stuffed up!

[Brewsta]

G'day all,
sampled my last batch last night, substandard i must say. I must have stuffed up my hop additions somehow as it is very bland & sweet. I've been using the same recipe for a while now and other batches have been fine. Unfortunately this was a triple brew so now i have 4x average kegs to drink. I got too cocky and didn't keep a record so i can't recall where i went wrong, maybe i miscalculated when weighing, dunno? bit tricky sometimes with two pots on the go & maybe i shouldn't have sampled a few hombrews whilst brewing!

anyway that's history, Q. is - how to improve whats in the kegs?

I was thinking of doing a stronger brew (hops) and mixing / blending with the others?

or saving them for a mix with other brews at a later date?

what about dry hopping in the kegs? i'm thinking it won't do anything for the bitterness though?

never had anything to do with liquid hops, could that work?

the brew is all extract brewed at 18C along the lines of JS150 / Lazy Yak style, but i wouldn't say its a clone.

hop additions (usually but can't say for sure this time) amarillo for bittering, NS of flavour & Willamette & NS for aroma.

1.5kg can of Coopers Liquid Light Malt Extract

1.5kg of Coopers Liquid Wheat Malt Extract

500g of Carahell (steeped)

250g of Coopers BE1

30g Amarillo

40g Nelson Sauvin

10g Willamette

1x 11.5g satchel of Fermentis US-05 Dried Yeast

P.S. hops were fresh pellets from unopened satchels.

appreciate your thoughts.
Thx.

 

[Yob]

I was thinking of doing a stronger brew (hops) and mixing / blending with the others?

or saving them for a mix with other brews at a later date?

what about dry hopping in the kegs? i'm thinking it won't do anything for the bitterness though?

never had anything to do with liquid hops, could that work?

you're kegging so you have the advantage.. if its too sweet, keg hopping will have a limited impact but will help, I'd start there.

I do quite a bit of blending at the tap, so I might have a IIPA on tap and a pale ale, if I dont feel like having my face ripped off, I'll pour 1/3 glass IIPA and top up with the pale.. so blending at the tap is also an option for you if you have the spare kegs.

what sort of liquid hops? they carry no bitterness (at least the ones Im familiar with) so in that regard may not help the balance youre looking for... probably worth the experiment in the glass though before committing to a keg

 

[MHB]

1.5kg can of Coopers Liquid Light Malt Extract
1.5kg of Coopers Liquid Wheat Malt Extract
500g of Carahell (steeped)
250g of Coopers BE1

Was that per keg, per batch (ie times 3) or is that the total ingredients in the for all four kegs?
Mark

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

If by liquid hops you mean pre-isomerised hop extract, yes you can use it to increase bitterness to whatever level you want.

The extract itself is either 20% or 30%, the stuff sold by Grain and Grape appears to be the 20 version although their blurb is written by and for the inumerate so you can't tell. This is typical of them, they're a good shop but they do some annoying shit.

If it is the 20% version that's roughly 200,000 IBU so 0.1 ml / litre will raise bitterness by about 20 IBU.

You may not like the bitterness quality, lots of people don't. I worked with one brewer who could tell if it had been used to trim bitterness by as little as 10% in an otherwise kettle hopped beer and by "tell" I mean "refuse to drink the beer".

Given that you've bittered with Amarillo it's hard to predict whether the iso extract will be a problem, Amarillo has a coarse triploid bitterness itself.


Possibly interesting factoid: the price of this stuff has come down way down, we used to pay almost $1000 a kg for the 30% when bought by the pallet. The stuff Grain and Grape has is equal in price per unit bitterness buying 7 ml at full retail.

 

[tugger]

+1 on the isohop liquid. I don't mind the flavour.

 

[mikec]

If you just want to add bitterness, boil up 500ml of the beer, throw in a hop sock with bittering hops, and let it sit (maintain above 80C) for an hour.
Remove hop sock, cool the beer, and then oh so carefully (trying to minimise oxygen pickup) return the beer to the keg.
Blast the keg with CO2 and give it a gentle swirl.
Voila.

 

[mtb]

1.5kg can of Coopers Liquid Light Malt Extract
1.5kg of Coopers Liquid Wheat Malt Extract
500g of Carahell (steeped)
250g of Coopers BE1

Was that per keg, per batch (ie times 3) or is that the total ingredients in the for all four kegs?
Mark

Gotta hope it was per keg, because if it was for all four - amongst other issues - there was only one packet of US-05 used

 

[MHB]

Yep - not clear in the OP, thought that was the first thing to sort out.
Isn't it funny how people with a problem usually don't post OG/FG, probably because they didn't take them. I'm 99% sure that taking readings stops the brew going wrong, well it never does if you do take readings so one must cause the other right
Mark

 

[Brewsta]

Sorry, Recipe is per brew (x3), OG is usually about 1046 - 1048, i did take it but didn't record it, FG was 1012, brewed under temperature control @ 18 deg C for just under 3 weeks.

As i use two pots and do two steeps in one pot, i've got a feeling i weighed up one of the hop additions for a single brew when it should've been twice the amount, if you know what i mean.

A few good options to think & learn about! - Cheers!

Another question around hops, i read that Hop Flowers are better than pellets for Aroma, is this true? i would say my aroma's are lacking somewhat even when i don't stuff up the additions. or do i just need to up the anti?

Bitterness - @ 60 minutes 30g of Amarillo

Flavor - @ 30 minutes, 30g of Nelson Sauvin

Aroma - @5 minutes 10g of Nelson Sauvin, 10g of Willamette

Thanks guys.