Dry Hopping Vs Hop Additions Late In The Boil.

[State of the Mind]

Many books suggest adding a proportion of the hops late into the boil for interesting additions to the taste and aroma. However I have been reading and it seems that this is a waste of hops. One book that caught my interest on the topic was Dave Line's book "The Big Book of Brewing". In this book he suggests that most of the volatile aroma producing oils are lost in the evaporation of steam.

Having read all of this. I split an AG batch and boiled one mini batch with hops added at the beginning of the boil, some 30 minutes into the boil, some 10 minutes from the end and lastly some hops 2 minutes from the end. I boiled the other mini batch with hops added at the beginning of the boil and 30 minutes before the end. The hops that were added in the other batch after 30 minutes, were used instead, in secondary fermentation and added directly to the fermenting wort. (Dry Hopping)

The difference I noticed between both batches was that the first batch was a slightly rough in tasting in comparison to the dry hopped batch. I also found that the dry hopped batch had a slightly more pleasant hop taste and aroma. EDIT: Both beers were nice, what I am talking about is subtle difference in taste. Sorry for any confusion caused.

Since this batch it has been dry hopping all the way for me and I refuse to boil hops for less than 20 minutes.I was just wandering other peoples opinions on this and if dry hopping is the way to go always or just in specific recipes.

 

[Stuster]

I certainly add hops later in the boil and I don't think it makes unpalatable beers. Dry hopping is also nice but there are many commercial beers which do add hops later in the boil and people seem to drink them for some reason.

A bit more info on your process would be good. What hops did you use? How much? Did you use the same yeast in both batches? Any chance it was due to contamination in one half?

Anyway, I'd say give it a go again. You might be surprised at how nice it can be.

 

[Fourstar]

The difference I noticed between both batches was that the first batch was a lot more rough tasting and less palatable than the dry hopped batch and that the dry hopped batch had a much more pleasant hop taste and aroma.

That sounds kinda strange. Usually dry hopping can give you a harshness you dont get from bittering additions. Also, the IBU counts of these beers you made will not be equal either as you did not adjust your boil additions for the dry hop batch to balance their IBU counts. The reason the dry hop one is possibly softer is due to a lower IBU count, not because you didnt late hop in the kettle.

 

[zebba]

One book that caught my interest on the topic was Dave Line's book "The Big Book of Brewing". In this book he suggests that most of the volatile aroma producing oils are lost in the evaporation of steam.

That's interesting 'cause in "Radical Brewing" Randy Mosher states he likes to add the bulk of his hops as late additions - from memory he says he add's 1/3 of the IBU's @ 60 and then the remaining 2/3rds later in the boil (i.e. 20min and 5 min). Whilst a lot of aroma may be driven off, some stays. Mind you, I think hops are a tad cheaper for him (i.e. in the US) then they are for us Aussies, so I hope Randy forgives me if I don't quite follow that advise!

In my experience, dry hopping produces different flavours/aromas to late hopping in the boil. They both have a place, but I'm still learning when each is appropriate, and even then it depends on your tastes so advice is always subjective. I dry-hopped 40g of fuggles into a brown recently and it gave a beautiful earthy aroma to the beer which was exactly what I was looking for. I've heard other people say that dry hopping with fuggles makes the beer undrinkable. Each to their own

 

[State of the Mind]

A bit more info on your process would be good. What hops did you use? How much? Did you use the same yeast in both batches? Any chance it was due to contamination in one half?

Sorry, I will try to edit what I have said a bit. When I am talking about the differences between dry hopping and not, I am not meaning to say that the none dry hopped batch was not nice. It was just a subtle difference in taste and aroma between them. BOTH WERE LOVELY BEERS.
What I should have said, was that the dry hopped batch was smoother and more palatable in comparison the the late hop additions batch. Apologies should have properly read through before posting.

That sounds kinda strange. Usually dry hopping can give you a harshness you dont get from bittering additions. Also, the IBU counts of these beers you made will not be equal either as you did not adjust your boil additions for the dry hop batch to balance their IBU counts. The reason the dry hop one is possibly softer is due to a lower IBU count, not because you didnt late hop in the kettle.

That does make sense, really should have taken this into account. When I finally get my head around Beer-smith I will get back to you. :lol:

 

[glaab]

I've given up on the dry hopping, a couple of batches I've used pellets and when I've opened the bottles too much foam has come out and gone all over the bar, every bottle for both batches. The beer was otherwise fine, just had to pour asap once opened. Dunno if anyone else has had this problem, might be from adding too late in the ferment. I find a decent amount late/ at flameout works best. I have a hopback on my unfinished AG setup, that oughta be interesting.
Don't see much talk about hopbacks or Randalls on this site, the yankees seem to go nuts over them.

 

[A3k]

I've given up on the dry hopping, a couple of batches I've used pellets and when I've opened the bottles too much foam has come out and gone all over the bar, every bottle for both batches. The beer was otherwise fine, just had to pour asap once opened. Dunno if anyone else has had this problem, might be from adding too late in the ferment. I find a decent amount late/ at flameout works best. I have a hopback on my unfinished AG setup, that oughta be interesting.
Don't see much talk about hopbacks or Randalls on this site, the yankees seem to go nuts over them.

