Equinox Pale Ale (@Beer-Lord, you may wanna read)

[mashani]

Just a simple almost SMaSH 10 minute boil 2.5 gallon extract beer to try out Equinox hops. I would have done SMaSH if I had base malt types of grain but all my grain is in the mail. So the little bit of honey malt is just to freshen it up and make it not seem "dme blah". They are described as:

Citrus, Tropical Fruit, Floral, Herbal, including Lemon, Lime, Papaya, Apple, and Green Pepper.

Yes, green pepper. Some people seem to not notice it. Other people seem to hate on it because of it. Some people notice it and like it and say it's not really green pepper but something they can't quite describe. So... we will see.

2oz Honey Malt steeped
3# Light DME
1oz Equinox hops (13.4% AA) @10
1oz Equinox hops @Flameout
All hops went in commando
30 minute hop stand with lid on

Full pack of Nottingham

OG 1.054

With hopstand utilization this will end up in the 50+ IBU range easily, so it's in the gray area of Pale Ale/IPA territory.

[Beer-lord]

I fell off the hop wagon and ordered a pound of Equinox last week. I only plan on using this at late additions and dry hop. From what I've read, many say it's better that way and not to use it as a bittering hop.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this when done.

[mashani]

Well this is in the bottle. And @Beer-Lord, with this hop schedule and/or commando hops into the fermenter and/or both - that "Green Pepper thing"... well it's there and it's potent.

I tasted tropical fruit salad but with a strong bitter green vegetable note over top of it. I don't mean that this beer is too bitter, I'm trying to describe the flavor.

I don't know if you have ever made a green chili cerveza... but if you can take out the heat, but leave that green chili flavor in there, and then make that flavor stronger - well that's what I'm tasting.

Right now it's strong and I'm not sure I really like it (it's like I put 3 chilies in a bottle instead of 1 minus the heat). It's kind of whomping on all the tropical stuff. But it will probably mellow when this gets a bit of age on it.

It might work better as a component in a more complex hop blend.

We will see in 3-4 weeks. If it's this strongly flavored then, it might become a back shelf beer where I put a few months of age on it to mellow out the hops.

[BigPapaG]

When I useD it in an IPA, I got Papaya, Green Pepper, Herbal and an overall... Uh... Not sure quality that I really did not care for...

I did not put it on the resupply list.

[Jon]

Great descriptions of the hop flavors...I often find I end up saying things like X but without Y, or Z but not exactly Z, just vaguely reminiscent of Z...or Q but bitter Q without being astringent. Etc.

And I'm glad you mentioned the green pepper thing...my wife HATES green peppers, and to her, Cascades give just a hint of green pepper that is enough to make her generally hate them (though it depends on the origin of the crop, the other hops used, the age of the beer and how the Cascades were used), so now I know to avoid Equinox in beers she might want to drink (or to put it in beers I don't want her to drink -- just kidding, I'd rather have her drinking things I brewed than having to buy them!).

Though maybe I'll get some to late hop a test beer for me. Though I currently have a LOT of hops in stock, so I am gonna try to wait a bit before ordering more hops.

[ScrewyBrewer]

SmAsH sounds like a good way to get the real effect of this variety, it may work better in a recipe when used with other hop varieties. I'm just getting used to hopping with 'C' type American varieties in combinations, but not sure I'd want green peppers thrown into the mix yet. Thanks for sharing your experiences with this hop though, I am always interested in learning how new ingredients are being used.

[Beer-lord]

I appreciate the info. One of the recipes I'm playing with using my Red X malt has some Equinox in it very late and dry hop. Perhaps I should only use it as a dry hop.
While I like green peppers, I'm not sure I like tropical and peppers at the same time. Of course, depending on where yours were grown and when it was picked, that could make a huge difference between you hops and mine.
Gonna have to rethink this one again. Whew, this Red X recipe is alot of work!

[Beer-lord]

Its funny that these hops aren't what some of us may like but MoreBeer has a 4 oz limit to them.
http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shop/what-s- ... oz-pellets
Brand New from the Hop Breeding Company! Equinox Hops.

This new variety is set to be The hop of the year with several breweries introducing it in to their line ups. This hops has everyone talking and so far it lives up to the hype! We have some of the very last crop available to the public so be sure to jump on it now before we run out and have to wait to get our hands on it again.

Usage: Flavor and Aroma

Description
The diversified and pronounced aroma characteristics combined with extremely high oil content make this hop variety very unique. A pronounced aroma profile with citrus, tropical fruit, floral and herbal characteristics. Specific descriptors include lemon, lime, papaya, apple, and green pepper.
Usage: Flavor and Aroma
Alpha Acid : 14.4 – 15.6% Current Alpha: 13.6%

[mashani]

It may very well be that boil vs. steep vs. dry hop will ramp up or tone down various characteristics, and it's just a matter of figuring out where to put them blended with something else.

But this batch is pepper city.

