Dry Hopping, Grassiness And Cold Conditioning

[The Giant]

Howdy ALl

Been doing some research on here around cold conditioning and just had some questions around it and dry hopping.

Been dry hopping in a lot of my brews and generally just chuck the hops in but have also used hop bags. I will never dry hop for more than 4 days to avoid grassiness so I always ensure to dry hop 4 days prior to bottling.

I have recently been cold conditioning as well but given the fact that I want to avoid grassiness I've only ever really cold conditioned for 2 days max. I will dry hop, wait 2 days, crank the fridge down and cold condition for 2 days, then bottle.

I have been getting some good results but want to cold condition longer. Given I dont want to rack to secondary my question is does cold conditioning eliminate the chances of your beer getting grassy flavours from dry hopping longer? Can I leave my brew with the hops for 4 days and then cold condition for a week all in the primary fermenter, or will this cause grassiness due to the fact the hops will be in there a total of 11 days?

Got a nice fat yak clone going atm and really want to get the best out of it.

Cheers
Steve

 

[manticle]

Just cold condition for as long as you want and chuck the dry hops in 4-5 days before you want to bottle. I often CC then chuck dry hops in after a couple of days.

 

[The Giant]

Thanks mate, cant believe i didnt think about doing it that way hahahah idiot

 

[Acasta]

Im wondering, is there much difference in the resultant flavour of CC dry hopping as oppose to ferment temp dry hopping?

 

[Lecterfan]

Im wondering, is there much difference in the resultant flavour of CC dry hopping as oppose to ferment temp dry hopping?

There is an awesome "brew strong" episode on the Brewing network all about that very topic - worthwhile checking out if you have the time. I won't paraphrase as I'll probably get something wrong and then have my carcass shredded... But yes, they do address differences in temps and dry hopping etc.

 

[The Giant]

Funny you mention that Acasta

My last few brews that I chucked the hops in to dry hop and cold conditioned at the same time I found the beer very overpowered or even grassy. I was only dry hopping for a max of 3 days and the results were very different to what I experienced before. It was taking a month for it to calm down in the keg where I was happy with it. Add to that the flavours/aromas of the dry hop left after about 2 months.

I did a LCPA recently. Great in the fermented, dry hopped and cold conditioned for 3 days.
Went into keg and gassed up for 1 week. After that 1st week was real fruity and nothing like a LCPA, after a month it was perfect, now 2 months on its got none of that hoppy goodness.

I've just done a blonde and Fat yak without cold conditioning for the above reasons to test it out. 1 week in the keg and I am very happy with the flavours already.

I dont know the reasoning behind it but I would but I def feel that I'm not getting as good results cold conditioning and dry hopping at the same time.

 

[Acasta]

Thanks Lecter, Ill have a search to see if i can find it.

Giant, thanks for the observation. I guess ill have to brew more too find out. At the moment i've got a APA i dry hopped for a week, it tastes really grassy and im yet to CC it. I don't really wanna leave the hops in it so i may rack+strain it into secondary.

Another option i through would be to use hop bags then remove them and CC in the same vessel. You'd want it to be bigish, so the hops can be free and do there thang.

 

[The Giant]

yeah thats the conclusion i've come to as well mate
either rack to secondary and then cold condition
or use a hop ball/bag that i can take out when finished and then cold condition

 

[Yob]

(BN) Dry Hopping

can never be assed with a hop bag these days, it's just one more thing to bloody clean or expence if you throw it out, I just bung em in, by the time they have settled and I then CC for 4-5 days and then rack to bulk prime there is very little to nil 'floaties'. Its not a concern for the process I use.

Yob

 

[Acasta]

(BN) Dry Hopping

can never be assed with a hop bag these days, it's just one more thing to bloody clean or expence if you throw it out, I just bung em in, by the time they have settled and I then CC for 4-5 days and then rack to bulk prime there is very little to nil 'floaties'. Its not a concern for the process I use.

Yob

Thanks, I found this before. Its got good info but its quite long and i got bored.

My worry is not with particles floating, but the grassy-ness that dry hopping for too long can cause. Im thinking I may mess around with some CC hopping, as well as removing hops from the beer before CCing so i can hop at higher temps.
The reason i would like to separate the hops out is because i don't always have an empty keg to add the beer them too.

