How to dry hop

[GNU]

Hi everyone,

About to do my first dry hop and wanted to know the best technique for adding them. I've done some reading that suggest a folded piece of cloth, tea ball, panty hose and loose.

As I'm not racking to a second fermenter before bottling, I was unsure what to do. I normally leave my brew in the fermenter for 3 weeks with no cold crash, plan is to dry hop on day 10.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Not For Horses]

I always put the pellets straight in the fermenter 2 to 4 days before bottling. I used a hop bag once but got a funky mould growth all around it. Never bothered with anything after that.

 

[Chris7]

I don't worry about putting them in a bag or anything like that. I did one time and I just don't think they contributed as much as they could have. I just chuck them straight in the FV for 5 days roughly then when I cold crash they all fall out of suspension along with a lot of the yeast. After cold conditioning for a few days I rack to the keg and bottle a few and it's all good.

Edit: Just read that you don't cold crash, so not sure which method may be best for you.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Don't use a tea ball, of the options you listed I've found that to be the least efficient. If using cloth, I hope you mean nylon or voile material and not a handkerchief?

You could also make a hop tea, using a coffee plunger. I'm still yet to try it, but by all accounts it works very well and you use less hops.

 

[shacked]

For what it's worth: I use food grade muslin (put it in boiling water before use) to make my own bag. Also add a small lump of stainless steel to weigh the hop bag down, so it doesn't float on the top.

 

[peaky]

Chuck them in loose. I've dry hopped heaps of times and only once found a bit of hop pellet in a bottle. I never rack, and I've never bothered with bags and tea balls etc. You should look at cold crashing your beer, it makes a difference.

 

[HBHB]

Without any scientific basis to confirm the results, i ran an experiment a couple of years ago to try and work out for myself what was the better way to dry hop.

The beer chosen was our Punk AIPA recipe. Sitting at 6.5% abv, 75IBU and requiring a solid dry hop, it was considered a good prospect. To even the playing field, a quad batch was done and relevant water profile ( high sulphate levels and low chloride ) was worked up to suit the hoppy nature of the recipe. All were pitched with US-05 and fermented in 2 fridges under temp control.

On day 8, post primary fermentation:

1 vessel got a hop sock loaded with T90 pellets and left at fermentation temp.

1 got loose pellets and left in same fridge at fermentation temp.

1 got transferred off the yeast cake into secondary vessel and temp was dropped to 5 degrees C same hops applied loose

1 got transferred off the yeast cake into secondary and transported home to be put in a fridge at primary fermentation temp.

After 5 days all were transferred to kegs and remaining beer was bottled.

In comparative tasting, there was little if any noticeable difference between the first 2 loose and bagged. Both were pretty good, but:

The 2 that were racked were the standouts - hop flavour and aroma were far superior in both, but best results came from the one that was dry hopped after racking and then dry hopped cold. Distinctly less vegetal notes in the one that was done colder. It also had what i could best describe as the cleanest flavour and aroma. It was also the clearest beer by a wide margin with less vegetal "staining" or haze.

Like i said. There's absolutely no scientific basis to the experiment, but that's what we found. These days, when time and fridge space allow, i transfer and then cool for dry hopping with loose pellets. Often times, they're in the vessel on the hops for longer these days as well & without any of the grassy notes i used to get regularly. (Especially noticeable with Galaxy for some reason)

For the ones that i dry hop on the yeast cake, i usually add a higher dose of hops to allow for the loses or do another dry hop in the keg in a bag. I've got a 26% rye in a keg now which was dry hopped with 50g of columbus that was a bit lacking, but a second dose of 50g in the keg took it to new heights.

I'm sure one of the guys with more scientific knowledge of the secret lives of yeast could confirm, but the hops will tend to be coated by the yeast to some degree when pitched too early and there may be some compounds that yeast will consume. I don't know what or why exactly.

Hope this helps.

 

[Curly79]

Hi all, I'm about to bottle my second brew. It's an australian bitter been in the fermenter for two weeks now with a good 6 days of no bubbles or foam. I think I bottled my first batch too early and that tastes ordinary still. Is two weeks enough. Hydrometer readings been steady for 4 days now. Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[wereprawn]

Hi Curly.

Depends. What was your final gravity reading ?. The ingredients and type of yeast can influence the FG also.

 

[TheWiggman]

You could also make a hop tea, using a coffee plunger. I'm still yet to try it, but by all accounts it works very well and you use less hops.

So do you mean steep at fermentation temps in wort/water for 4 or so days then plunge the hop matter out?

 

[Black Devil Dog]

So do you mean steep at fermentation temps in wort/water for 4 or so days then plunge the hop matter out?

This is how Newtown Clown explained it to me, but for various reasons I still haven't done it. I need to dry hop a batch that I'm fermenting at the moment, so I might give this method a go.


I first read about it in BYO or Zymurgy a few years ago. I tried their suggested 2 litres for a 5 gallon batch but now do 1/2 - 1 litre depending on the amount of hops.
To make an aroma tea, boil a small amount of very low gravity wort 1.005-1.015
E.g. 15 grams dry malt in 500 ml water = 1.011 SG
Add hops to a French press and add the boiling wort. Let the hops steep for a while (I let it stand for 30 mins. (longer doesn't seem to do any more and 15 mins seems just as good)
Press off the hop tea. Cool it and add to the beer. The hot wort will extract flavor and aroma from the hops better than water alone.
Use roughly one third the amount of hops you would add as late hops or dry hops when making the tea - 14 g of hops in an aroma tea gives a nice kicker to a pale ale.
You could add some of the tea and taste the beer before adding all of it or pour off a measured amount and add a proportion of the tea to gauge the effect - say 5 ml of tea at a time to 200 ml of beer until it is Goldilocks (just right!), then scale that up to your batch volume.
The small amount of fermentables in the tea will cause a slight secondary fermentation. Let this go to completion and then let the beer sit on the yeast for a day or two before racking to your bottles, secondary or cold conditioning.

You can also do similar if bulk priming and make the tea with the priming sugar... I have done that when I thought more aroma was needed.