Problems with hop bitterness/aroma, troubleshooting.

[K.O.brew]

Good evening.

Brewed a pseudo-pilsner. Pils malt, 100g of Magnum bittering addition at thirty minutes for a thirty minute boil, fermented warm with saflager w-34/70, then cold crashed, dry hoped cold with 50 grams of Tettnanger and Mittelfruh each for two days, then added gelatin and bottled after 24 hours.

For water treatment i used the light and hoppy profile as a template and added salts accordingly, to my relatively soft tap water.

I expected a clean sharp bitterness and some decently bright hop aroma, instead i got a relatively muted lingering bitter taste (reminds me of a west coast IPA), and some hop character but not nearly as much as i would like. The beer is perfectly drinkable, clear, with some decent aromas/flavors, but it is a bit flat for my taste, reminds me of a really decent commercial beer.

I do not have a lot of experience with brewing, so i might just expect things that i shouldn't out of this beer, but any ideas as to where i am going wrong would be nice.

I finned with a pretty big amount of gelatin, and while a brulosophy exbeeriment i read did not find big amounts of gelatin to strip hop aroma, i wonder if it played a role.
I also considered suck back from cold crashing my plastic bucket fermenter to be the issue, but the color and taste of the beer are both in the expected range, so i do not believe there is oxydation.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

You mention cold crashing and then dry hopping cold. How cold was your beer when you dry hopped? I have not tried dry hopping cold yet, but I plan to. I think, cold dry hopping should be between 50-60°F (10-15°C). I know some homebrewers do 30 minute boils, but I've never been tempted to do so for this very reason. You might want to lengthen the boil next time and see whether that gets you to the clean sharp bitterness you are looking for.

 

[K.O.brew]

You mention cold crashing and then dry hopping cold. How cold was your beer when you dry hopped? I have not tried dry hopping cold yet, but I plan to. I think, cold dry hopping should be between 50-60°F (10-15°C). I know some homebrewers do 30 minute boils, but I've never been tempted to do so for this very reason. You might want to lengthen the boil next time and see whether that gets you to the clean sharp bitterness you are looking for.

I think i dry hoped at 9°C, which is my fridge's regular temp, i do not have temperature control yet.

Does boil time affect the type of bitterness? As far as i can tell from reading online it does affect the isomerisation of hop oils and thus the IBUs.

 

[HighVoltageMan!]

Does boil time affect the type of bitterness?

Absolutely. 110 grams of Magnum in 19 liters? Magnum is a potent hop, usually it's @ 14-15% AA. How long did you boil with the hops? What's your gravity? What was you pitch pH if you measured it?

All these things play a role in bittering. The best way to estimate bittering is with a calculator like the one on this website. Pick one and use it until you get comfortable with ho[p amounts, AA% and boil time. I just use Brewer's Friend for every brew.

 

[K.O.brew]

Absolutely. 110 grams of Magnum in 19 liters? Magnum is a potent hop, usually it's @ 14-15% AA. How long did you boil with the hops? What's your gravity? What was you pitch pH if you measured it?

All these things play a role in bittering. The best way to estimate bittering is with a calculator like the one on this website. Pick one and use it until you get comfortable with ho[p amounts, AA% and boil time. I just use Brewer's Friend for every brew.

Used the recipe builder here on the site. 100 grams for 25 liters of wort, 12.5% AA, boiled for the full thirty minutes. Did not measure PH. 1.060 post boil gravity, attenuated to 1.008.

I use the no chill method, and a hop sock that i take out after the boil. Not sure if this plays a role, i would think not but not sure.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I found that when boiling for 30 mins my First Wort Hop additions almost doubled to achieve the same amount of bitterness.

Light n hoppy ain't a bad profile for crisp light lager I'd just aim for 2:1 on the gypsum to Chloride.

Hey you could add a couple of grams to the keg now to increase that sharpness?

Use a small pet bottle like small coke bottle add a cup of pre boiled and cooled water add the gypsum dissolve it in. Push all the air out using a carb cap then pressurise using co2 then attach via a jumper line gas to gas on keg then pull the prv and in goes the sulphate solution.


Or I'm guessing just give it some lagering time man like another two weeks up the psi just a tad to get some more carbonic acid bite going on and I sware that lager will be tasting better.

My 2c

 

[K.O.brew]

I found that when boiling for 30 mins my First Wort Hop additions almost doubled to achieve the same amount of bitterness.

Light n hoppy ain't a bad profile for crisp light lager I'd just aim for 2:1 on the gypsum to Chloride.

Hey you could add a couple of grams to the keg now to increase that sharpness?

Use a small pet bottle like small coke bottle add a cup of pre boiled and cooled water add the gypsum dissolve it in. Push all the air out using a carb cap then pressurise using co2 then attach via a jumper line gas to gas on keg then pull the prv and in goes the sulphate solution.


Or I'm guessing just give it some lagering time man like another two weeks up the psi just a tad to get some more carbonic acid bite going on and I sware that lager will be tasting better.

My 2c

Thank you for your time and knowledge. Unfortunately i bottle, so the beer is pretty much set in stone, just trying to figure out where i am going wrong and not getting the result i want.

The First Wort Hop idea sounds interesting, will give that a go. I will also try upping the Sulfate to Chloride ratio more and see what that does to the beer.

What i can't wrap my head around is that the recipe calculator gives roughly 100 IBU for a 100 gram bittering addition at 30 mins, while i see recipes using much less hops, with fewer IBUs total, that are considered bitter for the people brewing and tasting them. Is the water chemistry such a big part of perceived bitterness?

