Dry Hopping

[timryan]

gday guys picked up a bag of cascade hops pellets yesterday and im planning on dry hopping them in my next pale ale brew.. Im not wanting to add more bitterness thats why i have elected to dry hop them so i can increase the flavour and aroma.. No i now there is alot of discussions about the dry hopping topic but i would love to know when is it ideal to place them into the fermenter?? i have bought a number of large loose leaf tea bags in which i plan to place the pellets into and place a sinker to weigh it down.. is this the ideal way to do it? Any help would be great i get nervous i will wreck and spoil my brew...

Cheers Tim

 

[razz]

Use the tea bags if you want Tim, I just chuck em loose into the fermenter when fermentation has finished.

 

[Housecat]

I usually wait til about day 4 or 5 after I have pitched the yeast once the bulk of the activity has slowed down (i.e. still slowly bubbling but not off the charts like at day 1 or 2)
as long as you don't leave the lid/clingwrap off for too long, you shouldn't have any problems just chucking them in loose. They settle down the bottom anyway.

HC

 

[dougsbrew]

hi tim, i also just chuck them in on top as is, usually takes about 4 days for them to sink down into the trub. best not to add them during ferment as it has been said the escaping co2 effects them. id avoid using sinkers.

 

[BOG]

If your using pellets just pull the airlock out and feed them down the hole. This keeps the CO2 layer undisturbed.

Wait a few days and they will break up and sink. Some bit's will still float on the surface when it comes to bottling, just stop filling the last bottle before it sucks the stuff off the surface.

As to when, just after high Krausen is best. (3 - 4 days) You will blow a bit of aroma out of the fermentor but not so much as to matter.




BOG

 

[timryan]

cheers fellas for the help another question i quite enjoy a low carb beer eg coopers clear pure blonde etc etc.. I know coopers make a canadian blonde but its not low carb.. what ways can you reduce your carbs in beer and still achieve a clean crisp taste... Cheers Tim

 

[dougsbrew]

sorry mate cant answer that one for you. however i did see and article a few months ago on today tonight or one of those kind of programs in regards to the low carb beers, and the outcome was that it is just a marketing ploy. the difference between the carbs in a low carb beer and a normal beer was minimal.

 

[ekul]

i tried the french press method the other day. (Put hops in french press, add boiling water, throw in fermenter). I threw the hops in as well and it cleared the beer right up! Threw them in the morning, bottled in the arvo. Tasted the beer before and after and it made a massive difference.


Edited to add~ You can actually french press the hops out if you don't want to add the hop particles to the fermenter. I haven't tried this as i was in a hurry and couldn't find the top.

 

[Nashmandu]

cheers fellas for the help another question i quite enjoy a low carb beer eg coopers clear pure blonde etc etc.. I know coopers make a canadian blonde but its not low carb.. what ways can you reduce your carbs in beer and still achieve a clean crisp taste... Cheers Tim

Low carb is a load of shit, alcohol is where most of your carbs come from anyway, but guiness is ''low carb'', and also tasty! .....But its the flavour you like, so ill leave that advice to others....

 

[BjornJ]

hi mate,
basically any way you are comfortable with is good for dry hopping of the ones suggested.

Throw the loose hops in and leave them to settle, don't worry if you bottle a piece of hops.
Put them in a netting bag, that way the netting bag is left of the trub/yeast cake when bottling.

Either way is good, I usually do the netting bag one and just let it float on the top of the beer.

Just be aware that dry hopping can give you more cloudy/hazy beer as you are dissolving stuff in the beer.

I always do it while cold conditioning my beers but this is just for ease, the last 3-4 days before bottling I add a tea bag of hop pellets and it works great.

thanks
Bjorn

 

[timryan]

would anyone be able to explain cold conditioning for me im a little unsure of what it actually is.. Cheers Bjorn what if i used a small about of gelatin as a fining agent would that clear the beer? or would it change the flavour?

 

[DU99]

you can empty tea bags from T2 and put your hops in them..if your concerned..or get some muslin from spotlight and make your own

 

[Yob]

or chux with a marble in... million different ways.. throw em, wrap em, plunger tea, etc. If you want to eliminate the floaties then the chux method is cheap and works fine. just make sure you boil the string that you use to tie up the chux cloth..

and dont use the chux that you just wiped the floor with :lol:

cold conditioning is the method used to drop the bulk of the yeast out of the beer over the course 4 days to a week, routine in my brewery.. once FG has been reached and you have left it alone for another 4 days to a week (for the yeast to clean up after themselvs) you turn the fridge down to 2-4'c this will drop the yeast out and you will get a clearer beer for it.

I dont usually add geletine or other finings as I quite like a bit of cloudy beer (CPA being a house fave.. well it used to be anyway ) and my vegan friends.. or my wifes vegan friends I mean.. can still enjoy the beers I make.

 

[Lillywhite]

cheers fellas for the help another question i quite enjoy a low carb beer eg coopers clear pure blonde etc etc.. I know coopers make a canadian blonde but its not low carb.. what ways can you reduce your carbs in beer and still achieve a clean crisp taste... Cheers Tim

The difference between a pint of full alcohol beer and a low carb beer is equivelant to one little chocolate smartie. To make your beer low carb all you need to do is add some enzymes that encourage the yeast to eat all the sugars in the wort, less sugar = lower carbs. This will increase your alcohol volume so you need to adjust your recipe if you want low carb but not higher alcohol. Your local home brew store should have something.

 

[manticle]

would anyone be able to explain cold conditioning for me im a little unsure of what it actually is.. Cheers Bjorn what if i used a small about of gelatin as a fining agent would that clear the beer? or would it change the flavour?

Cold conditioning is literally conditioning the beer in cold environment. When the brew is finished fermenting (not before) place the entire fermenter in a fridge and leave it as long as you can. The beer will mature - yeast and other particles drop out of suspension etc and the flavour, rounds out, cleans up etc.

In most people's view gelatin won't affect flavour. I remember a thread where somebody suggested they could taste it - generally it should drop out of suspension and not remain in the final bottled beer.

For low carb - look at getting a dry enzyme. However if you do - these will allow the yeast to eat more of the sugar than normal so a 1010 beer may easily become a 1002 beer. This means you need to let the beer keep fermentng until you are absolutely sure it has finished. Otherwise bottles can go boom.

That also means higher alcohol so adding less sugar in the first place is probably smart. Yes they are a marketting gimmick but if you enjoy the taste, it's your beer.

 

[timryan]

Cheers for the help guys.. I think im ganna but down a pale ale with about 25grams of cascade dry hopped in the next few days...