Riwaka & Nelson Sav

[oakburner]

Late last year in amongst several pales, and IPA,s i brewed a really simple pale (80% BB pale, 10% med crystal, 10% wheat malt and used all Nelson Sav as late additions(pellets) and dry hop (whole). After four days I had the most horrid oily leathery, almost shearing shed stench.....that I have never encountered before -or since.
This batch was to be the first, and I hope only batch I have ever dumped.

Last night I went to throw 20g each of centennial, cascade and riwaka at small test batch of black IPA, and when i was cleaning up, I picked up a stray hop pellet from my floor and when i crushed it and smelled it.....BOOM......finally discovered that horrible sheepy lanolin smell again.

I traced it to the the Riwaka pack, which is a brand new $15 90g pack which I opened last night.
To confirm, I just dropped single pellets from several varieties from my freezer into shot glasses, and poured half a shot of room temp water on each......the unpleasant stench from the riwaka is unmistakable.

I am glad to now have discovered what happened to my NS pale batch last year.....

Somehow both of these NZ varieties have this overpowering character...

Has anyone else faced this? I am very disappointed as the info on riwaka talks about huge citrus and hop aroma......will have to toss them out.....

 

[BilBrewing]

I've brewed twice with Riwaka now, once with a black IPA and the other was a low alcohol SMaSH. I bought my $15 90g pack from Craftbrewer and both beers were great! Both beers used Riwaka as the sole late addition and dry hop and i also used it to bitter the SMaSH.

No sign of the smell your describing, just a sweet tropically tastes to them which two different people said was gauvaish.

What i can say from my limited experience is that its a strong flavoured hop. The SMaSH was a 10ltr batch and only had 5g at 5 minutes and 5g at flame out.

 

[roger mellie]

What year were they?

I have made Riwaka/NS Pilsener for years - using both flowers and pellets of both and never smelt or tasted anything remotely like lanolin!

I get lemon zest and stonefruit (esp nectarines) from Riwaka - my favourite late hop.

RM

 

[adryargument]

This batch was to be the first, and I hope only batch I have ever dumped.

Did you bother giving it a longer ferment to clear the esters etc?
Did you taste it?

Throwing a beer because of the smell is a bit harsh

 

[oakburner]

I left it for two extra weeks....tasted horrible. ..no way I was drinking it...

I have come to the conclusion that it must just my palate. ...I love big resinous IPA's and hoppy pales....

Thanks to an opportunity to tear open several hop packes of NZ varieties at Craftbrewer the other day, that same character is present in most of them. .... (cat piss I believe is the term they used... and yes I am quoting their technical term).

 

[roger mellie]

How does 'horrible sheep lanolin' become 'cats piss'? NS throws sweet winey/grapey aromas and is most certainly a polarising hop but to say that ALL NZ hops have a cats piss aroma is taking it a bit far.

Have you ever tried the knappstein reserve lager? What flavour do you get out of that?

I suggest you need to calibrate your senses and use POR in a few beers - this will give you a true sense of mouldy tea towels and stale urine.

But seriously post the recipe - would be interested to see it.

RM

 

[adryargument]

Thanks to an opportunity to tear open several hop packes of NZ varieties at Craftbrewer the other day, that same character is present in most of them. .... (cat piss I believe is the term they used... and yes I am quoting their technical term).

Mmmm i enjoy a good dose of cattiness.

 

[oakburner]

t to say that ALL NZ hops have a cats piss aroma is taking it a bit far.

RM

Calm down luv....no need to miss quote me. I DIDN'T say that if you re-read, and as for POR, no thanks .....I gave up on oz mega swill years ago....
We all have different likes and dislikes in our beers.... The purpose of my post was only to try to determine if I had a dud pack, or if this was just a personal dislike..... And thanks to the CB hop fridge, I now know it is the latter.

OB

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Nelson needs a 'gently gently' approach. Always has. I'm assuming that if the same descriptors hold true for Riwaka, then it would be the same. To have both similar hops in the same beer without that approach, might be the reason it wasn't what you wanted.

I tend to let Nelson take front and centre, but a really good support cast will bring the best out of it, for me. Cascade, Citra (not much though), Centennial, Chinook, basically anything C or american. Find something neutral (or Chinook) as the early bittering addition, and use Nelson late with a couple of other hops, with differing descriptors to give depth to the beer. If you choose to dry hop with it, you might get a little cat piss, but nothing too bad, and again, if you dry hop with it, a support cast will really make it shine - Cascade is mine of choice.

 

[roger mellie]

Nilus Anxietum Oakburner

Most <--> All - I misread.

Glad it was the latter - I have yet to find anyone who doesn't like D Saaz as an Aroma hop in a Pils/APA - but each to their own. Plenty of other hops to choose from - even Aussie ones.

Cheers

RM

 

[oakburner]

I wanted to follow this up in the interests of providing complete and honest information, and so to not put any other brewers off using this hop.

Last night I sampled the Riwaka dry hopped brew again after a fortnight to bottle condition - and the character which my palate finds offensive has diminished significantly. Further, a very nice deep candied orange peel maybe grape wine flavour is now dominant which is really nice.

I still am not a fan of the lanoliny note that I detect, so I personally will probably give it a miss in the future - however I think as others have noted in this thread, part of that issue is using this hop and probably NS far too heavily.

Clearly, a little of this hop goes a long way - and does create some really unique orangy winey flavours that I haven't tasted in other hop varietals.

OB out....

 

[Crusty]

I dry hopped NS for 3 days when doing a 150 Lashes Clone & after a week in the keg, I had a glass & freaked out.
It was literally like sucking on a pine cone & the pine character was pretty overpowering. I let it be & just accepted the fact that it's not a hop for me, especially to dry hop with but that's all changed. On week 2, the pine character had diminished somewhat & I actually managed to drink the whole glass but still a little disappointed with the beer at that stage. Week 4 & this recipe is a winner. The NS has pretty much completely disappeared & the 17deg ferment temp has produced some fantastic fruitiness from the 1056 yeast. I enjoyed it so much I did a 40lt batch as my maiden brew on my new 50lt BM. I did a step mash this time which included a short protein rest & it's fermenting away @17deg at the moment. It tasted great going into the fermenter & again I will dry hop it with NS. I think dry hopping with any high alpha hop needs a cautious approach & it's easy to over do it. Time in the keg / bottle is your friend here & it will get better with age.