Impact Tropic Thunder Has On A Hazy IPA | exBEERiment

Some of the most sought-after IPAs are those displaying pungent tropical fruit characteristics - we’re talking mango, guava, and pineapple. While modern hop varieties are known to contribute fruit notes to beer, a new product called Tropic Thunder is purported to enhance these tropical fruit characteristics, but does this really result in a perceptible impact? To find out, Martin is brewing a Hazy IPA, splitting the batch, and adding Tropic Thunder to only one of the fermenters, then he serves the beers to participants to see if they can discern a difference between.
TROPIC THUNDER: www.morebeer.c...
RECIPE KIT: www.morebeer.c...
EQUIPMENT USED
Clawhammer Supply 240v eBIAB System: www.clawhammer...
Spike Brewing FLEX+: spikebrewing.c...
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CONTACT: [e-mail]

[@jsfourdirections]

Not going to lie, when I saw the title of this video I thought you would do a split batch where one of the fermenting beers gets to watch the classic 2008 comedy movie Tropic Thunder over and over...

[@MoreBeer_]

Thanks for having us! It was awesome to get to be in an exBEERiment 🍻

[@Marshall_Brulosophy]

Thank you so much for working with us on this one!!

[@TheBrulosophyShow]

This was so much fun, thanks for collaborating on it!

[@freehlr]

All these IPA "enhancers" are, IMO, total bunk. Their effects might be detectable in a lab with expensive equipment, but they don't seem to be detectable in the real world of beer consumption. Dry hopping overwhelms any subtle effects. It's like trying to hear a whisper at a rock concert. With respect to IPAs at least, I feel like there is a lot of false advertising going on with these products.

[@kaspergrntved3209]

I love the brulosophy experiments! Keep up the good work Martin!

[@TheBrulosophyShow]

Thank you!

[@digitaldominatrix]

I think your description of Phantasm is incorrect - its Sauvignon Blanc grape skins which have high levels of thoil precursors. They do not "unlock" thiol precursors in malt and hops.

[@kdillon2824]

I love the hose at 6:37. Finally gear I actually have at home!!!!!

[@jasonboisvert4573]

I absolutely love this channel! Keep these videos coming!

[@CityscapeBrewing]

Looove making a good hazy IPA!! 🍺

[@GreigMcGill]

Riwaka - Ree Wah Kah. Māori vowels are: a = ah e = air i = eee o = or u = ooh, and all syllables in Maori words are equally weighted unless you see a macron, in which case, that vowel is lengthened. ie. woman is a wahine (wah-heen-eh) but a group of women are wāhine - waaaah-heen-eh. Now, you can do Motueka! 😉

[@vincelafore4281]

Don't know if you noticed but this video and the last one only had the thumbs down feature.

[@angrydutchman8590]

Martin, great "show" as always . . . I really appreciate the scientific methodology you frequently use to test or tweak your brewing. On a side note . . . I am a chemistry idiot (thus I most often don't use brewing salts or mess with water chemistry) . . . is there any chance that in future videos or recipe descriptions you could tell us what type of water you are using (e.g., RO, distilled, bottled, etc.) and what amounts of the different salts you are using? I would really help those of us who, if we had known in high school we would be brewing beer, should have paid more attention in chemistry class! Thanks and keep up the awesome shows!

[@lucwal67]

He said it in the Video, he used R.O. water. When it comes to the salts he adds, it depends on the style of beer he is brewing, since you would want a different water profile for different types of beer.

[@angrydutchman8590]

NSS! Maybe I went too fast for you . . . so in this case using RO, brewing a 10 gallon batch of a hazy IPA . . . I go back to my initial inquiry : what were the amounts of each salt added (you know, to stay within the 'style' characteristics) and would you mind adding that particular information in your recipe info? See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Now, don't bother me, I've got hops to add to my hefeweisen.@@lucwal67

[@jinhunpark]

Quality content! Awesome job!

