I believe Sierra Nevada bottle conditions all of their beers.
I believe Sierra Nevada bottle conditions all of their beers.[/quote]
Not all of them and they don’t do a FULL-ON bottle condition, which is how they get so little sediment in the bottle. And it’s on a system where they can purge the headspace in the bottle with co2. Then again, maybe Deschutes does this too. But I haven’t had any of their beers out of the bottle that tasted good. They do certainly taste good on tap though.
And, I would like to add that I think Pietro is probably right on his post from page 1.
I stand corrected. Don’t brew very many hoppy beers, I probably should be more careful commenting on those in the future.
I believe Sierra Nevada bottle conditions all of their beers.[/quote]
Not all of them and they don’t do a FULL-ON bottle condition, which is how they get so little sediment in the bottle. And it’s on a system where they can purge the headspace in the bottle with co2. Then again, maybe Deschutes does this too. But I haven’t had any of their beers out of the bottle that tasted good. They do certainly taste good on tap though.
And, I would like to add that I think Pietro is probably right on his post from page 1.[/quote]
They don’t filter their beers, but make no mistake, they are force-carbonated. At least the flagship products. Maybe not the Kellerweis, but I doubt it.
Pietro, you know I was inferring that Matt needs a fridge and keg setup, right? 
SN Bigfoot is bottle conditioned and dang good and hoppy but it is not on same level as a fresh IPA on draft. For the most part all bottled IPAs are a step down from their kegged brothers. Whether it be oxidation or most likely pasteurization.
Bell’s Two-Hearted ale, anyone? :mrgreen:
I’m sure the bottles are purged of O2, though. Also, I don’t know how the canning process differs from bottling, but I find 2HA in cans to be way better than in bottles. Possibly better than draft as well, but I’m not sure if what I find on tap locally is as fresh as it could be.
I don’t think you can blame this all on oxidation. You can definitely make a good bottle conditioned IPA. I’ve done it. I’ve also had kegged ones that exhibited a similar grassy/floral aroma that the OP mentioned, using a wide variety of hops. I messed with all different kinds of water profiles and hopping schedules trying to pinpoint the cause and I still occasionally get a batch that just comes across as kind of dull and flowery. IPAs are hard. The only two things that I’ve noticed that seem to have made a positive difference were 1) cold-crashing or racking before dry-hopping and 2) using more late hops. The IPAs that I’ve used 4+ oz at flameout and 4+ for dry hop have never had “the smell”.
My most recent one had 4oz from 10min-flameout (did a 10 min steep at flameout) and 3oz of dryhop.
I keg now but began brewing a ton of IPAs and our club brings in a ton of them that taste great. I don’t think the issue here is that IPAs can’t be bottle conditioned and not be great.
This doesn’t quite match the flavor issues you’re having but could it be your water? When I moved to MN, the hard water really messed with my hoppy beers producing the first bad beers I had made. They had an off bitterness.
I would try dry hopping when your your gravity gets close to 1.020 and bottle two days after…. Let it happen by natural kruesening……Adding primer and all the other agitating WILL create problems. The other way, IMHO is to hop rocket as you bottle, or hop stand or Randlerizer… Choose your phrase…. Sneezles61 :roll:
I recently did a all cascade beer going for something like anchor liberty. I got a weird muddled flavor instead of the bright citrus I expected, this has always been how I describe my hop forward beers. Certainly drinkable but never the bright taste I want. Out of 50 batches I’ve only brewed a few hoppy beers. My water chemistry and PH is good but I do bottle everything. I’ve always thought it was recipe related but maybe it is oxidation which I have kinda discounted
I’m in the same boat as you and not happy with my IPA’s either. I suggest you send of a sample of your water to Ward labs to start and then use BruN Water and see if that helps. I have an IPA I will be kegging tomorrow and praying it’s better this time.
I for one don’t think it’s oxidation, might be part of it, but not all of it. I have this issue and have bottled and kegged and it does not matter. I used all RO water this time and used the spreadsheet to see what I needed to get to the 5.2-5.6. Hoping I got lucky this time as I’m about to quit IPA’s as well.
