Dry Versus Ferment Hopping

[manticle]

For sure dry hopping adds flavour - but it can also wreck a batch if one is not familiar with the hop or has an aversion to grassiness in small amounts. I find I can get the same amount of flavour (though less of that "flavour" is the aroma proportion (which I prefer)) through using more hops late in the boil. I find its flavour superior to dry hopping's vegetal hints - but it costs a lot more than 1g/L. Horses for courses and YMMV.

BTW - thanks for the bottle . It was a supurb example of dry hopping done well!

No I agree with you - dry hopping done badly can stuff a beer right up. That's true for every step of the process though.

Glad you enjoyed the beer. Plenty of late boil hops in that one, subtle dry hopping and not left too long.

 

[speedie]

Guys thank for some constructive feedback and I will forget the negative stuff

As I said in the previous batch it was ferment hopped

There was about 2 Kgs in 400 litres of brew @ around 5 grams /litre it was far from grassy must say that there have been comments of apricot and mango general floral notes

So when you say if it is over done man you must have too whack a dame lot of hop in to get it to grassy

I can still remember the first batch of LCPA that Janis MacDonald brewed now that was really over grassy with every burp it tasted like you where chewing lawn



Hay dan @ 12.5 grams / litre that must have been one hell of a brew what was to starting gravity can only assume that it must have been high to attempt to balance a brew that hoppy

I tried an Anderson valley AIPA has 26 hop additions was supposed to be over 80 odd IBUS and my first impression was honey then heaps of hop but not bitter to say the least

Cheers speedie

 

[RobB]

.....The hydrocarbon fraction.........The non hydrocarbon fraction ....... oxygen bearing portion of the aroma compounds........myrcene and caraphylene and fanescene etc etc. .......

TB,

Are certain aroma compounds more likely to be scrubbed out by CO2 and disappear through the airlock?

 

[DanRayner]

Speedie, 1.060 (was meant to be 1.055 but I forgot I was boiling it for 75mins and not 60 so must have miscalculated my starting volume). Most of the hops were in flameout (85g), whirlpool (85g) and the two dry hop (220g) additions. 75min bittering hops were only about 40g. Epic Pale isn't all that bitter but it has a whack-load of hop flavour and aroma!

Anderson Valley is one of my favourites - love the 20th Ann. 2IPA

 

[Thirsty Boy]

How long does it take for the hydrocrabon fraction take to be driven off? Would it still be present when cube hopping, or is the minute or two taken to fill the cube enough to send it out the hole? My cube hopping experiment is going well, and i have achieved a flavour experience that i haven't had before. I'm doing one with cube hopping and dry hop, one just cube hop to see the difference.

Thanks for your other response, i bought some phos acid so i can safely wash yeast, should be here today. Its probably not necessary but i like the idea of it.

I'm stain out of the fight...

They hydrocarbon fraction goes fast... Minutes. But it doesn't completely go of course, and the later the hop the more stays around. But you are talking keeping a tiny bit more of a tiny proportion.

Fast enough... So that I put my cube hops in after i fill my cube, to minimize the time between hops hitting wort and lid being screwed on. BUT, in cube hops... You have the other factor... Heat. And you have it for heaps longer. This also changes the character of the aroma, and IMO adds a much more noticeable flavor component as well. Cube hops aren't the same as late hops, and they aren't the same as dry hops or hop-backs. They're cube hops... That's what they taste like.

As for it all being from the books... Well, I not only study, I happen to brew too. These are all things i've tried as well as studied. And if the differences between the different sorts of hopping additions are lost on some people's palates when they get the glass of beer in front of them..... Well, they generally aren't lost on mine, so I brew according to those differences and the experience I want from my glass of beer.

Elul.... Don't wash your yeast in phosphoric acid. Wash it in cooled boiled water. Acid washing is for reducing bacterial load and is worse than nothing If you don't do it completely right. You just want to rinse the hops out of your yeast.... Water is plenty.

TB,

Are certain aroma compounds more likely to be scrubbed out by CO2 and disappear through the airlock?

I think yes, certain compounds have more affinity for dispersing into C02 than others... But for the life of me I can't remember which. I "think" it's some of the oxygen bearing fraction.... It's why you have a nice tall glass for something like a pilsner, so the bubbles have to travel a longer way through the liquid and have more chance to pick up aroma, which will mainly be that portion in a pilsner, on the way. Or maybe that means they have less of a tendency... And need all the help they can get, and the other bits just rush out??

