Dry hopping techniques

[ballantynedewolf]

I note you are trying to make low alcohol and lots of body. If there are still fermentable sugars left at the time of bottling even if ferment is going to occur very slowly you will overcarbonate in the bottle. If you are making say 0.5 % beers then you are really vulnerable to a wild yeast getting in and starting to chew down on those " body " sugars.

I think look at the sugars you've got in the bottle as the cause rather than any you might make with dry hopping and diastase enzyme ( especially as you aren't doing much dry hopping ).

Could consider pasteurising your beer if making a very low alcohol beer.
If you mean session beers say 3-4 percent which are overcarbed make sure ferment is really finished and use a priming calculator found on brewers friend so you don't add too much sugar at the bottling phase.

I mean 3-4% - low for a fan of the Belgians!
Is three steady FGs on 3 consecutive days enough, or should I spread those readings out more?

 

[Klosey]

I mean 3-4% - low for a fan of the Belgians!
Is three steady FGs on 3 consecutive days enough, or should I spread those readings out more?

I reckon 3 steady fg. on 3 consecutive days should work well. If you find on the 3rd day it has dropped slightly I would ramp up the temperature slightly check the fg the next day to see if there was any more movement in the fg.

 

[Klosey]

Well one of the biggest fears I had dropping the temperature back to 3 to 4c after the diacetyl rest was oxygen suck back via the airlock. Have some sterilised cotton wool balls ready to block the airlock. But then it occurred to me that oxygen is going to enter the fermenter anyway when I remove the lid to add the hops to dry hop. I really want to try the dry hop at 3 or 4 degrees to experiment but I wonder whether it would make much difference if I dry hopped at 10 to 12c? Or am I just overthinking this

 

[fifis101]

You can set up a hop bag on the inside of your fermenter that's held to the under side fo the lid by a magnet. Then when you're ready to hop, simply remove the magent off the ouside of the lid and you've done an enclosed dry hop.

 

[Klosey]

You can set up a hop bag on the inside of your fermenter that's held to the under side fo the lid by a magnet. Then when you're ready to hop, simply remove the magent off the ouside of the lid and you've done an enclosed dry hop.

Thanks Fifis. Never thought of that. The magnet would have to attach to some metal on the hop bag? Would that comprise the sterility?

 

[fifis101]

Either that or have a thin plastic flap/strip permanently fixed to the inside of the lid on one end & with a magnet attached to the other end. Then removing the outer magnet releases one end of the flap & the hop bag. That way the inner magnet won't have to go in your beer.

 

[duncbrewer]

Sorry for late reply hadn't been watching the thread by default for some reason.

I regularly use the magnet and hop bag trick. Trying to dry hop thru the collection vessel in FSaurus is hopeless .
I put a normal magnet into a vac seal bag. Then attach that into a " pocket " in the hop bag ( this helps to reduce the dangle and means magnet can be against wall with no hops inbetween) , then use a rare earth magnet salvaged from hard disk drives on the outside.
This way you can slide the hops in and use it to swish it around and also raise it out of the beer when the time is up.
Normal magnets inside and out not strong enough for a big hop batch. You must make sure that the hops stay out of the beer / krausen otherwise they can soak up and get heavy and you have an early dry hop ( learnt from experience) and hence changed to stronger magnets . Though I suppose if really clever and you want to hop around high krausen automatically then don't worry.

 

[duncbrewer]

REgarding the suck back connecting to a large " wine bag " filled with CO2 you harvested during the ferment is a more reliable method than cotton wool which will not stop gas particles. ie attach tube to top of bubbler, other end of tube attached to wine bag and you make your own reservoir. When full seal wine bag and go back to bubbling into the atmosphere, reconnect it all when ferment finished and you are going to cold crash but no liquid in the bubbler this time. !!

 

[yankinoz]

You can set up a hop bag on the inside of your fermenter that's held to the under side fo the lid by a magnet. Then when you're ready to hop, simply remove the magent off the ouside of the lid and you've done an enclosed dry hop.

Wish I''d though of that ten years ago.

 

[MHB]

A magnetic stir-bar works pretty well. They are Teflon coated so can be sterilised in anything. I wouldn’t put one of the nice shiny metal magnets into a brew they are mostly Nickel plated and in a acidic wort/ferment you can get some Nickel going into solution - pretty nasty toxic heavy metal for both people and yeast.

Mark

 

[duncbrewer]

@MHB
as above "normal magnet into a vac seal bag" to protect magnet, brew and you.

 

[MHB]

That works to. Helps if you have a vac sealer.
Little PTFE coated stir bars are pretty cheap these days and Teflon is so tough you could boil it in caustic, heat sterilise, soak in alcohol... I like bullet proof options
Mark

 

[duncbrewer]

What I really need is to teflon coat a bigger magnet but think that's moving beyond homebrew.

 

[///]

Waste of time cold. Vdk pass then in. For more utility and if using a tank with ports bubble with 5 psi daily for a few mins, you would be amazed at how many float or sink.

 

[Tomoc1989]

Not sure if i have right place for this question.
Ive done couple batches using dry hopping now, i just take cap off throw hops in and purge with c02. Then re pressure uni tank/kegmentor to 8psi.
testing the beer have great hop aroma but once kegged seem to loose alot of the aroma im after.
i dry hop two days before cold crashing to 1*c for 18-24hrs then keg by closed transfer.
is the cold crash causing the loss of aroma?

 

[Doctormcbrewdle]

Not sure if i have right place for this question.
Ive done couple batches using dry hopping now, i just take cap off throw hops in and purge with c02. Then re pressure uni tank/kegmentor to 8psi.
testing the beer have great hop aroma but once kegged seem to loose alot of the aroma im after.
i dry hop two days before cold crashing to 1*c for 18-24hrs then keg by closed transfer.
is the cold crash causing the loss of aroma?

It will actually be the active yeast biotransforming the hop compounds into fermentables.

For MASSIVE, fresh aromatics be sure to dry hop after finning all yeast from the beer

All the best

 

[Tomoc1989]

Thanks for reply.
Ive tried chilling to 13-15*c and then dry hopping but had same effect in different batch. thought that would have made a difference but didnt. Still had a nice beer though.
ill look into fining yeast once fermentation is over for next batch.

 

[Doctormcbrewdle]

Have a read up on "hop creep" here when you get a chance and all the best for your next brew The Surprising Science Of Dry Hopping | Lessons From Tom Shellhammer