How can I get that resiny hop character?

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

I'm looking to brew up a DIPA and want to get that resiny hop character in the beer that you find in some IPAs and DIPAs.  Off the top of my head I recall noticing it in Harpoon's Leviathan Series DIPA and Sierra Nevada's Torpedo IPA.   Does it come from certain hop varieties or from certain hopping schedules?  Or maybe a hopping technique? 

I was reading some breweries' websites that describe their IPAs as having a resinous hoppy character and some hops that seemed to be common in some of these beers were Simcoe and Columbus.  After doing some more reading some sources cite these hops as having resinous qualities so my next question is when is this resiny character extracted from the hops?  Do they have to be boiled for 60 min or can you get it from flavor and aroma additions?  Or both?

[dhaenerbrewer]

Generally most of the pleasant flavors and aromas come from the alpha acids, in the form of cohumulone.  Hops with high percentages of cohumulone (alpha acid% is made up from humulone, adhumulone and cohumulone) will generally have a more pleasant resiny quality to them. The problem is when you boil hops for 30+ minutes, the other humulones (not so pleasant) are isomerized and give a more harsh bitterness. Your best bet will be to use copious amounts of mid-low alpha hops with high cohumulone percentage later in the boil. And don't be afraid to add hops at 20, 15, 10, 5 minutes from the end of boil. Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head uses a contraption he invented to continuosly add hops over the duration of a 90 minute boil in his 90 Minute IPA. It's a pretty darn good beer.

Check out this website:

http://www.hopunion.com/hopunion-variety-databook.pdf

That will give you a complete breakdown of every hop variety, giving you more information than you will ever need. Good luck!

Darin

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

Thanks for the info dhaenerbrewer.  That PDF has a lot of good info in there.  I was already planning on a 60, 45, 30, 20, 15, 5 min hop schedule with dry hopping but maybe I need to go back and reconsider some of my hop choices.  I was planning on bittering with 1oz Columbus and using a 1oz equal blend of Chinook, Centennial, Amarillo and Simcoe for all other kettle additions with a 2oz blend for dry hopping.  Those are the hops used in Harpoon's Leviathan IIPA and I really liked how it came out.  What do you think?

[dhaenerbrewer]

I have to apologize to everyone who read my last post concerning hops and their constituent parts, as I gave you some bad information. For some reason I can't get cohumulone straight in my head, I always get it backwards. While cohumulone is one of the softest and easiest resins to isomerize, it is actually low levels of cohumulone that give you these qualities that I was describing. I like the idea of blending all those hops instead of singling them out at different intervals. I would however rethink using Chinook in the later stages, as it has very high levels of cohumulone. Centennial is also on the higher side, but Amarillo and Simcoe are two of the strange new high alpha hops that have a low cohumulone level. Good luck, sounds like a good beer.

Darin

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

Ya know, when I read your post I agreed with everything you said but later last night I was thinking about this beer and thought I remembered it was a low cohumulone level that you generally want.  I should have realized that when looking through that PDF and noticing Chinook's higher cohumulone level and recalling the "harshness" some people don't like it adds to a beer.  I don't mind Centennial as a late addition.  I'm a fan of Founders' Centennial IPA and just made an IPA with a healthy amount of Centennial and Cascade that came out pretty good.  So maybe I'll just cut back a little on the Chinook in some of the later additions.  Thanks for the help.  I'll post the final recipe when I get around to brewing this.

[dhaenerbrewer]

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Later last night I was thinking about it, and had the nagging feeling that I had given out horribly wrong information, so I went and checked my hop chemistry book, and whaddya know, I was wrong. Sorry again.

Darin

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

Hey no problem, don't worry about it.  What hop chemistry book do you have?  I'm always looking for new books to add to my ever expanding brewing library.

[MaltLicker]

................... but Amarillo and Simcoe are two of the strange new high alpha hops that have a low cohumulone level.

Agreed.  I got great results from an APA with Palisade (bittering/flavor) and 1 oz of Amarillo from 5 mins to flameout.  I had had poor results from dry-hopping, and so tried more boiled finishing hops in final minutes and it worked well. 

[stadelman]

My answer is-tons of late addition hops.

I just kegged this last night-
5.5 gallons
12.75 lb pale 2 row
.5 lb amber malt UK

mash @ 152 for 60 min, 168 for 10 min

All hops are Amarillo
.5 ou 60 min
1 ou 20 min
1.5 ou 15 min
1 ou 10 min
1 ou 5 min
1 ou 1 min
1 ou dry hop 7 days

OG- 1.066, FG- 1.017, Est ABV 6.35%
Color- 5.5 SRM
Bitterness- 61.2 IBUs

This has the most hop flavor, by far, of any beer I've brewed.  Resiny is definitely a word I'd use to describe it.  I used Thomas Fawcett amber malt.  This gives it a real Dogfish Head 60/90 sort of a flavor.

[UselessBrewing]

so I went and checked my hop chemistry book

You got me on this one. What book? ISBN# Please if you have it.

Cheers
Preston

[dhaenerbrewer]

Two books actually. The Basics of Homebrewing Chemistry, by Lee Jansen. Also, A Textbook of Brewing by Jean De Clerck. The latter is available on Siebel's website. The former, not sure, but I'll be you can find it.

Darin

[baj475]

      "Does it come from certain hop varieties or from certain hopping schedules?  Or maybe a hopping technique?"

With respect to SN Torpedo, I am not sure just what hops are used but it is also a schedule and technique where the beer from their fermenters pass over hops in the Torpedo.

See  http://www.chicohomebrewclub.com/images/Comp_Judging_and_Tour_3-09/pages/PICT0135_Torpedo.htm for a picture of the "Torpedo."

[UselessBrewing]

Two books actually. The Basics of Homebrewing Chemistry, by Lee Jansen. Also, A Textbook of Brewing by Jean De Clerck. The latter is available on Siebel's website. The former, not sure, but I'll be you can find it.
Darin

I have the Chemistry book but not the De Clerck set. I did find it on Siebel's website http://www.siebelinstitute.com/e-store/ but don't have the $ for it right now.

Thanks for the info!

Cheers
Preston

[dhaenerbrewer]

Preston -

   All the books on that Siebel site are treasure troves of invredible information. But they are pricey. Luckily, when I worked for Steelhead they had all those books in their "Library" and I had access to all of them for free. Another good one is "An Analysis of Brewing Techniques" by George and Laurie Fix.

Darin

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

If you do some searching you can always find a better deal on a book.  I've managed to get awesome discounts on beer and brewing books from Amazon and random online discount book stores.  FYI, Amazon had a used copy of Declerk's book for $75.