# Dry Hopped, now it's bitter. Oxygen?



## brewintreg (3/11/17)

I've been making an IPA for the first time in my. All was going well, tasting great from the fermenter. 
So, I dry hopped with 20g each of chinook and cascade. The hops were already open, so i boiled some water, quickly cooled to ~30° then submerged the hops in the hop bag to try and get rid of any oxygen (read it somewhere). Dumped it all in the fermenter, which splashed more than it should have. 
Three days later, all of the tropical flavours have gone and the beer is quite bitter. 

1. Should I just chuck it and start again our should I have patience? (really don't want to spend time bottling a crap beer)
2. If I went wrong, does it sound like oxidation or something else?

Thanks

OG1080 to FG1014 and fermentation had stopped on day 8.


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## wide eyed and legless (3/11/17)

Sounds like astringency, I would still bottle it but have a Google about dry hopping and tannin's.


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## Belgrave Brewer (3/11/17)

Did you boil the hops? Can you explain the process in a bit more detail.

If you sampled your beer from the fermenter tap, you may have carried some of the dissolved hops from the dry hop addition into your sample. It will taste bitter/astringent. 

How many liters of beer did you brew? What size is your fermenter? 

Large headspace can lower aromas if dry hopped while still fermenting. 

If you brewed a 20L batch and used 40g for dry hopping, that's 2g/L. A lot of the commercial craft brewers are using 6g+/L for a big aroma hit but they are also using specialised equipment. You'll have to find that balance for yourself and your own tastes.

Your beer should be fine, just needs some conditioning time. I'd bottle it and see how it goes. Aroma will be more present once there is carbonation in the beer and CO2 releases it.


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## /// (3/11/17)

What’s the specialised equipment? A ladder?

Dry hopping is simple and the above has corrupted a simple process. 

* ferment
* 2 days no gravity change assume on vdk rest
* add first charge of hops to warm beer at vdk pass
* wait 2-3 days, add second charge
* chill 48 hours from last charge
* win champion and gold medals at CBIA awards

Add hops direct to beer, no stuffing about with other crap. We add upwards of 100kg of hops per week. But you have to do warm. 

The only preferred method is to do off the yeast. Yeast absorbs flavour and the more of it, the more absorbed

And, never judge a flat beer by its character ...


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## TheSumOfAllBeers (4/11/17)

Dry hopping will add a few IBU. Suspended hop particles will add as well until you let them settle out.

Also oxidised hops will also add bittering compounds.


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## MHB (4/11/17)

You need to learn the difference between Hop Taste/Flavour and Bitterness!
An IBU is defined as 1mg of isomerised alpha acid in 1L of finished beer.
Alpha Acid cant be isomerised unless it is boiled (or you are doing some fancy chemistry) so the flavour you get from dry hopping isn't "bitterness" (IBU's).
It isn't really all that hard to train your palate, if your serious get some Iso Alpha Acid (your LHBS can help out) and make up some beers in PET bottles with different dry hop and Iso additions - when you put the two side by side it isn't all that hard to differentiate.
Mark


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## /// (4/11/17)

If it was oxygen you may also see a white pellicle on top and tastes like cardboard - no bitterness to add there. Bigger hopped beers heavy with yeast can taste harsh. Clear it, carbonate it and go from there


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## brewintreg (4/11/17)

Thanks for the help.

Here's the recipe I was using.

Can't find anything conclusive on tannin's and dry hopping. Some saying that it can hide astringency, some saying it can release after the aroma effect has been imparted (surely this is more than a few days?), adding a load of hops can cause it, and one about lambics (but surely that's a completely different kettle of beer).


The process for dry hopping was: 
-Waited till fermentation had ended,
-The hops were already open from the boil one week previously, stored in the freezer in a zip lock bag.
-Boiled 2l water for 3 min then chilled to 30 degrees in a couple of minutes.
-Then submerged the hops in a sanitised bag for ~2min.
-Opened the fermenter (it was at ~20degrees and tipped in the hops, bag and water).

20 litres in a 30 litre fermenter.


vdk?And why two different charges?


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## manticle (4/11/17)

VDK is vicinal diketone - basically diacetyl and it’s cousin 2-3 pentanedione (honey character)


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (4/11/17)

Further to Mark's post above, people often confuse bitterness and astringency. 

Make yourself a strong cup of one of the awful English style teas like Lipton's, letting it boil for a few minutes, allow it to cool a bit then taste it without adding milk or sugar. That's astringency.

Do the same thing with hops, preferably boiling for half an hour or so. That's bitterness.


