's like eating a mars bar with a diet coke"

That is... adding Carapils with an adjunct such as rice or flaked maize. One adds body the other thins the body. So technically probably not a good combination of ingredients.

Ahhhhhh i see someone is listning

This is not going to be a bad combination. It would make beer that would be fine. I was mainly concerned with this brewer adding stuff to the the beer's ingredinets list for the sake of it. It was a lager from memory and a lager should be simple.

If you want to add body and a fine sweetness to a beer......... use carapils, and as i was told a long time ago...... under 5% is a waste of time.
If you want to thin the body and dry the beer out..... use rice.

 

[Barry]

I am still puzzled about adding sugar for lightness and carapils for body. Seems to come up a lot for recipes for APA's, AIPA's and AI2PA's. One or the other or mash at 64oC?
Not saying it is wrong but rather two extras not needed.

 

[Bizier]

This is absolutely personal, but I dislike when you have a certain ligher roast grain character such as pale choc / carafa 1 with hops that contribute a strong passionfruit aroma, eg galaxy. I have made one particular batch of beer that other people loved and I almost wanted to vomit on tasting it, and I have had the same experience from other homebrews and some commercial beers. That said, I love a US brown with sappy pine hops, and have rekindled a love for amarillo as a dry hop in browns after following Jamil Zainasheff's regime.

 

[///]

Thongs ... hot caustic... anyone??? !!!

 

[dicko]

Imho, using cascade hops for the bittering addition in an apa is not a pleasing result.
It doesn't seem to offer the true bitterness profile to my taste.

Simcoe on the other hand has a very smooth bittering quality while still being "fruity" and is great as a bittering hop.
Another combination I think works well is EKG and Cascade with the EKG giving a smooth earthy bitterness to subdue the sickly fruit of the Cascade as a bittering addition.

I keep Cascade to the flavour and aroma hop additions only.

Cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thongs ... hot caustic... anyone??? !!!

I got both gumboots filled up with hot caustic once...

So I'll support /// and go with the amazingly bad combo of skin + hot caustic - a pairing that you can pray you never get to experience.

 

[hoohaaman]

I know I will get lambasted,but adding nottingham to perfectly good wort.

 

[Nick JD]

I'm not convinced that dark lagers are a good idea, but I've probably done them wrong.

 

[Bizier]

I am drinking JS Malt Runner now... Similar experience to my previous post.

 

[manticle]

Actually thinking this through a bit, Rogue tend to do a lot of brews with a combo of Cascade and Willamette. And I'm a big fan of their range. Now Willamette is a US hybrid of Fuggles and has a similar profile. And everyoneknows that Cascade has a floral/fruity profile one would assume that the 2 don't mix well.

Although, Rogue do qualify that the Willamette they use is "Rogue Farm Free Range Willamette" whatever that means so maybe it has a slightly different profile.

Willamette is described as a hybrid of the Fuggles hop that were released by the USDA in 1976. Mild having an herbal, woody, and earthy aroma. Whereas Cascade is described as Aroma: Strong spicy, floral, grapefriut character.

So it has been done I guess with a relative amount of success.

that's what I mean. There's probably almost anything you can think of that could be done well - same as with cooking. I've had vietnamese mint sorbet with raspberry chilli syrup that was a taste sensation. In the wrong hands it could be revolting. Same thing goes for chocolate venison.

In order to make a weird combination work (and almost any weird combination can probably be made to work) you need to understand each ingredient and what you want from it. Centennial late/dry hops might work in a bo-pils (actual example pulled from my arse) by someone who had an idea of what they are doing and deliberately pushed the envelope to create it.

I just see a big difference between the average cook/brewer throwing shit together to see what happens and someone making a deliberate, albeit wacky decision.

NB: Sometimes throwing shit together does work, most often it results in 'why did I do that?'

Classic combinations, whether in cooking or brewing are the best way to learn about flavour combos. When you really know your stuff you realise that the coffee/choc characteristic of wattleseed might sit superbly with bacon in a dish, or a touch of cinammon might lift a pork dish or the citrus nature of target might fit well into an APA (only some examples pulled from my arse) but you get to know that by brewing an english style with target or cooking desserts with cinammon and apples.