Making your hoppy beers hoppier with less hops

So . . . as always, this forum is slow.

I was giving some thought as to why the other day and came to the conclusion that without delving into mixed microbe fermentations and fermentations involving Brettanomyces and other, non-saccharomyces yeast, there really hasn’t been much in the way of new technique out there.

Here’s where we change that.

There’s been a lot of work in the wine world involving volatile thiol expression. Especially in the manufacture of Sauvignon Blanc wines. Volatile thiols, for those who do not know, are sulfur and/or glutathione bound chemicals, that remain aroma and flavor neutral unless the right microbe with the right enzyme (carbon sulfur lyase) acts upon them. Therefor, several "boutique" wine strains have been developed with this enzyme to make these wines more tropical fruit forward.

Guess what also has massive amounts of volatile thiols? If you guessed "hops", you get a gold star.

The problem is that these wine yeasts cannot ferment maltose. A problem for beer brewers.

If you guys would like to hear more about the techniques that I, with LOTS of help from some very science-based brewers, have come up with to take advantage of these compounds, please respond to this thread, as I really don’t want to type it all out just to hear crickets chirping.

FWIW, the ingredients, recipes, and techniques are all rather simple once you get to know what you’re dealing with.

Cheers!

Sounds very interesting, I’d for one would appreciate it!

Yes, this sounds very interesting!

Yes, please! I’m curious!

Originally posted by dEnk
Sounds very interesting, I’d for one would appreciate it!

Fire in, Jimmy! I’ve been playing around with some wine yeasts for stuff like this recently as well. It looks like a number of wine strains aren’t really supposed to produce clean beverages in beer timescales. I’ve had things like unexpectedly high sulphur levels (even with very high pitching rates in nutritious wort) which will condition out in a normal-length wine fermentation, but not in the time you want for a hoppy pale ale, so I imagine that sort of thing will be an important consideration for strain selection, in addition to enzyme production.

Been getting a bunch of acetylaldehyde with the non-Sacch, non-Brett yeasts I’ve tried as well. I know others report similar, though it worked really well for Schells most recent release. Very much a pear and apple bomb, in a very wonderful way.

I think that this is enough interest to spell out things in a bit more depth. The general gist of using these types of yeast strains is to maximize their positive attributes and minimize their negative ones. Their positive attributes include the creation of highly tropical fruit forward beverages. The negative ones include high ethyl acetate formation. Here’s how I’d suggest going about things to get started:

- Use a simple IPA grist. Bitter as you wish, but low bittering rates would be recommended.

- Cool to 180F and do 60 minute hop stand with 2 oz. per gallon of Amarillo

Amarillo has high levels of 3MH and lower levels of 4MMP. High 3MH levels are what we want as high 4MMP levels can lead to cat urine character

- Cool to 60F

This is to decrease ethyl acetate formation

- Moderately aerate.

A strong rolling boil and a vigorous pour into the fermenter should accomplish our end. No pure O2. This is also to decrease ethyl acetate formation.

- Pitch Lallemand CY-3079. You could use Zymaflore VL3 or a pichia sp., like Frootzen, but we’ve found that 3079 is the best by FAR.
- Ferment for 2 days at 60F
- Let temperature rise to 70F, and then pitch 2 pint starter of neutral or moderate ester forming sacch. yeast. I’d suggest California ale or Vermont ale types of yeast.

- Ferment until gravity is stable and package immediately. Should be somewhere in the 7 - 10 days range and no more than 2 weeks.

Again to assure maximum thiol presence and limit ethyl acetate formation.

* A dry hop isn’t necessary, but I think dry-hopping normally, with your choice of hops, would be just fine.

Interesting! How much of a difference does it make? Is this something that has the potential to become widespread in commercial brewing?

Keep at 180F for an hour?! Any recommendations on how to do that for a homebrew scale? A low heat?

Originally posted by konstifik
Interesting! How much of a difference does it make? Is this something that has the potential to become widespread in commercial brewing?