Aroma hops

Hi, first time post for me.  I would appreciate your feedback on a hop aroma problem i seem to be having.  I brew with a Sabco Brewmagic System, all grain.  I have tried a few recipes from the Beersmith site and I am finding that when tasting the beer I am not getting the expected level of  hop flavors.  I use a 300 micron mesh basket to put my hops in the kettle. I chill the hot wort through a plate chiller and have good temp control for the fermentation steps.  I have thought that the mesh basket is stopping the full flavors coming through and am looking at adjusting the amount of hops added.  I have dry hopped with a fine mesh container in the conditioning keg with some success. I have also thought about adding hops to the kettle without the basket but am concerned about the trub blocking the plate chiller.  I do whirlpool as well.
Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

Post a recipe you used.

I'll give it a try...

Here's what I have found least important to most

-spiders, mesh bags, micron baskets, etc.  Not a huge impact.  Make sure you have a large enough mesh basket, mine is about 30% the size of the kettle so they can move around for pellets.  For leaf try a false bottom in the kettle without the basket.

--try cutting back on your specialty malts.  Some one said to think of them as salt & pepper, not appetizer & dessert.  I am down to like 3-5% of the grist, usually just over 3%

--I probably don't have to tell you, but the later in the boil the better.  also the temps you hold your hops at after flameout. Brad has a good article.  http://beersmith.com/blog/2013/01/21/late-hop-additions-and-hop-oils-in-beer-brewing/.  I use some first wort and bittering, everything else is post boil

--use the hop age tool built into beersmith.  If you get prepackaged & measured hops assume when using the tool they have been refrigerated not frozen and 1 year old at least.

--buy fresh hops in bulk as soon as the new crop comes in, keep them frozen, free of oxygen.  Make sure the seller notes its new harvest.  This was the single biggest improvement for me.  When the new stuff came in I threw out my old stock in horror.  There are many bulk suppliers.  Hops Direct is good.  Be wary of any hop sellers that wont list a physical address on their site.  Even if they do, Street View it for surprise.

All your hops will give hop flavor. The early additions give the most bitterness, since it takes heat to dissolve the alpha acids. Late additions and dry hops give the most aroma, since the aromas are volatile and quickly boil out. I find that hops added in the last ten to fifteen minutes impart the most hop flavor.  The more flavor you have, the more fudge factor you have. So if you get the proportions off in an IPA it can still be good, but with a pilsner the margin of error is very small.

Could be that you are filtering out the late additions before they've finished imparting the desired aroma, but that's just a guess. Maybe you could try dry hopping with an ounce or two to give it some nice aroma. But not too much or it might smell like a fresh cut lawn.

I make a beer that is basically schwedagen gold from the joy of homebrewing, charlie papazian. That recipe adds hops basically every 15 minutes from start of boil, to steeping after the boil. There is about 3/4 of an ounce that goes in AFTER the boil, quite a bit. It imparts a very good aroma to the finished beer, sometimes( months later) I swear It's been dry hopped and not just steeped.
I dry hopped a few times and find post boil steeping less troublesome, takes no longer than usual, settles out in the trub pile (whirpooled) at the bottom of the kettle and imparts a subtle hop aroma and flavour that is most enjoyable. The full range of boil and steep hops from 90 minutes to 0 minutes gives a dynamic approach to hopping. Look for the recipe I uploaded on the Beersmith cloud, Schwedagen gold.

I use a large brewing bag which I hang from my Sabco rack.  The bag is quite large and almost reaches the bottom of the kettle.  I get really good movement through it and I've had no issues with hops and hop flavor.  In my last IPA, I put fresh hop flowers in a large spice ball and dropped them into the bottom of my keg before filling.  The results were good.  It is a bit like a hop back without all of the madness and foaming and slinging of wrenches and swear words...