But I am really just speculating. Nothing much to back that speculation up with.

 

[Nick JD]

Glad you enjoyed the beer. Plenty of late boil hops in that one, subtle dry hopping and not left too long.

Is the recipe on the DB?

 

[speedie]

Some thought was given to using ferment hopping from the concept of using Co2 as a scrubbing agent for the extraction of what we all wont in our beer

I dont have a chemical background but thought there was a lot of co2 going on in the ferment

So have applied some generalization to this brewing use

There are more papers on hop extraction but is will do for starters



http://www.globalhops.com/products.html

 

[argon]

For sure dry hopping adds flavour - but it can also wreck a batch if one is not familiar with the hop or has an aversion to grassiness in small amounts.

I totally agree here... i've 'almost' ruined batches by dry hopping. That is i've finished the keg but didn't enjoy it as much as i could have if i didn't dry hop. I've given up on keg hopping altogether cause i get way too much gassiness from it. But again it could be variety. The first time i did it, it was beautiful with BSaaz. But done it 2 or 3 times since with Cascade, Centennial and hated it. Have heard that a Styrian plug is good in a TTLL. But won't be giving it a go in the current kegs.

These days i'm very careful when dry hopping not to over do it. Some of the best advice i ever got in regards to dry hopping was to open the bag of hops, give it a big sniff. If you like it dry hop it. If you don't, AKA you get an aroma which you don't want in your beer, then don't dry hop it. Pretty simple and logical once you think about it.

 

[speedie]

Update on ferment

We have had some hot weather here in the west so had to resort to wrapping my fermenters in towels wet them down and keep brew around the 20 degree mark

The ferment lasted 5 days and dropped from 1055 to 1010



All went well both vessels now sitting in cool room and settling down to cold conditions of 2.5 degrees for a few days

Will then transfer into Co2 flushed vessels dry hop one and leave for a week or two

Should be ready for Christmas time

Will post tasting results when sampled

Cheers speedie

 

[manticle]

Is the recipe on the DB?

Sorry for late reply.

Yes

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...amp;recipe=1276

 

[manticle]

I totally agree here... i've 'almost' ruined batches by dry hopping. That is i've finished the keg but didn't enjoy it as much as i could have if i didn't dry hop. I've given up on keg hopping altogether cause i get way too much gassiness from it. But again it could be variety. The first time i did it, it was beautiful with BSaaz. But done it 2 or 3 times since with Cascade, Centennial and hated it. Have heard that a Styrian plug is good in a TTLL. But won't be giving it a go in the current kegs.

These days i'm very careful when dry hopping not to over do it. Some of the best advice i ever got in regards to dry hopping was to open the bag of hops, give it a big sniff. If you like it dry hop it. If you don't, AKA you get an aroma which you don't want in your beer, then don't dry hop it. Pretty simple and logical once you think about it.

I'm not a kegger but I wouldn't dry hop a bottle. If I kegged I would apply a similar principle and dry hop secondary then transfer to tertiary vessel (bottle or keg).

Not saying dry hopping the keg is bad as I've never kegged so I couldn't suggest such things and keep my serious, non-arsethrough talking hat on. I dry hop in the fermenter with the right hop, for the right time and it's not grassy. I'm extrapolating that doing the same for keggers will give similar results.

 

[Silo Ted]

Way to ignore Speedie's thread bump

 

[speedie]

Sorry for late reply.

Yes

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...amp;recipe=1276

what did this batch turn out like
have you done it again and if so did you change anything
speedie

 

[manticle]

I've done it and variations a few times. Bottled another version last week.

To my palate it's turned out very tasty and I've had good feedback on it from brewers and non brewer alike.

Decent malt background (I like a good malt backbone) with very perceptible bitterness and a good dose of fruitiness. Definitely no grass from dry hopping. If left to cold condition or if left in the bottle a bit longer, it puts paid to the idea that highly hopped/dry hopped beers are necessarily cloudy (something I've read/heard somewhere).

The main reason for changing the recent version was purely that I ran out of centennial hops - I would brew as is next time and am stocking up on the right hops so it can become a regular.