To those of you who are having problems with an IPA that tastes “muddled” or hop flavors that are muted: Are you paying attention to your final (post-fermentation pH)? This is not an aspect of brewing that many homebrewers concern themselves with, but in my experience, this is the key factor that makes the difference between a bright and muddled IPA (after you get the flavor ions sorted out).
What can be done to control post fermentation pH other than making sure your kettle pH is in your range. On this last IPA I used all distilled and mashed at 5.3 and sparged with 5.3. I had someone sample the beer yesterday and asked them to best describe the beer. (I told him I was unhappy with it so I may have swayed his opinion). The first thing out of his mouth was “it’s not that hoppy at all”. He’s not a brewer or a BJCP judge or anything, just a beer lover. There’s 4oz of hops added from 10 to 0 minutes in that beer.
[quote=“GarretD”]I’m in the same boat as you and not happy with my IPA’s either. I suggest you send of a sample of your water to Ward labs to start and then use BruN Water and see if that helps. I have an IPA I will be kegging tomorrow and praying it’s better this time.
I for one don’t think it’s oxidation, might be part of it, but not all of it. I have this issue and have bottled and kegged and it does not matter. I used all RO water this time and used the spreadsheet to see what I needed to get to the 5.2-5.6. Hoping I got lucky this time as I’m about to quit IPA’s as well.[/quote]
I have been using Brunwater since I started all-grain brewing. My last IPA water was built from 100% distilled.
One thing I noticed last time I bottled (and possibly causing the “gurgling”) is that I use a make-shift dip tube in my bottling bucket. This results in the portion of spigot that extends from the bucket, never filling up with beer completely. So there is always some air in there. I haven’t been using this setup for very long so I don’t think this would be 100% the cause but I’m sure it could be contributing. Anyone know an easy way to remedy this? The dip tube is just a stopper and a curved plastic tube. I thought about inserting the stopper AFTER the bucket was filled (so the spigot “chamber” would be full) but couldn’t think of a way to do that, that didn’t involve submerging my entire arm into the bottling bucket.
I would ditch that little dealie. I know it’s suggested by Revvy on HomeBrewTalk, but I don’t feel it’s really necessary. Tipping the bucket works well enough when you get down to the last bit.
As far as post fermentation pH, you shouldn’t really ever have to mess with it if everything else is in line. But if you did, you’d just add a small dose of lactic or phosphoric acid to bring it down. You probably wouldn’t need to ever bring it up. I’ve never done this and don’t concern myself with it. Brewing with RO should nearly always get you in the right range. Somebody, please, correct me if I’m wrong.
I am with you, and others who have admitted that it is really hard to nail down proper recipe/procedure for super-hoppy beers. If they were not my favorite style, I would have stopped brewing them. Not only are they hard to make but also have shortened (fresh) shelf life too.
FWIW, with my set-up, I am leaning toward thinking some of the problem is over-hopping. Too much hop matter resulting in unwanted vegetal/grassy off-flavors.
I am currently working with (approximately) 1 oz late/whirlpool hops per galon of final kettle volume. So for me I boil to a final kettle volume of 7.5 gal to get 5.75 gal clear wort into fermentor. So I am at about 4 oz late kettle hopburst, and 4 oz whirlpool. I am also keeping my hopstand to under 30 minutes.
The last batch I used equal amount chinook/citra/cascade (except bittering was all chinook), and all else being equal, I think I have made some progress.
I think brewing IPAs is like playing golf. You have to enjoy the journey and appreciate small victories along the way.
Let’s hope not! My golf game is horrendous! :cheers:
I have actually had great results doing this.
And to a few of the posts above, I am not saying that you CAN’T have a solid bottle-conditioned IPA, but I am saying that bottle conditioning and traditional homebrew racking/bottling setups have risks. And with hoppy beers, those risks are more significant.
