DDH-ing and threshold

for me personally from a homebrew scale the more I dry hop the longer the conditioning it needs. Seems like when I heavily dry hop, what I call, raw green hop flavor or hop burn lingers longer. It’s weird but when I heavily drop hop a beer it has a stronger aroma two weeks after kegging vs two days.

lower dry hopped beers are ready days after kegging.

 

So, the hop burn 'stuff' drops out with aging?

I personally bottle condition vs. keg. I have consistently noticed that my IPAs are at their peak of flavor sometime between 4-5 weeks from the bottling date. I do try a bottle (or two) prior to the time mark. I personally do not pick up any hop burn in those beers but the beers just seem like they need time to fully come into shape (I wish I could describe this better).

It seems like a 'matra' that you need to drink IPAs very, very fresh but for my bottle conditioned IPAs those beer are best at 1+ month from bottling.

For the case of bottle conditioning an actual secondary fermentation occurs withing the bottle. Perhaps because of the effects of another step of fermentation IPAs need to 'settle' from this additional process step?

Cheers!

 

I Have not had hop burn on a homebrew scale that does not drop off. I have also not had hop burn to the level of some commercial ipas. Personally I think hop burn comes from excess dry hops being consumed too early. I think the more hops you add you do need more time to allow it to “round” out. Too many hops consumed too Fresh you get that “raw” hop flavor:

on a side note and a Personal soap box if people want beer to taste like a hop pellet just eat one and follow it up a chaser. Balance of hops, malt and yeast still make the best beers even if the balance favors hops over the other two company’s. It just can’t be 90% hops and 10% malt and yeast.

 

LOL!

I had a friend over to help me brew a wet hopped harvest ale and I had a dish of pellet hops sitting out (for the bittering addition). I was getting things prepared for the beginning of brewing and the next thing I know my friend Gary asks me if I had a napkin (I was confused at the time why he was asking). I handed him a napkin and I noticed the pained look on his face. The next thing I know he spit something out into the napkin. I asked: "What the hell was that?". He responded: "I took one of the hop pellets and I ate it". I just laughed and told him (which he already knew): "You shouldn't do that". I suppose I should have offered him some beer to drink but I frankly did not think of it at the time.

On a related note my wife made a Chinese pork stir fry for dinner this evening and she used too much hot sauce and my mouth was on fire! I ate some ice cream for dessert to 'put the fire out'. I am not looking forward to my bathroom break tomorrow.

Cheers!

 

I have found that with most IPAs from my former neighbor, Beer Tree , indeed - 4-5 weeks is when they are optimal. About half the time , there is an astringency at the back of the throat , i.e. "hop burn", when < 1 week from canning. Even with the ones without that, the 4-5 week peak is still generally the case.