Dry Hopping Bottles

[Renegade]

How would you know if you've never done it? Shall I call all the Breweries and tell them they must stop this dangerous practice?

haha yea, and the thousands of members here who also reserve their yeast.

Imagine spending $15 per brew for a fresh whitelabs vial ! that's simply bad economics.

 

[Rod]

How would you know if you've never done it? Shall I call all the Breweries and tell them they must stop this dangerous practice?

The brewery does not use the trub , they propagate their yeast in a separate tank under very strict conditions

the same as the dairy boys

After a set number of uses a new mother culture is used

When you make up a liquid yeast set of cultures you will use much better care , and after say a few reuses ( up to 5 ) they recommend a new liquid yeast be used

not all ingredients used in kit and kilo are boiled , ie dry hopping and cold water

We do not boil all the water used in a kit and can

also a lot of newby brewers do not have the skills in cleaning fermenters etc

 

[Nick JD]

So don't harvest your yeast then. I'm still gonna do it.

Been doing it for nigh on two decades with zero problems.

You own shares in Wyeast or something? Fermentis?

 

[MarkBastard]

How would you know if you've never done it? Shall I call all the Breweries and tell them they must stop this dangerous practice?

When opinions get read and regurgitated over and over here it becomes the truth. You should know that nick

 

[Ross]

Nick,

Did i read correctly, you boiled half your wort for only 15 minutes total?
'
Pretty poor practice if that's the case, you really should boil your wort for minimum 60 minutes to drive off undesireable compounds in your wort.

If I misread, please ignore....

cheers Ross

 

[Nick JD]

Nick,

Did i read correctly, you boiled half your wort for only 15 minutes total?
'
Pretty poor practice if that's the case, you really should boil your wort for minimum 60 minutes to drive off undesireable compounds in your wort.

If I misread, please ignore....

cheers Ross

You read correctly, Ross. I'm starting to think that DMS is gone early in the boil - or this malt is low in sulphur compounds (or whatever we're trying to exorcise).

Have you ever boiled for just 15 minutes?

 

[Darren]

Hi Nick,

I will answer the topic title first, dry hopping in the bottles is a bad idea as the pellets will provide for nucleation points. Once your bottles are opened "green spooge" is the likely outcome.

On your second question in the topic, yeast cultures should be cultured and stored at the purest form (straight from the smack-pack). Collecting from a bottle of home-brew is fraught with problems and pure stupidity.

cheers

darren

 

[manticle]

@Darren: What's your take on top cropping yeast?

 

[Ross]

Have you ever boiled for just 15 minutes?

No..... Quite seriously, why would I?

Cheers Ross

 

[staggalee]

Hi Nick,

I will answer the topic title first, dry hopping in the bottles is a bad idea as the pellets will provide for nucleation points. Once your bottles are opened "green spooge" is the likely outcome.

darren

And there`s the answer to what I wanted to know, 2 pages later :beer:
Thanks Darren, no dry hop experiment here now.

stagga.

 

[Pumpy]

Hey All,

Just thought I'd show some pics of dry hopping bottles of a deliberately bland ale.

These four have a pellet of Nelson Sauvin each.

And the rest had Southern Cross - a pellet each.

Here's a bottle of iced coffee. Actually, no, it's the bottom 600ml of swirl at the bottom of the fermenter. I added a teaspoon of sugar and bottled the trub. It's marked with the yeast and the date and can simply be thrown into the next brew that requires this yeast. I've even used half of the bottle before with great results.

Since these are bottled into clear PET - your can see that after the shake to dissolve the priming sugar the hops have already settled where they can leech fruity goodness in the next few weeks.

A way to get variety into one brew.

:icon_cheers:

I find if I dry hop in the keg, it is best not too leave the hops in the keg for longer than 7 -10 days as you can end up with a 'Vegetal flavour' .
I would imagine it would be similar in the bottle !

Pumpy

 

[Nick JD]

No..... Quite seriously, why would I?

Cheers Ross

I get zero DMS issues and the hot break has coagulated as much as it will by 15 minutes (that's why it's 15, because I'm watching for the hot break to maximize).

What other issues would I have? The beer tastes the same as one boiled for 60 minutes.

 

[Nick JD]

Hi Nick,

I will answer the topic title first, dry hopping in the bottles is a bad idea as the pellets will provide for nucleation points. Once your bottles are opened "green spooge" is the likely outcome.

On your second question in the topic, yeast cultures should be cultured and stored at the purest form (straight from the smack-pack). Collecting from a bottle of home-brew is fraught with problems and pure stupidity.

cheers

darren

I will make a video of myself opening one of these bottles. Doesn't happen - though it might if I put more than one pellet.

If you think it stupid to harvest yeast then that's your perogative I suppose. Lots of people do it. I used to "brew by rote" too until I started to realise that most brewers are lemmings.

 

[Ross]

I get zero DMS issues and the hot break has coagulated as much as it will by 15 minutes (that's why it's 15, because I'm watching for the hot break to maximize).

What other issues would I have? The beer tastes the same as one boiled for 60 minutes.

