Could you or have you had too much Nelson Sauvin?

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Blitzer said:
Punkin you also have one with Crystal 120 floating and a tiny bit different percentages, like 81% pale.
What is the right one? Or better one?
The one above is the one i'm drinking now, reviewing my noes i subbed the vienna for caramel light as i didn't have any vienna. I have also used victory.

It changes as to my ingredients available, i don't think small changes like the type of crystal are anything i'm good enough to really pick up on in a beer as tasty as this one.

The biggest changes came when i went no-chill.
 
NS is a very good bittering hop as it has it has low cohumulone ( very similiar to magnum for example). Recently made an anzus ale with NS bittering and simcoe galaxy late and was very tasty.
 
I will second the awesomeness as NS as a 'booster' to push fruitiness with other hops providing more of a structure.

My favourite beers using NS are probably Parrotdog Bitter Bitch and the "Fresh" (wet hopped) Hopwired, they are spectacular when fresh.
 
The only time I used NS I had to tip it, truly bloody awful. Don't think it was the fault of the hop though, it was only my 2nd AG brew I think, and I suspect it may have been infected. One commercial example that I quite like is Macs Hop Rocker, a combination of NZ Cascade and NS.
 
I had a bad experience with NS, but it was entirely recipe related. Ended up with late and dry additions with under 30IBU. :icon_vomit:
 
I don't think NS is that bad as a dry hopper. So long as it's paired with something else. I've used it with Citra and Cascade as a dry hop, and if understated, it works.

It's again great as a 10 minute (chilled) addition to an APA, again if paired.

I think it shines best at 30 minutes, the bittering is good and all those good gooseberry flavours come out nice and prominent.
 
Lord Raja Goomba I said:
I don't think NS is that bad as a dry hopper. So long as it's paired with something else. I've used it with Citra and Cascade as a dry hop, and if understated, it works.

It's again great as a 10 minute (chilled) addition to an APA, again if paired.

I think it shines best at 30 minutes, the bittering is good and all those good gooseberry flavours come out nice and prominent.
My last pale ale's hop additions were as followed :-

20.00 gm Cascade (60 min)
20.00 gm Cascade (25 min)
20.00 gm Cascade (5 min)
20.00 gm Nelson (Flame Out)
15.00 gm Cascade (Dry Hop)
20.00 gm Nelson (Dry Hop)

And that sucker is Nelson crazy and get next to no Cascade. I will admit I had tried someone elses beer which had some Nelson in it and I fell in love with it so I went a bit crazy with it!
 
tricache said:
My last pale ale's hop additions were as followed :-

20.00 gm Cascade (60 min)
20.00 gm Cascade (25 min)
20.00 gm Cascade (5 min)
20.00 gm Nelson (Flame Out)
15.00 gm Cascade (Dry Hop)
20.00 gm Nelson (Dry Hop)

And that sucker is Nelson crazy and get next to no Cascade. I will admit I had tried someone elses beer which had some Nelson in it and I fell in love with it so I went a bit crazy with it!
You might not taste much cascade, but it will tone down the 'bad parts' of NS and accentuate all that is good.

I hope. That's my experience, but not science to back it up.
 
I am just waiting on my bottled Fatter Yak to be ready, which was dry-hopped with 15g of Nelson Sauvin. The beer tastes pretty bad ATM, but it's got a great aroma.

NS additions for this recipe were at 10 minutes and flame-out, so pretty much only for flavour and aroma. It's the first time I've used it, and I'm really pleased. Seems to work well with this Fat Yak style of beer. :)
 
I too have found Nelson to be quite potent and learned very quickly to balance it appropriately. In my case with some cascade & amarillo. Im not sure if its the alpha levels (?) but I had to back off the nelson to get the right result in the end. Good post...P
 
Not a big fan of this hop. Have tried to brew with it a few times and drunk a few beers with it. Always get the same winey taste that I really don't enjoy.
 
About to embark on a 100% pale ale with all late and dry hops... wish me luck :0
 
Be VERY gentle with it...it a good hop, but needs to be used wisely & sparingly
 
Just bottled a pale ale with amarillo for bittering then 25g NS at 10min, flame out and dry hop for 4 days prior to cold crashing. Early hydro after 1 week was all white wine, but that has settled and smelt quite good going into the bottles. Will know in a couple of weeks.
 
NS is used very effectively in the Yeastie Boys Digital IPA. They've open sourced the recipe and it's a cracker. Crucially though NS is used big at 10 mins with a bit of Pacifica, and then conservatively with big flameout amounts of Motueka and Pacifica. No dry hop NS. I've heard it said its like MSG for beer!
 
I was gonna try to cram 300g in... lol...

have rethought this and will go with 80g and try to balance with some cascade.
 
300g !!! :lol: :lol:
Given pretty much everyone has said it's great but use with caution, that's hilarious.
I've gone overboard with NS once before - namely with dry hopping an equal (large-ish) amount of Cascade and NS in a Fat Yak-ish Amber. Something *really* didn't work in it and it took 8 months for it to mellow - ie: I'm pretty sure it was from too much NS and it was a bit like drinking a beer that someone had poured Sav Blanc into. So it took the 8 months for the NS aroma to fully dissipate.
Subsequently I'd either never dry hop with NS or do so in low amounts (eg: 0.5g/l or less).
In general use, I'd probably stick with using only half as much as any other hop, such as with cascade in the FY clones. At least until I'm a bit more comfortable with it.
Fwiw though, it's an amazing hop that seems to do something few other hops do - the way it accentuates malts and blends with other hops. I see it as being similar to EKG and Fuggles in that sense, even though the specific aroma/flavour is quite different.
 
Recipe...

25L

grain (all gladfield)
3KG Gladfield Ale
2.3KG Gladfield Pils
.3KG Gladfield Aurora
.2KG Gladfield Red Baron
.15KG Gladfield Toffee


Hops
20G Nelson sauvin @ 20mins
20G Cascade @ 5 mins
10G Nelson Sauvin @ 5mins
30G Cascade 15min whilpool @ 80C
15G Cascade 15min Whirlpool @ 60C
15G Nelson Sauvin 15min Whirlpool @ 60C

30G cascade dry hop 7 days
10G Nelson Sauvin Dry hop 3 days

Est OG: 1.052
Est FG: 1.012
41 IBUs

thoughts?


thinking I'd like to throw some chinook in too... not sure when or what amount.
 
I did a single hop NS ale a while ago and my hop schedule looked like this:

25g @60
20g @15
20g @5
20g Dry

As I was only doing a partial boil using DME that equated to 40IBU.

It was up there in the top 2-3 beers I have made to date.
 
Back
Top