 

[Nick JD]

For me, grassiness and dry hopping is almost enteriely due to the hop strain (and even in part to the hop bintage (heh heh) or growing region).

Some hops are grass-city (centenial and hallertau). Some no matter how hard I push never get grassy (citra).

I often hop 1g/L of citra in a keg and it just keeps getting better and better. Once I dry hopped a euro lager (Wey Pils and Hallertau to 30 IBUs) and wreck it completely - hallertau is a tad grassy in the boil.

Then there's the surprising dry hoppers, like galena (blueberry) and southern cross (lemon/pine).

But centenial, lawn clippings (the stuff I have anyway).

 

[Acasta]

Yeah, i also read it is very dependent on strain. In terms of 'how long' the brew strong dudes were saying just to taste it. So i guess next time ill be taking samples then racking onto gelatine and filtering hops.
Then after that ill try CC + dry
Then ill have to learn what to go with and avoid.

Nick, atm I've got Cascade and Pacifica (pacific hallertau), maybe the Pacifica is giving off the grassyness.

 

[argon]

For me, grassiness and dry hopping is almost enteriely due to the hop strain (and even in part to the hop bintage (heh heh) or growing region).

Some hops are grass-city (centenial and hallertau). Some no matter how hard I push never get grassy (citra).

I often hop 1g/L of citra in a keg and it just keeps getting better and better. Once I dry hopped a euro lager (Wey Pils and Hallertau to 30 IBUs) and wreck it completely - hallertau is a tad grassy in the boil.

Then there's the surprising dry hoppers, like galena (blueberry) and southern cross (lemon/pine).

But centenial, lawn clippings (the stuff I have anyway).

I reckon tour on the money here nick. I've had terrible results with centennial dry hopping, like you said, overpowering lawn clippings... Completely ruined a batch for me. Wheras I recently dry hopped a combo of chinook, cascade and simcoe at 6g/L cold and it came out fan-bloody-tastic. Same beer that's on at the archive right now, if anyone wants a tester.

 

[MarkBastard]

I have never experienced 'grassyness' when dry hopping. Maybe I have but I like grassyness? Not sure.

From memory I've dry hopped with Cascade, Chinook, Willamette, Nelson Sauvin (flowers) and EKG. Dry hopping in the keg too.

I love dry hopped character, that resiny goodness that tastes even better when you burp after a big gulp of beer.

 

[The Giant]

Could be on to something Nick

The LCPA I had was Chinook and Cascade.
Other brews I havent loved the results of were also using Simcoe, NS and more Cascade.

I've kegged a recent blonde with Simcoe hops again but this time no CC so will be interesting to see the results compared to the same batch i made last time with Simcoe that I CC at the same time

 

[argon]

Simcoe throws resin and grassiness when dry hopped, so you may be getting that. Where i love it, you may hate it.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Citra is the king of dry hoppiness for APA. All the fruitiness, none of the grassiness. Nelson is pretty good too - I thought it would be too wine-y, but actually retains fruit without tasting like cheap sav-blanc.

Cascade gives me a little grassiness, but the flavour it gets combined with the minor grassiness I find to be really nice.

The big disappointment for me is galaxy.

Saaz is always a winner and works in almost anything.

Goomba

 

[The Giant]

+1 for disappointment with Galaxy, 30g of that dry hopped ruined my brew
tasted like some nasty herbal remedy $hit

Might have to get me hands on some Citra

 

[chunckious]

+1 for disappointment with Galaxy, 30g of that dry hopped ruined my brew
tasted like some nasty herbal remedy $hit

Might have to get me hands on some Citra

******* great.
My 1st dry hopping experience was 30g of Galaxy.....in the fermenter now. Though I do like Grassy-ness in hoppy beers.

 

[argon]

******* great.
My 1st dry hopping experience was 30g of Galaxy.....in the fermenter now. Though I do like Grassy-ness in hoppy beers.

FWIW ... i dry hopped 1.5g/L in a single hop Galaxy Pale Ale about 12 months ago and loved... goes to show each to their own