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## manticle (4/11/17)

Just suck the wet tea bag or chew on the wet leaves. Where you feel/taste it is also indicative. Astringency is noticeable at the front and sides of the tongue and feels like it's pulling your inside cheeks a tad.

Bitterness is more at the top and rear of the tongue, is generally slighly refreshing although high levels may make your face screw up. Tonic water, campari or even bitter melon if you can find it.


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## shacked (4/11/17)

/// said:


> * win champion and gold medals at CBIA awards



This is the step that I’ve been missing guv!!


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## Ducatiboy stu (4/11/17)

Did you throw in the water you boiled the hops in into the ferm

...BTW...you should always boil hops with malt....


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## shacked (4/11/17)

You may be getting some hop particulate matter in your sample and this could be impacting how your brew is tasting. You might be getting [tiny] chunks of hop each sip. 

Perhaps take your sample and chill it for an hour or so to drop the hop matter to the bottom. I’ve been caught by this in heavily hopped beers, where the sample is very different from the finished, cleared and gassed up version.


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## /// (4/11/17)

Why boil or put them in water at all? Add straight in, hops are anti-microbial. Ain’t doing anything of value adding them to water and messing around.

We add 2 charges as when we go 5-7 gms a litre we find better flavour outcome. It’s also a lot of boxes to drag up the gantry. Same for tea bags and stuff, the hops will fall out easy enough and set with yeast.

But, beer can be left on hops for too long and vegetative and harsh flavours come through. Also a degree of sourness and astringency from hops like mosaic.


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## brewintreg (4/11/17)

I'll give the astringency taste test a go.

Yeah i chucked in the water.
Probably over thinking it but I was trying to eliminate any oxygen. Read somewhere that if you boil water you deoxygenate it, then submerging the hops in the same water once cooled removes excess oxygen from the hops.


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## Ducatiboy stu (4/11/17)

brewintreg said:


> I'll give the astringency taste test a go.
> 
> Yeah i chucked in the water.
> Probably over thinking it but I was trying to eliminate any oxygen. Read somewhere that if you boil water you deoxygenate it, then submerging the hops in the same water once cooled removes excess oxygen from the hops.



Your over thinking it


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## /// (4/11/17)

Just chuck em in, we do 14-18000l a week in this way ... less is more


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## brewintreg (5/11/17)

Not even worth using a bag? Just throw the loose pellets in?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Aussie Home Brewer mobile app


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## shacked (5/11/17)

Don’t bother with a bag mate. Straight in!


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## Lyrebird_Cycles (5/11/17)

BTW if you want to eliminate oxygen from stored hops, oxygen absorber sachets work very well. 

I did a trial of this when I was doing some advisory* work at a commercial brewery, IIRC we used around half a litre of O2 absorber capacity per kg of hops in the bag. After a month or so of storage in normal conditions (4 degree coolroom, bags rolled down and taped) there was a very distinct difference between the trial and the control and no discernable difference between the trial and hops from an unopened bag.

* I hate the word consultant.


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## fdsaasdf (29/12/17)

brewintreg said:


> Not even worth using a bag? Just throw the loose pellets in?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930F using Aussie Home Brewer mobile app



Straight in is ideal for utilisation. It's maybe not the best option if you can't reliably drop the hop sediment (e.g. cooling / finings) or have a pickup to your fermenter tap that draws above the sediment.


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## TheSumOfAllBeers (30/12/17)

Lyrebird_Cycles said:


> BTW if you want to eliminate oxygen from stored hops, oxygen absorber sachets work very well.
> 
> I did a trial of this when I was doing some advisory* work at a commercial brewery, IIRC we used around half a litre of O2 absorber capacity per kg of hops in the bag. After a month or so of storage in normal conditions (4 degree coolroom, bags rolled down and taped) there was a very distinct difference between the trial and the control and no discernable difference between the trial and hops from an unopened bag.
> 
> * I hate the word consultant.



Where do you get the O2 absorber sachets?


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## wide eyed and legless (30/12/17)

TheSumOfAllBeers said:


> Where do you get the O2 absorber sachets?


E bay.


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## Bribie G (30/12/17)

I disagree that dry hopping doesn't add bitterness. 
Chew a single hop pellet. Go on.


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## TheSumOfAllBeers (30/12/17)

Dry hopping will add perceived bitterness but not IBU - it is not iso-alpha acids that is the source of bitterness in this case. The oxidised alpha acids part of the hop packaging process will add some bitterness, there may be other sources of bitterness too


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## SeeFar (30/12/17)

The hop bag will soak up a whole bunch of the hop flavour/bitterness/whateverthefark so you're better off going loose. 

So the study that I read tells me anyway.


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