[@tim-tim-timmy6571]

The enzymes might have been denaturated with the alcohol and on top of that, the heavy dry hopping completely overshadowed the work of the enzymes. It could be worth trying in a beer that has little no dry hopping and that is moderately hopped. It should standout. Also, use a neutral yeast so it's character doesn't impact the taste of the product.

[@ants9230]

Or maybe it's just "snake oil", designed to separate fools from their money. The whole point of the product is to enhance tropical fruit aromas in the beer. If you need to use a neutral yeast and avoid dry hopping in order to taste any difference, then what is the point of using it at all? And, 4oz. is hardly a massive dry hop.

[@paulbehrens5842]

I had high hopes there. Still interested to give it a try if it's available in Aus.

[@mustyditch4703]

"The Norm" would have been able to differentiate.

[@sanbe729]

How bout you try llalemands aromazyme?! That looks great for people who cannot buy GMO yeasts

[@FermentationAdventures]

Interesting video.. soo seems like Tropic Thunder might be worth staying on the shelf! But you didn't say whether there was any aroma difference between the two fermenters. In my experience with thiolozed yeast/phantasm, dry hops can destroy/diminish the strong thiol aromas of overripe fruit... I wonder if that occured here. It would be interesting to see a comparison of Omega's "thiolized" yeast and the base yeast, say Omega's Star Party and their West Coast Ale I. Also, The description of Phantasm is incorrect. Phantasm is intended to add the thiol precursors to the beer.. it is just dried grape skins after all. Phantasm would still rely on yeast to transform these precursors.

[@ElementaryBrewingCo]

Sweet video! Are you using the pump that came with the Clawhammer system? I’ve got the 20 gallon as well and an exchillerator and it feels like I need a bit more power from my pump. Thanks Martin! Cheers 🍻

[@TheBrulosophyShow]

Yeah just using the pump that comes with the system. And I have the exchillerator throttled down to half flow so more pump juice would be wasted on me

[@brandonm1772]

Great video! I would be interested to see if a classic C hop would be a better test of this experiment tho?

[@seriomarkj]

I would be interested if just less hops would give this a bigger show...like a 4 oz hop beer tastes like 8 oz...but once you use too much it just gets lost

[@jackhandy7237]

Great video, Martin! Hey, I brewed your Citra Pale Ale a while back and you told me to let you know how it turned out. I couldn’t find the Facebook post, so I’m letting you know here. It turned out awesome! You are right… The cascade and Citra go very well together. It’s a very tasty beer that I will no doubt be brewing again! BTW, I noticed you use your own counterflow wort chiller rather then the plate chiller. Why is that? Do you find that the counterflow chiller works better?

[@TexasNativeBrewing]

It doesn’t get clogged with a lot of hop matter. Side by side comparisons state that the plate vs counterflow is only minutes apart when cooling to any specific temperature. I think there might be a video on this channel explaining this!

[@jimmyyang6296]

It's currently Maori language in New Zealand and Riwaka being a place in the Tasman district lets give it a proper go. Riwaka - Ree - waa - car.

[@TheBrulosophyShow]

Thank you!

[@ColinLeuze]

Good to know. Who'd have guessed the r was there?

[@poisonpotato1]

Imo when brewing less is more

[@suziederkins3310]

Reee-waaakaaa but great effort 😊

[@Justin.J.Daniels]

Can you do a test of hops straight in the pot. Vs. hops in a hop spider?

[@TheBrulosophyShow]

Funny you should ask about that. Coming soon…

[@Justin.J.Daniels]

@@TheBrulosophyShow awesome!! Thank you!

[@keithska559]

Question: what about dry hopping at different temperatures? During regular fermentation temp vs cold crash?

[@fdk7014]

I would like to see a test with the variable blind vs exposing the variable. If you first to a round of testing with the variable blind, save the results and then make another round of tests first explaining the variable being tested. The second set would likely get a lot more correct answers but it would be interesting to see how big the difference is. When testing blind it can be easy to overlook something so differences would have to be pretty big to be noticed. Then again, even when the brewer himself gets to test semi-blindly it can be hard to get it right.

[@jimmatzek5895]

Disappointing. Glad you did a video.