Hi Glaab,
I don't really bottle much, but do you get much hop debris into your bottles when you dry hop... I'm thinking that the hop debris may be adding nucleation points to your bottles, causing extra bubbling when opening.
Just an thought.

Cheers,
Al

 

[Dazza_devil]

I have dry-hopped with success and no ill effects. I do it about 3 days into fermentation in a little drawstring bag. The beers turned out deicious with heaps of hop aroma.

 

[hazard]

That's interesting 'cause in "Radical Brewing" Randy Mosher states he likes to add the bulk of his hops as late additions - from memory he says he add's 1/3 of the IBU's @ 60 and then the remaining 2/3rds later in the boil (i.e. 20min and 5 min). Whilst a lot of aroma may be driven off, some stays. Mind you, I think hops are a tad cheaper for him (i.e. in the US) then they are for us Aussies, so I hope Randy forgives me if I don't quite follow that advise!

Indeed, and Jamil has a recipe where hops are only added 20 min from end of boil (and 10 min and 0 min as well. Read this article - very interesting.

http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

But its up to you and what you like. I've never tried this at home, but I once tasted a SMaSH by Dr Smurto that all was 30 min hop addition (IIRC), and it did have an excellent finish - lots of flavour but not excesive bitterness. It was very impressive, and I should pull my finger out and do it.

 

[Bribie G]

The other great UK book "Brew your own British Real Ales" by Graham Wheeler suggests adding late hops for the last 10 minutes of the boil - he claims that this is what the traditional breweries British breweries all seem to do - and then some, but not all, his recipes have some dry hopping. I think it depends on the hops, you wouldn't want to late hop with big quantities of, say, Challenger or Target as they are modern high alpha hops, but Goldings and particularly Styrian Goldings lend themselves to late hopping - as with Timothy Taylor's Landlord which is sent through a hop back of Styrians I believe.

I see the OP is in the UK - here in Australia a few of us have been experimenting with making a strong hop tea in a coffee press/plunger (French Press or whatever the term would be in the UK). I currently have a couple of American Amber ales which have had two additions of a hop such as Amarillo - 30g french pressed and added after 4 days, and another 30g french pressed and added into secondary / cold crash. Both turned out nicely subtle and not too over the top in hop flavour and aroma.

Another recent experiment, which I'll be bottling next week, is a simple Pilsener type lager with just one hop - in this case New Zealand Aroma Hallertau flowers. I made 500ml of hop tea out of 45g of these hops, put the hop tea aside, used the 'pressings' as the bittering hops - and yes I got nice bitterness - then I tipped the hop tea into the fermenter at the same time as pitching the yeast. The idea is to see if I can get the best of both worlds out of just one hop. Will report next week on the original thread I raised for this experiment.

 

[Nick JD]

A while back I did one, massive hop addition 30 minutes into the boil for 20 minutes.

I got all the IBUs I was after, but also massive flavour. Pity it was crappy Saaz that I used (trying to use them up ... bad brewing practice methinks - if it sux, bin it).

 

[hazard]

Goldings and particularly Styrian Goldings lend themselves to late hopping - as with Timothy Taylor's Landlord which is sent through a hop back of Styrians I believe.

here in Australia a few of us have been experimenting with making a strong hop tea in a coffee press/plunger

I've been trying to make something close to a TTL for a while now, and my last attempt is getting close® - well it tastes very good IMHO even if not a clone. I don't have a hopback, but I got a nice hop flavour, which is needed for TTL, using the coffe plunger method and adding bittering hops as FWH. Actually, I only used the coffee plunger because I forgot to add the planned late hops at flameout! But I got a good result anyway so will continue with this. As described above, I steeped hops (1 plug SG, 1 plug EKG) for 1 min, poured off the tea for aroma, then steeped for another 15 min to capture flavour. Tea was added directly to the bottling bucket. Oh and I forgot to say, priming sugar was added to the original steep (is that a noun?).

 

[Dazza_devil]

Are high Alpha hops also big on aroma?
What is the best criteria for selecting hops for dry-hopping?
Perhaps hop selection is the key to either late or dry hopping

 

[Screwtop]

Have given up late hopping (10 - 0 min) altogether. Not from reading, from my own results. Find better results using less hops with dry hopping after fermentation has finished in the fermenter and in the keg.

Screwy

Disclaimer: These findings are the result of the brewers own tests using his brewing process and equipment, others should conduct their own tests and not assume that these results will be reproduced exactly using their process and equipment.

 

[BjornJ]

BribieG,
that sounds like a really interesting experiment, look forward to reading more about it.


Boagsy,
my understanding is that the hop cones have two components that are used.

The resin is the stuff that is converted by boiling to bitter the beer. The higher AA% a hop has, it means there is more resins per gr hops and therefore more bittering to extract.

The other component of the hop, the essential oils are the ones that add the flavor/aroma. The essential oils can appearantly be divided into the "citrusy" and the "floraly" components, but I believe these divisions are very rough as the essential oils consists of hundreds of different components.

