Dry hopping when Cold Crashing?

[menoetes]

Heya Brewheads,

So I've just come out of surgery and can't do any heavy lifting for a few weeks, this has put a crimp in my brewing. Fortunately I put down two brews a day before the surgery and the fermenters can sit in my brew fridge for the next 6 weeks until I'm able to lift them out again to prime and bottle.

So I figure after 3 weeks at 18'c I'll drop them down to 1'c to cold condition for 3 weeks before bottling.

So when do I drop hop for best effect?

I don't want to leave the hops in for more than a week so do I put them in seven days before I drop the temp or just throw them into the cold-crashed beer a week before bulk priming and bottling?

Does the lower temp effect the dry hopping process?

 

[danestead]

What style of beer are they?

Temperature does affect dry hopping. I dry hopped an amber ale at cold crash temps once, for 4 days, and there was considerably less aroma extracted from those hops. After doing that once, I went back to my normal method of dry hopping nce the gravity gets down to about 1.020 (basically 2 or 3 days prior to FG). That way, im hoping if I introduce any oxygen inadvertantly to the beer, it should be eaten up by the still active yeast.

 

[menoetes]

It's a Faux Lager and and English Bitter, neither style technically needs the dry hopping but I wanted to do it anyway. I love the hop aromas when you crack the bottle and pour that first glass...

 

[menoetes]

I've done some more reading, it seems to be an opinion that dropping the temp low enough stops the hops imparting any further aromas to the beer. Both good and bad, if anyone has more experience with this then I'd love to hear from them.

 

[Mickcr250]

I've been wondering the exact same thing and will be watching with interest.

 

[menoetes]

Screw it, I'll dry hop today and start cold crashing Monday.

If I remember, I'll report the results in about 2 months when the darn thing is bottled and sufficiently for the first tasting...

 

[Spiesy]

Different brewers advocate different practices - including the big boys.

I reckon it's always a good idea to add a day or two prior to obtaining FG.
That way you'll still purge the introduced oxygen that comes along for the ride with the hops, but not purge too much of the introduced aroma compounds.

 

[gunbrew]

Hi menoetes,
For what its worth, A way I have tried to get maximum aroma.

Put hops into a French press/ coffee press and add boiling water, pour the resulting fragrant green hoppy hot water into:

A. to the fermenter at or before cold conditioning.

B. to the keg, as it sounds like you are bottling you could do this at the bulk priming stage, if you bulk prime.

Or my personal favourite, both.

I like doing this because the hot water seems to get the most out of the hops, I'm not leaving the hot water with the hops long enough to get any noticeable bittering.

I have previously added hops pellets in during cold conditioning to later find them mostly in tact sitting in the yeast cake.
Making me thinking that the hops potential was wasted a bit.

Happy Brewing.

 

[SimoB]

Different brewers advocate different practices - including the big boys.

I reckon it's always a good idea to add a day or two prior to obtaining FG.
That way you'll still purge the introduced oxygen that comes along for the ride with the hops, but not purge too much of the introduced aroma compounds.

I reckon I added some o2 to my beer last night dry hopping... My hose has small bubbles in it (i was cultivating the yeast, so i used a secondary) and the FG was reached. It's for a comp so I hope I don't **** it through oxidisation. Reckon I have ??

To answer the OT, I usually dry hop a couple of days before CC.

SimoB

 

[menoetes]

Cheers for the feedback guys.

I would usually rack to secondary and add the dry hops before the end of fermentation but I was still kinda bed-bound when the yeast finished it's business.

Gunbrew, the idea of adding a hop tea at the bulk priming stage (as I am a bottler) is very interesting. I might give that a shot in one of my fruitier beers in the near future. It could give it that extra hit right at the end....

SimoB: I have racked to secondary after fermentation has finished before, if you are careful and keep the inflow to the 2nd fermenter submerged, you should avoid too much aeration and be fine. I never noticed it but then again I am not even nearly a competition judge.

 

[Goose]

I've done some more reading, it seems to be an opinion that dropping the temp low enough stops the hops imparting any further aromas to the beer. Both good and bad, if anyone has more experience with this then I'd love to hear from them.

Yes indeed. It makes logical sense that the warmer the temperature the more we extract from the hops, that is why we generally boil them.

If your recipe calls for a 5 day dry hop, then dry hop 5 days before you cold crash and job done. That seems to work for me.

 

[Yob]

Ive done all ways, extensively..

Dry hop in the FV prior to Termanal gravity is OK but you do lose a bit due to the activity, be it reduced, in the FV

Ive hit FV's during CC only and it indeed does get aroma, though somewhat different than adding to a warmer brew.

Ive Keg hopped, never noticed oxidisation.. but it may not have lasted long enough to stale

Ive done all 3 together, and most of the combinations.. at the end of the day a lot of it comes down to the beer, the grist that was used and what you want out of it.

Simply put, Dry hopping at various points throughout the ferment bring different things and bring a complexity (IMO) to the aroma and flavour you get, remember, much percieved flavour is affected by what we smell.

 

[ricardo]

I think the op's original schedule of cold crashing and then dry hopping for 3 weeks will work out very well.

Pat Mcilhenney of Alpine Brewing which in my opinion do some of the best IPA's in the world had this to say

"Dry hopping, for me, works best at no less than 2 weeks at 48*F. Or, 3 weeks at 38*F."