[mashani]

I don't know if it's a coincidence or related to these hops, but this fermenter is a freaking mess. I had to PBW it. And after that, there was a coating of some yellow-orange-red film on the entire inside of the fermenter, it was like beerstone but the wrong color. What came off when scrubbing with a wet cloth was like thin translucent colored strips, but I was afraid I'd scratch the fermenter so I didn't do that much. It's soaking in acid now to get rid of that, since PBW was too wimpy. I don't know if it's hop oils mixed with beerstone or what. But it ain't right. It ain't right at all. I've never seen anything like it. It is yucky.

[BigPapaG]

I don't know if it's a coincidence or related to these hops, but this fermenter is a freaking mess. I had to PBW it. And after that, there was a coating of some yellow-orange-red film on the entire inside of the fermenter, it was like beerstone but the wrong color. What came off when scrubbing with a wet cloth was like thin translucent colored strips, but I was afraid I'd scratch the fermenter so I didn't do that much. It's soaking in acid now to get rid of that, since PBW was too wimpy. I don't know if it's hop oils mixed with beerstone or what. But it ain't right. It ain't right at all. I've never seen anything like it. It is yucky.

Some sort of infection maybe?

[Beer-lord]

Might be time to get a new fermenter if you're not sure what it is/was. I've had more than a lb of hops in a 5 gallon batch and never had any residue before and find it hard to believe Equinox is the culprit. I know you say your house is 'buggy' so perhaps it is a wild,wild bug causing it.

[mashani]

FWIW, one time with a very oily batch of Apollo hops, I had my fermenter end up coated with a yellow oil slick using 3oz of them. But this was more then just yellow. But Equinox hops are listed as very high oil content. So... ?

But I know of no beer infecting organism that could make these colors. Mold could, but mold won't grow under the surface/in your wort - it would be a surface infection, and the surface was clean looking when I bottled, and I've never ever ever had mold grow in my fermenter in 20+ years. (most people who think they have mold growing in their fermenter do not, they just don't know what they are looking at)

Unless the hop and krausen krud that got stuck to the top of the fermenter got moldy, and the mold colors leeched out in the PBW solution and stuck to every surface of the fermenter. But that didn't look moldy to me either, it just looked like normal hop goop and krausen krud.

The acid seemed to strip all of whatever it was. Whatever it was. All I can figure is the PBW pulled it out of all that crud and then it somehow got attracted to the sides of the fermenter (electrical charge or what not). Saison yeast can actually do this - French Saison is notorious for it (coating your bottles and fermenter with a film). But French Saison yeast is kind of a beer infecting organism that has been slightly domesticated LOL.

In any case, the flavors I was getting in the sample, I would not call "infected" flavor. At least not like anything I've ever tasted or described in any document. The "weird" flavors really were very green peppery, not funky.

We will see...

[bpgreen]

PBW was too wimpy.

I can honestly say that I've never seen that sentence before.

[mashani]

So I popped my taster bottle. It's about 3.5 weeks in the bottle now.

That seems to have been enough to tone down the huge pepper I was tasting at bottling to something that blends in better.

I still taste green pepper. But it's blending in with all the other flavors and aromas much more nicely now instead of whomping on them.

It is actually kind of cool/unique now that it's not so in my face.

As for the rest - what this tastes like on top of the pepper is as if I mixed some Warrior hops with Citra and Nelson Sauvin. Yeah all of that. In one hop. It's a mix of musky tropical and citrus fruity, kind of peach fuzzy, it got Nelson berry like stuff, it's got a bit of pine, and it's got that weird earthy pepper that seems to swirl though it, but somehow actually works for me now. The pepper flavor does kind of linger as a bitter/vegetable/weird finish that is different then regular bitter (really like how green peppers are bitter, no better description I can come up with). But I don't mind it, it just makes me want to take another sip sooner to bring back the other stuff Some people might hate on that, I dunno.

So that's pretty cool too. Maybe.

So there is a heckofalot going on in this simple beer.

So... I dunno... I think I actually might love this hop. Which is funny because when I bottled it I thought I was going to hate this hop.

That said it might be a hop some folks think of as "Cat Pee" I don't know. It has some characteristics of those hops that I've used (but I don't taste them as "Cat Pee"). Just warning you there in case a sensitive individual lives with you.

I might do an Equinox SMaSH Saison over the summer. Just Pilsner, 1oz of it this @10 and no other hops needed with French Saison or Bella. I think that might rock.

EDIT: Whatever weirdness was going on with my fermenter above, it wasn't an infection. This certainly is not infected. I taste nothing stranger then the green pepper, but that's supposed to be there. I think maybe I had a thin layer of beerstone or a carbonate deposit from the oxyclean that I normally used or some similar like substance that I wasn't aware of and some of the oils from these hops just glued to it and made it funky colored. Which is good in that I noticed that I had that and no longer does it live in my fermenter. These hops were very very oily.