Dry Hopping Efficiency With Flowers

[Fat Bastard]

Just looked at my latest IPA in the secondary cube, and damn if there isn't a veritable raft of hop flowers floating on top. 90 g of Motueka and Pacifica to be exact. Been in there 4 days now and will be bottled Sunday. The last I did with flowers was a Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale and that had 40g, and a similar raft on top, but they were definately wet through at least. I wasn't happy with the hop aroma in that one, so adopted a more is better mindset.

The buggers definately don't sink, and can't possibly the best way to utilise 90g of hop flowers.

The way I see it, I have the following options:

1) don't rack into a cube for secondary and dry hop in the primary fermenter where I can fit a sock full of hops and a big bit of 1" stainless bar through the hole.
2) Keep jamming hop flowers through the hole in the cube and just deal with the wasted money
3) Buy a Blichmann Hop Rocket (or make my own ghetto version)

Anyone got any thoughts regarding dry hopping with large amounts of flowers?

Cheers,

FB

 

[raven19]

Use a sanitised hop sock with a few sanitised marbles and your flowers to hold it down in the beer?

 

[psytramp]

brilliant!!

 

[Fat Bastard]

I've found that with 80g of pellets that 7 or 8 M12 staino nuts will sink the sock initially, but they'll be floating after 3 or 4 days, and there's no way I can fit a sock with 40g through the hole in a cube with something bigger, like a piece of 1" stainless bar.

So, utilising my ace powers of comprehension, what I'm really asking is:

Is there a better way of utilising hops to achieve the same aroma, or should I just leave the beer in the fermenter (where I can fit a big fat hop-sock and weights through the hole) for the whole 3 week ferment schedule and not bother pissing about with racking to a cube for secondary.

Cheers,

FB

 

[Charst]

+1 for the sanitised marbles but i just went to the supermarket, got some of the knee high stockings and stuffed it full of flowers + marble and tied a knot in the open end, dropped it into the cube, no dramas.

EDIT: sanitised stocking before use.

 

[hoppy2B]

Whole flowers need more boiling as apposed to pellets. This is because pelleted hops have been crushed exposing the lupulin glands. Does that sound right? :huh:
If dry hopping with whole flowers you may get a better result crushing or chopping up the cones.
I'm not sure if that's what you're asking but thought it worth considering. :blink:

 

[Fat Bastard]

Whole flowers need more boiling as apposed to pellets. This is because pelleted hops have been crushed exposing the lupulin glands. Does that sound right? :huh:
If dry hopping with whole flowers you may get a better result crushing or chopping up the cones.
I'm not sure if that's what you're asking but thought it worth considering. :blink:

That makes quite a bit of sense. So if I get a big bowl, my, ahem, dry vegetable matter and a pair of scissors and chop it up finely, and leave out the tobacco, I may get better utilisation of the lupulins.

Nice to know my youth wasn't mis-spent! :blink:

Might even be able to make 90g of dry flowers fit into the cube that way!

 

[hoppy2B]

Hop hash. h34r:

 

[going down a hill]

That makes quite a bit of sense. So if I get a big bowl, my, ahem, dry vegetable matter and a pair of scissors and chop it up finely, and leave out the tobacco, I may get better utilisation of the lupulins.

Nice to know my youth wasn't mis-spent! :blink:

Might even be able to make 90g of dry flowers fit into the cube that way!

Just don't get carried away. That **** might hurt.

 

[Fat Bastard]

If only I had a conical fermenter this thread would really be going places.

 

[kymba]

use something sanatisable, stainless and magnetic in a hopsock (cutlery?) and a neo magnet on the outside of the cube

as for your current dilemma, i have nothing...mister miyagi the hops out?

 

[katzke]

Just rock it a bit or stick a racking cane in and break them up a bit. They float because that is what they do.

You could try a hop tea if floating flowers bothers you.

 

[gunbrew]

Blend your hop flowers before you put them in, boil or dry hop.
I started using this method to prevent flowes blocking taps and after noticing how much lumpulin was left in whole flowers after the boil.
Have found that I get more bitterness/flavour/aroma out of the same weight of flowers by blending them.
Cheers.

 

[felten]

I blend my flowers for dry hopping as well (and if using them w/ Argon method). I don't think it helped them to sink in the FV, but it makes me feel better about any wasted lupulin.

 

[Fat Bastard]

Sampled the 90g dry hop IPA today as I was bottling it. Certainly had a big hop aroma and taste!

Yesterdays brew day was to be Ross' NS Summer ale with more late hop additions to increase hop aroma, but in the spirit of experimentation, I did exactly the same recipe as last time but with the hop additions mull...er... chopped up in the blender. We'll see how it goes in a few weeks time. I'll copy the last IPA with the 90g dry hop next brew but with mulled up hop additions to see if I can taste the difference again. 410g of hops is a lot to be putting into a 20 litre brew!

 

[kaspa07]

Just don't get carried away. That **** might hurt.

hmmm....never thought of smoking hops, apparently its a relative of weed, never smoked weed though

never thought of hop efficiency might have to give the marbles a try

i normay just dump a heap of flowers direcly into the fermenter and just put a stocking over the tube when im transfering into the seccondary

 

[Yob]

there is probably a reason why it's not reccomended Tom...

Not Woth the Effort

Yob

 

[hoppy2B]

1 gram of hops hash builds up on the harvesting machinery as a result of every 50 kilograms that pass through, but that doesn't necessarily mean that hops hash is 50,000 times stronger than hops. They're being deliberately deceptive. h34r:

 

[Fat Bastard]

Just to add some closure to the thread, I sampled the NS ale with the blended hop additions today. It's noticably more bitter and noticably hoppier, and I far prefer this version, even after only a week in the bottle.

Looks like I will be blending all hop flowers prior to use in the future. I'll try the Motueka/Pacifica IPA next up just to be sure!

 

[kymba]

thanks for reminding me that i forgot to blend yesterdays argon, although i did just dump everything into the FV without straining, so hopefully i get some flavour from that

i need to make a big sign for the garage that reminds me to blend the flowers and add the floccer @ 10 - forgot to add it to the last 3 brews