Nick,

Have you honestly ever tasted DMS? The majority of people can't detect it at all, but fortunately/unfortunately I can. I've made the occaisional beer that the DMS has rendered the beer totally undrinkable to me, but some qualified beer judges have not been able to detect anything wrong. Any practice that minimises me ever making a beer like this again I will follow.
So many brewers of late seem to be trying to brew with the smallest effort (not that I'm saying you are)... there are reasons that brewing processes have been refined over the years... to make good beer

Cheers Ross

 

[Nick JD]

Nick,

Have you honestly ever tasted DMS? The majority of people can't detect it at all, but fortunately/unfortunately I can. I've made the occaisional beer that the DMS has rendered the beer totally undrinkable to me, but some qualified beer judges have not been able to detect anything wrong. Any practice that minimises me ever making a beer like this again I will follow.
So many brewers of late seem to be trying to brew with the smallest effort (not that I'm saying you are)... there are reasons that brewing processes have been refined over the years... to make good beer

Cheers Ross

I fully understand what you say, Ross - you're correct: I'm one of those brewers who likes to explore the effort:taste ratio.

In this case (and perhaps I'm one of these people who also can't taste DMS properly ... although I know boiled cabbage and creamed corn when I smell it and if it's in there and I can't taste it, then I'm ambivalent as to whether I should care about it) I was trying something a little different and have added a note in my book that I can't detect any off flavours from diverging from the "age old" practices - which I fully respect, and respectfully break - only in a effort to prove to myself what can and can't be done.

Slow cooling of worts is also said to produce DMS, but the no-chill pioneers have also disproved this to a large extent.I can't compare myself to the greats who've pioneered BIAB, but can only thank them for enduring the onslaught of daring to question age old practices.

My disclaimer is that I'm not suggesting anyone else adopt my practices ... just that some things they thought were set in concrete might actually not be. Good beer is my aim, but also shortcuts that don't harm taste. Violently boiling an unhopped wort until the proteins break is something I will continue to do. Since I can't find any reliable information on the SMM content of BB Ale Malt (used here), conversion to DMS and subsequent vaporization I can only guess either that the majority of the DMS is gone in 15 minutes or it's in such small concentrations I can't taste it - or as you've said, I don't recognise it although I do notice it in some commercial lagers.

:icon_cheers:

EDIT:

Apparently, The half life or time needed to remove half of the DMS is 40 minutes so that three-fourths is removed in 90 minutes. So it seems even a 60 minute boil leaves nearly half of it in there anyhoo! I swear I can't taste corn in my beer! Give me a Lion Red (NZ beer) while I've been drinking Kronenberg and it's like drinking a can of creamed corn.

 

[Nick JD]

An Update:

A few weeks later I'm going to have to say that dry hopping bottles like this has been a huge success.

Here's my favourite by far - the ones with the pellet of Nelson Sauvin.

Nectarines big-time, with a touch of grapefruit (I think the hop breeders in Motueka were on drugs when they said gooseberry). That said, the Southern Cross was almost too subtle to taste and only had hints of grass over and above the control bottles (with no dry hop). I was hoping for a hint of lemon and jasmine with SC.

The galaxy is also nice, but I think galaxy needs to be there in large amounts as a punch in the face passionfruit hop.

None of these bottles has shown any inkling of being difficult to pour with the hops being nucleation points for CO2. Probably because the hops are under the sediment (which one might think would also be a nucleation point for fizzing, but isn't). Whoever added bottle hops and failed either added way too much or had infected bottles, or bottled early.

To sum up - yes, you can add 10g of dry hops to your brew in the bottles successfully with no issues, but I suggest using the big-flavour hops.

BTW - I still can't taste any DMS, and apart from a little bit of chillhaze, the beer cleared in the bottle (as it always does). No clearing agents were used at any time in this brew.

Next time I will add 2 pellets of Nelson and Galaxy to each 2L bottle.

:icon_cheers:

 

[browndog]

Dry hopping in bottles.

I'll be able to speak from experience tonight as a couple of weeks back The Scientist gave me a magnum of his APA that he had chucked a few hop pellets into for good measure. When I got the bottle they were still floating on top, but now they are on the bottom somewhere. Looking forward to cracking it tonight.

cheers

Browndog

 

[DKS]

Dry hopping in bottles.

I'll be able to speak from experience tonight as a couple of weeks back The Scientist gave me a magnum of his APA that he had chucked a few hop pellets into for good measure. When I got the bottle they were still floating on top, but now they are on the bottom somewhere. Looking forward to cracking it tonight.

cheers

Browndog

Best to open over the sink Browndog.
I tried this some time back and had some gushers.
Daz

 

[Nick JD]

Best to open over the sink Browndog.
I tried this some time back and had some gushers.
Daz

I can't seem to get them to float. They sink almost instantly and are then buried under the sediment over the weeks of carbonation and clearing.

Zero fizzing issues. I wonder why mine sink? A second consideration is that their flavour/aroma comes out, then they are buried after about 4 days ... this might be why I also don't get grassiness.

 

[CDJ]

I was thinking about doing this as the hop flavour and mainly aroma does not stay long in the bottles, good that there is some feedback.

Was also thinking of adding a hop tea at the bulk priming stage. Has anyone done this? or does it make nonsense....