Or I'm guessing just give it some lagering time man like another two weeks up the psi just a tad to get some more carbonic acid bite going on and I sware that lager will be tasting better.

Thankfully the beer tastes good, easily drinkable without any weird off flavors, it is just not as potent/interesting as i would like it to be

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

I don't do a lot of pilsners but that amount of magnum seems like way too much. I would back off on the magnum by a lot and maybe add more mittlefruh or even some lemon drop hops either late in the boil or whirlpool. I think the main thing is try to decide what you are looking for in the beer you're brewing and build it from there.

 

[Brewer #419732]

Good evening.

Brewed a pseudo-pilsner. Pils malt, 100g of Magnum bittering addition at thirty minutes for a thirty minute boil, fermented warm with saflager w-34/70, then cold crashed, dry hoped cold with 50 grams of Tettnanger and Mittelfruh each for two days, then added gelatin and bottled after 24 hours.

For water treatment i used the light and hoppy profile as a template and added salts accordingly, to my relatively soft tap water.

I expected a clean sharp bitterness and some decently bright hop aroma, instead i got a relatively muted lingering bitter taste (reminds me of a west coast IPA), and some hop character but not nearly as much as i would like. The beer is perfectly drinkable, clear, with some decent aromas/flavors, but it is a bit flat for my taste, reminds me of a really decent commercial beer.

I do not have a lot of experience with brewing, so i might just expect things that i shouldn't out of this beer, but any ideas as to where i am going wrong would be nice.

I finned with a pretty big amount of gelatin, and while a brulosophy exbeeriment i read did not find big amounts of gelatin to strip hop aroma, i wonder if it played a role.
I also considered suck back from cold crashing my plastic bucket fermenter to be the issue, but the color and taste of the beer are both in the expected range, so i do not believe there is oxydation.

While 100g of Magnum at 30 minutes is a typical bittering addition, achieving a "clean sharp bitterness" might require a bittering hop with a higher alpha acid content. Consider using a hop like Columbus or Galena for a more pronounced bitterness. You could also try splitting the addition, adding a portion earlier in the boil for more bitterness and reserving some for later additions for aroma.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I don't do a lot of pilsners but that amount of magnum seems like way too much. I would back off on the magnum by a lot and maybe add more mittlefruh or even some lemon drop hops either late in the boil or whirlpool. I think the main thing is try to decide what you are looking for in the beer you're brewing and build it from there.

Amen I would be very hesitating to throw a 100g of Magnum even in the end of the boil WOW that's some bitterness.

@K.O.brew 100g in the boil?

Wowie man that is pushing some bite on the pilsner.

Yes sazz or Hallertau or tettnanger 100g I can understand but at 14ish Alpha Acid units that gunna come across with a bit of a bite.

 

[The Brew Mentor]

With the information provided, I'm trying to wrap my head around your pilsner style ish, classification?
Id say experimental IPA maybe and it sounds like that's what you have.
Try out the recipe builder and after selecting the style and type, you can click the more info button and it'll give you the parameters of the style you're trying to to hit.
Good luck
Brian

 

[Sandy Feet]

Different types of Pils malt will also give you a slightly different flavor. The Weyermann German Bohemian varieties will give you that shaper malt bite that can be associated with a Czech Pils.
If you are only using one malt, there aren't many places to hide. If you get a really decent commercial beer, you did something right using only one malt. If you want hoppy, you need to decide if you want the American fruity/piney hoppy or the European earthy hoppy and bitter accordingly with a calculator.
If American, start with Cascade and then play with some other hops on future batches.

 

[dmtaylor]

The latest Brulosophy exbeeriment about gelatin (there have been several) actually DID find gelatin to have some impact on beer flavor. Whether it was a help or a hinderance is of course in the eye of the beerholder.

https://brulosophy.com/2022/10/03/e...t-fining-with-gelatin-has-on-an-american-ipa/

Personally, I think maybe you just don't love noble hops as much as I do. Maybe next time try an American noble like Liberty, Crystal, Sterling, etc. or just throw in a tad of a citrus hop to help you feel more at home(?).

 

[Bigbre04]

I dont really see an advantage to a 30 min boil.

I tend to throw 1 oz of Columbus Cryo(~24AA) at 60 min and i get a very clean crisp bitterness from it even with only about 7 total IBUs. I have found for my tastes that 24-26 IBU in a light crisp lager style is optimal.

This is my normal golden lager it is very very good. Its a little larger scale wise and i use cryo hops, but this you can adjust for those factors. I keep this on draft and it is my best seller by far. I have made some variation of this recipe 15 times so far and i have a double brew scheduled for next week.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1427656

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

I think i dry hoped at 9°C, which is my fridge's regular temp, i do not have temperature control yet.

Does boil time affect the type of bitterness? As far as i can tell from reading online it does affect the isomerisation of hop oils and thus the IBUs.

I think, as @The Brew Mentor said, you are in the experimental zone. So, try brewing your recipe again but vary your parameters. Such as increasing boil time and reducing your bittering addition to keep IBUs in the range you want. I've not heard that boil duration affects the type of bitterness. But, hop contributions to beer are very complicated, so I have to imagine that boil time affects more than just IBUs*. Also, since you don't have temperature control for your cold dry hopping, try increasing the dry hop duration and see what effect that has. And of course, report back with your findings!

* Just my opinion with no evidence whatsoever, empirical or otherwise.