Hop flavour gone after 1 day in keg

[brewermp]

Hey fellow brewers I recently put down a New England ipa in my fermentasauras and finally got to put it in the keg yesterday.

My high level process was to keep it at 15psi for the whole ferment then cold crash for 24hours and keg it.

When I transferred to the keg in an oxygen free method I then force carbed by turning the pressure up to 30psi. Rolling it then waiting 30 minutes turning down the pressure to serving pressure.

The first glass on the night of kegging was absolutely beautiful. I walked away chuffed. 24hours later my beer has almost no hop aroma. I don’t know what is wrong.

Any pointers?

 

[goatchop41]

Any change to colour or flavour as well? It would be surprising if it oxidized that quickly, even for a NEIPA.

You didn't just have the keg fridge too cold do you? That would obviously completely dull the aroma and flavour.

Lastly, what was your keg transfer method? It is surprising sometimes how some people think that they are doing O2-free transfers, but really aren't.

 

[Schikitar]

The first glass on the night of kegging was absolutely beautiful. I walked away chuffed. 24hours later my beer has almost no hop aroma.

This happens to me, maybe not after a day but after a week..

You didn't just have the keg fridge too cold do you? That would obviously completely dull the aroma and flavour.

Curious.. I've not heard this before, what is an ideal temp to have to not affect flavour & aroma?

 

[goatchop41]

Curious.. I've not heard this before, what is an ideal temp to have to not affect flavour & aroma?

It's exactly why substandard adjunct lagers can actually taste alright on a hot day when they come straight from an esky full of ice, or how adding ice to whiskey dulls it (if we exclude dilution of the whiskey).

A cursory google search will give you plenty of answers, including this: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/proper-beer-serving-temperatures/

 

[Schikitar]

Thanks, pretty sure my fridge is well too cold then (at about 3-4 degrees at a guess), will adjust and see if it improves my situation! Cheers!

 

[brewermp]

Thanks for the responses


I keep my fridge at 3-4c ambient temperature.


Transfer wise my fermentasauras was under pressure, I then put gas in my keg and purged it a couple of times. I then hooked beer lines up, gas hooked up to fermentasauras, spunding valve on keg then started the transfer.

 

[peteru]

Agitate your keg to see if it improves once you get all the solids back into suspension.

 

[fungrel]

Agitate your keg to see if it improves once you get all the solids back into suspension.

Why would you want to do that?

 

[huez]

Why would you want to do that?

I assume because it's a NEIPA. Probably not a bad idea if it's dropped clear. What yeast did you use?

They do oxidise pretty easily, no colour change?

 

[brewermp]

WLP4042 - HAZY DAZE IPA BLEND

I’ll try a shake tonight

 

[damohb]

Most likely just too cold as already suggested, for NEIPAs I usually follow the +2 rule (ABV + 2, so 7% = 9C, or even a bit higher), and usually find mine improve after coming up from crash temp. If you fermented at 15psi the force carb probably wasn't needed?

 

[Schikitar]

keep my fridge at 3-4c ambient temperature.

From what I've just learnt in the last day (you can teach old dogs new tricks!) your fridge temp, like mine, is too cold. I reckon mine is between 2-4 degrees, after consulting the various tables I'm going to try 9 degrees as a happy medium for my ales and porters/stouts, give that a run..

 

[Dan Pratt]

i find that the first beer, IS ALWAYS the most pungent and most full of flavour., after that as a brewer the overall preception is reduced, maybe its just me.

One thing i dont do or like with hoppy beers like NEIPA or very hop heavy beers, is force carbonating at 30PSi, i found over teh years this affects hop aromatics, not sure of the science for that but patience and low pressure is best for these beers.