Reading in "The Art and Science of Brewing", it says that the essential oils evaporate from the lenght of time we boil the beer.
That is why the only component left in the beer from the 60 min boil is the resin, transformed into "bittering".

My understanding is that there is no direct link between high resin content (high AA %) and high essential oils % in the hops.

Pride of Ringwood is a popular hop because it has high AA%, meaning it has a lot of resin per gram hops so good for bittering and therefor early in the boil.

Saaz is a hop low in AA% so it has little resin per gram of hops, but has a lot of essential oils so it has good aroma/flavor properties. This is why it is a "noble hop" I believe, due to the high % of essential oils.


Here is page 56 of the Art and Science :




If BribieG perfects a way to use both essential oils and resin from the same hops, that would be an awesome step forward!

Interested to hear more about how that will work out, will check the other thread now.


edit:
I would then claim the right hop for dry hopping (or late hopping) are hops with high essential oils, so called "aroma hops".
These will be able to loose some essential oils in the wort, while the AA% (resin, bittering) has no effect as you are not boiling the wort.

thanks
Bjorn

 

[Jerry]

Have given up late hopping (10 - 0 min) altogether. Not from reading, from my own results. Find better results using less hops with dry hopping after fermentation has finished in the fermenter and in the keg.

Screwy

Disclaimer: These findings are the result of the brewers own tests using his brewing process and equipment, others should conduct their own tests and not assume that these results will be reproduced exactly using their process and equipment.

Hi Screwy,

What hop form do you use in the keg when dry hopping? Pellets, plugs, flowers?

Also what do you put them in, or do you just throw them in.

Dry hopping is something Ive always planned to do but just never got around to doing.

After 70 odd AGs its a bit embarrassing.

Cheers

Scott

 

[Bribie G]

Are high Alpha hops also big on aroma?
What is the best criteria for selecting hops for dry-hopping?
Perhaps hop selection is the key to either late or dry hopping

Up until I suppose the 1960s the traditional breweries used the hops of their region that had been in use for generations, e.g. Fuggles and Goldings in the UK, probably something Fuggly in Australia, Hallertauer and Saaz etc in Germany. By todays standards they were pretty low AA. Then with big brewing amalgamations producing the megabreweries run by accountants, and the trend (thankfully not so much in Continental Europe) to blander less aromatic beers, the hunt was on to breed hops with higher and higher AA. POR was the highest AA hop in the world at that time.

But apart from bittering hops, some varieties were claimed by the breeding labs to be 'dual purpose' - useful for bittering and also aroma - so varieties such as Challenger and Target (UK) and Columbus (USA) were bred. But many brewers (including old hands in the commercial breweries themselves) claim that many dual purpose hops taste, well, funny. They claim that the beer drinking public has got used to these manky flavours and don't know the difference any more.

I sort of agree with that, you only have to taste a fuggles goldings styrians beer like TT Landlord to appreciate what a true hit of 'old world' hops taste like. There's a pretty good rundown on Wikipedia here:. ( Edit: and that list is far from complete.) I reckon it would take you a decade to get through all the hops in their possible combinations, by which time they would probably have come up with another ten or twenty :beerbang: Since I started brewing again, we've already had a few, like Galaxy and Citra.

 

[drsmurto]

Have given up late hopping (10 - 0 min) altogether. Not from reading, from my own results. Find better results using less hops with dry hopping after fermentation has finished in the fermenter and in the keg.

Screwy

Disclaimer: These findings are the result of the brewers own tests using his brewing process and equipment, others should conduct their own tests and not assume that these results will be reproduced exactly using their process and equipment.

I've gone the opposite direction.

To my palate, and to those who taste my beer, the aroma i get from a flameout addition is more than adequate. Its been a long time since i dry hopped anything.

Insert Screwy's disclaimer here

 

[State of the Mind]

I've given up on the dry hopping, a couple of batches I've used pellets and when I've opened the bottles too much foam has come out and gone all over the bar, every bottle for both batches. The beer was otherwise fine, just had to pour asap once opened. Dunno if anyone else has had this problem, might be from adding too late in the ferment. I find a decent amount late/ at flameout works best. I have a hopback on my unfinished AG setup, that oughta be interesting.

I've never really appreciated the use of hop pellets in dry hopping as they are always difficuilt to filter out. As a result you end up with excess trub in the bottles or/and I'm guessing as you are suffering from, excess head. I always find that whole hop flowers are much better to use, as they filter out much easier.
But there are so many other factors so I can't be sure :huh: :huh:

 

[Steve]

Hi Screwy,

What hop form do you use in the keg when dry hopping? Pellets, plugs, flowers?

Also what do you put them in, or do you just throw them in.

Dry hopping is something Ive always planned to do but just never got around to doing.

After 70 odd AGs its a bit embarrassing.

Cheers

Scott

Scott, you can use any of those three but they have to be contained in something or they will clog the dip tube. You can get one of those stainless hop balls and chuck it in (but they eventually rust and break). I get some of my wifes stockings cut a bit off the bottom, put the hops in and tie it off and chuck that in. You really should try it, very simple and huge flavour.
Cheers
Steve