 

[Bribie G]

I occasionally dry hop a keg with a plug of an appropriate hop (which for me boils down to Cascade, EKG or Styrians) encased in a giant tea ball. 4* kindly sent me one he'd got in Vietnam and I can't seem to find any locally otherwise I'd do it more often.

As I've posted, plugs exist because they are exactly the right size to slip through the spile hole of a UK real ale cask and I would bet that the reason plugs are now available in every sort of variety is
<speculation>
The plug company (ies) found that they had spare capacity
There's a demand from home brewers and others because plugs travel better and are more compact so possibly keep better as well so most are probably used in the boil, not as a dry hopper.
So lets plug everything we can get our hands on - yeehaah
</speculation>

but that doesn't mean that any plug makes a good keg hopper. My current styrian-plugged "Promised Gold" yorkie is just what I was aiming for.

 

[speedie]

Manticle

Heres an update on two brews

Both have been settling for one week at 2 degrees the ferment hopped is by far the most brilliant of the two which would lead towards hazing from unboiled hop

The other has more of grassy tastes but not out of whack

As a final taste test we will put both brews on to the coven an see witch which is witch

As a foot note I plan to brew this weekend do a pale 95% crystal5% and smash some hop at it citra,nelson,Amarillo dry hop with Slovenian styrian goldings plugs

Split batch for the nonbelievers 200litres us 05 200 litres north western (wyeast)

Will post on completion

When too much beer is not ENOUGH

enigma

 

[speedie]

bribie sort of like ED! the cigar toking sock

 

[speedie]

Tasting notes on brew

Everyone that has tried the brews all comment on the ferment hopped batch being the most appealing

In all aspects

They both have and hold a very thick tight head the colour is the same but with the dry hopped one it has a lot of hazing and is no way bright would put this factor from unboiled hop

They both contain exactly the same amount of hop so considering this there is a marked difference in the balance of the beer only variation being last amount of hop in usage

Deducting from test I would advocate ferment hopping as a means to get the desired result

It doesnt scrub out in the co2 release of gas as I thought that it would

If any of you readers try this please post back your findings



Dan would you please let me know how the epic clone brew is as I am more than interested in your results

I recently brewed a twenty hop batch using three hop varieties and slammed in a lot of hop over a one hour boil

Split 400 litre batch and used US 05 (dried) and Northwest (wyeast liquid) yeasts

These are cold conditioning at present

Will give more results on tasting

Ps both batches were ferment hopped!



To all of the rest of the non believers have a good and prosperous brewing new year!

speedie

 

[DanRayner]

Heya,

the Epic Pale Ale recipe I used was devised and discussed on the Brewing Network's "Can You Brew It" wil Jamil Zainasheff and directly below is the recipe they discuss on air (pretty much word for word) - I did a double batch and I had a great deal of trouble with the volume of hop pellets: my plate chiller got clogged so many times! Plus with my system I have more evaporation and so it was waaaay strong with a much lower starting volume than expected so I diluted it out a little (post chill). Also, cos there are dry hops that go in after the yeast has settled after fermentation I also had trouble getting beer from the fermenter to the keg without any hop flakes that clog up the spear (so maybe rack it carefully from ferementer to another vessel, let it settle again or use finings and then keg it from there?).

I found mine to have a hop aroma that was a little grassier/coarser and a little darker than the original Epic beer. Slightly stronger in alcohol (even after dilution) the hop flavour was great and, I think due to the evaporation, the bitterness was a touch high. But a pretty tasty beer none-the-less. I'm going to work on getting my kettle sorted a little better before attempting this again and adjust boil volumes but it is definitely something I'd try again.

cheers!

Dan

-------------------

EPIC PALE ALE

22L

1052 13 plato
8.3 srm
23.2 IBU (45 by testing)
(finish 1012)

80% 4.36kg Maris Otter
10% 0.55kg crystal 15 --------------(light crystal?)
6.6% 0.380g crystal 20 --------------(Caramalt 35 ebc?)
3.3% 0.180kg carapils

148degF

1272 American Ale II - clean, attenuates well

7g Cascade 7.5% AAU 75mins
14g Cascade 30mins
34g 10mins
42.5g 0mins
42.5g after 20min whirlpool
57g dry hop just a few days before terminal gravity
then crash cool for a couple of days
57g dry hop cold for 5 days

 

[speedie]

dan does it have that resinous aroma and flavour that epic has?