Wet Hop Analysis
You know how I spent a great deal of time investigating the nature of the wet hop earlier this year, surmising that some of the constituents of the hop cone affect flavor in out-sized proportion when added wet to the boil? Well, based on two years of data collection and 15 beers with known hop varieties, I have discovered ... nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. I lined up every hop used in these beers (9 of them) and looked to see which ones with the "decomposition note" had various constituent elements. I had really hopped to see a culprit--cohumulone or one of the oils, probably. But no. It's totally random.
Five hops produced no decomp note--Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Crystal, and Nugget. The preponderance of the initial letter is about as close to a correlation as I could find among these. My new theory--it's the way the hops are used in brewing, not the hop itself, that produces the decomp note. Or something.
Anyway, here's my very scientific research on the subject:
Hop Elements
See also:
Anatomy of the Humulus Lupulus, Chemistry of the Wet Hop
Well, not quite nothing. I lined up every hop used in these beers (9 of them) and looked to see which ones with the "decomposition note" had various constituent elements. I had really hopped to see a culprit--cohumulone or one of the oils, probably. But no. It's totally random.
Five hops produced no decomp note--Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Crystal, and Nugget. The preponderance of the initial letter is about as close to a correlation as I could find among these. My new theory--it's the way the hops are used in brewing, not the hop itself, that produces the decomp note. Or something.
Anyway, here's my very scientific research on the subject:
Hop Elements
See also:
Anatomy of the Humulus Lupulus, Chemistry of the Wet Hop