Beer Forum

Not sure if I should put this under ingredients or equipment but I'll focus on the hops. Made my first hops randall out of a house water filter and cut and drilled a Sanke keg spear for center column. Tested under pressure with Star San and all works great, so I packed it with 2 oz whole Simcoe marked as 2013 crop from Williams Brewing. They smelled fine to me and were vacuum packed and freezer kept. Primed with beer through out port to purge o2. Hooked up to keg/tap line and pours were fine. Nicely increased hop aroma on an IPA I had already on tap and also looked much clearer due to hops filtering. Upon tasting it has a pronounced vegetal flavor that is really awful. I mean it almost tastes like I soaked cantaloupe rinds in the beer. It did not fade over many pours so I finally removed the randall and dumped/cleaned it out after having a friend concur with this perception. Does anyone else have any feedback to offer on their randall experience to give me some perspective here. I can only suspect the hops but like I said, they smell fine. No old or cheesy aroma. Is this vegetal flaver normal with whole hops in a randall?

scotchpine wrote:Is this vegetal flaver normal with whole hops in a randall?

I've given up on using a Randall or Hop Rocket inline for serving for this exact reason. I don't like the flavor the hops add to the beer. It can be vegetal, plain weird tasting, or just add a ton of tannins to the beer. I recently tried a Hop Rocket with Mosaic, and it was like drinking fruit tea, not pleasant at all. The tannins the whole Mosaic hops added were not what I was hoping for.

I'm sure some hops work better than others, or some people my have a better technique, somehow, but I haven't enjoyed any beers I've served this way.

Yes exactly! So it's not just the whole Simcoe hops I used. It tasted just like a very tannic carbonated tea without ice. Waste of a good project. I was so proud of the stainless column I fabricated too. I'm surprised I've not heard more about this experience anywhere. I know Sam at Dogfish pushed this deal among others. I'd still like to know if anyone has had a successful run doing this. Thanks

I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried pushing beer through a randall for hop infusion between fermenter and keg? Like SN does with Torpedo. Maybe being at room temp instead of 40 degrees would prevent this ill affect.

Brew a nice milk stout, pack the randall with coconut and nibs and start pouring. It's magical.

scotchpine wrote:I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried pushing beer through a randall for hop infusion between fermenter and keg? Like SN does with Torpedo. Maybe being at room temp instead of 40 degrees would prevent this ill affect.

I did this with three oz of Simcoe, and I didn't enjoy it. I tried it at room temp, but all I got was foam, so I had to drop the keg to about 40F. It had the same problem as the Randall use - all it seemed to add was tannin flavor. Once the beer was in the keg for about 2-3 weeks, the tannins dropped, and the beer was good. I decided to stick with dry hopping.