 

[MHB]

Following the thread on pressure fermentation, I have spent a fair amount of time this week researching all the literature I can find on the subject.
Will put a copy of one in the footer but basically, there might be some advantages to fermenting Lager under pressure - if your aim is to get the beer out the door ASAP, without too much regard as to flavour. Faster beer not better beer!
When the effect on Ale ferments was examined it became a very different proposition. Anything over ~20kPa (0.2Bar or 3PSI) and the effects are all bad.
I know from experience that highly hopped beers can be damaged very quickly by Oxygen uptake during packaging.
It takes very small amounts to do lots of harm -so perhaps your methods should be reviewed.
Yeast doesn't consume all the O2 in solution, there will always be some unless you take extreme measures to get rid of it, have a look at LoDO brewing techniques. With a normal ferment most of the residual O2 is stripped out by the evolving CO2 - locking in the CO2 locks in the O2 as well - If you really must pressure ferment, don't apply pressure until about half way through your anticipated ferment (CO2 stripes out a bunch of other undesirable volatiles to).
As above the temperature the beer is stored and served at will make a big difference, if you leave it in the glass for a couple of minutes it should come up to temp and some of the flavour will show.
I don't know about shaking the keg, a lot of what form the haze in highly hopped beers may be settling out (or if its hop oils floating to the top), room for some experimentation, got a 10L glass high pressure bottle, will try to get some super hoppy beer into it and see what happens.

I really think pressure fermenting Ale is a loosing proposition (not too impressed with the Lager version either). Making super hoppy beers is a real art, I suspect LoDO is going to be critical, but for gods sake get over the pressure fermentation addiction, it isn't helping.
Mark

PS, this is from 1984, there are several other papers around that have followed on from here. Worth noting that brewing researchers were quite familiar with pressure fermentation 35years ago, it still isn't standard practice or even a common practice, really only Lager factory beers use the process to make beer that I for one home brew to avoid, think about it.
M

 

[onemorecell]

Interesting to hear the different opinions on pressure fermenting.
In your reading, did you find any benefits to a small amount of pressure? (ie under 3psi)

 

[Schikitar]

One thing i dont do or like with hoppy beers like NEIPA or very hop heavy beers, is force carbonating at 30PSi, i found over teh years this affects hop aromatics, not sure of the science for that but patience and low pressure is best for these beers.

Is this where I've heard about carbonic bite? If so, is that influenced noticeably between force carbing and serving-pressure carbing do you think? I'm probably getting off track..

I really think pressure fermenting Ale is a loosing proposition

Always interested in your educated thoughts MHB, I've been fermenting ales under pressure but really don't think I need to (and I don't brew lagers). The only thing lately I've been interested in doing is capturing the CO2 to the keg that will eventually become the serving keg - effectively just to save on gas.

 

[goatchop41]

Transfer wise my fermentasauras was under pressure, I then put gas in my keg and purged it a couple of times. I then hooked beer lines up, gas hooked up to fermentasauras, spunding valve on keg then started the transfer.

Simply purging the keg a few times might not make it as O2-free as you would think.
The ideal method would be to fill the keg with sanitiser, then push it all out with CO2. That way you can be confident that the keg is truly purged of O2. Then rack under pressure using your spunding valve.

But honestly, it does sound like temp of the keg fridge may be the real issue here

 

[f00b4r]

This is an interesting read around purging kegs and the effectiveness of different methods.

 

[MHB]

Good link foob4r.
Schikitar you need to read that link before doing anything like storing gas. Apart from it being a lot less pure than many might expect (actually having enough O2 in to cause the problem you are trying to avoid), there is also the risk of infection so I would put an HEPPA filter between any stored CO2 and where I wanted to use it.
The reality of brewing is often much more complex than would appear to be the case on first examination. I really think you need to look at the real costs, there are plenty of safe ways to save money, storing CO2 isn't one of them.

If you really want LoDO in package, filling the keg and blowing out with CO2 is really the best option, just don't use an O2 based sanitiser…
Mark

 

[Schikitar]

I'll never stop learning with guys like you around, seriously!