dry hopping advice?

Dry-hopped beers tend to add to the aroma more than flavor, but will impose a little flavor as well. Your flavoring additions would be anwhere from 15 minutes to the end of the boil.

For a 5-gal batch, there are some things I wish I would've known first. Heres my 2 cents:

If your making a 5 gallon batch, shoot for getting 6 gallons or so into a fermenter, that way you have enough beer to compensate for the dry-hop absorption.

Dry-hop with at least 2 oz (for 5-gal)...any less than that is kind of a waste to me.

Dry-hop no more than 7 days...I like to DH for 5-6 days, depending on my work schedule.

There are many theories to DH'ing in primary or secondary, which I won't get into right now. But if you aren't reusing your yeast, don't bother using a secondary. Just dry-hop into the primary as soon as primary fermentation is complete or near complete. I like to ferment for 3 weeks and dry-hop for another 6 days after that.

Experiment with your dry-hops. It's the only way to tell what you might like. Some hops play well-together some don't. I like Amarillo-Cascade, Citra-Centennial-Simcoe, Citra-Faloner's Flight. Mosaic is a good one by itself. If you can split your IPA into 1 gallon batches after fermenting is complete and dry-hop them differently and then compare the results.

Enjoy!

 

If you're looking for more hop flavor don't worry about dry hopping and add a lot of late addition <15min and do a long whirlpool/hop stand

 

Good feedback already here. Here are my .02:

-Can the amount of hops and the schedule during boil and flameout achieve similar hop strength without dry hopping? Similar? Sure. The same? Probably not. alpha acids are still being boiled off at the end of the boil. They will continue to isomerize down below boiling as well.

-If I'm to dry hop, what are the benefits (or risks) of dry hopping in primary vs. secondary? Already answered above. Benefits of dry-hopping during the end of fermentation help alleviate the oxygenation that will happen when you add your dry hops. Adding them during high fermentation theoretically could 'scrub' out hop aroma. After reading various blogs I personally like to start my first round of dry-hopping when i'm about 75-80% attenuated. For risks I would only worry about sanitation and oxygenation. I don't normally bother sanitizing the hop sack, however I would not leave the fermenter open for longer than I needed.

-Any tips or advice you wish you had when your attempted your first dry hopped beer? Yeah; make more wort, dry hop more, and weigh down the hop sack with sanitized weights.

- Any hop combinations you can suggest for something skunky and floral (I'd like to try Simcoe) I would try as much as possible. People experience different hops and aromas differently. I tried a couple batches dry hopped solely with nelson sauvin and did not care for them. However adding them in combination with other hops resulted in something I enjoyed more.

 

Firstly, dry hopping is done to obtain hop aroma. Since the majority of flavor perception is via our olfactory senses, aroma translates to flavor.

· Can the amount of hops and the schedule during boil and flameout achieve similar hop strength without dry hopping? Dry hopping will extract essential oils that are boiled off in the boil kettle. You will obtain a different aroma quality via dry hopping vs. boil/flameout additions.

· If I'm to dry hop, what are the benefits (or risks) of dry hopping in primary vs. secondary? I highly recommend that you add your dry hops to the primary; there is no need for a secondary. My personal method is to use a muslin bag weighed down with sanitized (boiled) marbles. I simply ‘plop’ the bag with hops into my primary bucket.

· Any tips or advice you wish you had when your attempted your first dry hopped beer? Not really; read above.

· Any hop combinations you can suggest for something skunky and floral (I'd like to try Simcoe). Hop flavor/aroma will be different for each individual since we all have our own unique palate. What may be perceived as floral to me may be perceived by you as being herbal. I am a BIG fan of Simcoe; I pick up a pine flavor/aroma from Simcoe.

Cheers!

 

Yes the hop character you get from different uses is certainly different. And yes aroma does translate to flavor perception, but that doesn't mean that all flavor derives from aroma. I tend to like late hop addition hop character opposed to any flavor perception you get from dry hopping. Many hop oils are super volatile and dissipate quickly and to keep that big nose throughout the entire enjoyment of the beer you have to keep swirling your glass which takes away the CO2, takes away body(or whats left from a possible dry IPA), introduces more O2 which aids in the degradation of the hop oils themselves. So I have found that if you want a lot of hop character and not just a big nose(especially when first pouring) then late addition hops, especially flame out then 30min hop stand(no boiling so not evaporating oils anywhere near that of during the boil) tends to get you the most hop character in the flavor department that sustains throughout the entire beer when still fresh.

Myrcene hydrocarbons(citrus, piney, resinous) are very volatile and the lower the temperature the better for keeping the oils around in the beer. Using hops with high myrcene levels be most noticed in dry hopping.
Humulene hydracarbons(woody, earthy, herbal) are also volatile but have a very high boiling point around 200F. Using hops with high humulene levels as late hop additions and hop stands will give a huge hop character in the flavor.

 

FWIW:

At the 2010 NHC, James Altweis provided flashpoint temperatures for the ‘top 4’ essential oils:

· Myrcene: 103°F

· Caryophyllene: 200°F

· Farnesene: 79°

· Humulene: 110.2°F

Cheers!

 

Flash point and boil points are two different things.

cheers!

 

I have no comment concerning flashpoint vs. boiling point but the flashpoint is where the essential oils start to vaporize:

“The essential oils found in hops are volatile and provide beer with the hop flavor and aroma hop aficionados enjoy. While there are hundreds of essential oil components, for practical purposes brewers tend to focus on 4-8 main essential oils that play vital roles in providing hop varietal characteristics. One important characteristic is the essential oil's flashpoint, or the temperature at which the essential oil is actively vaporizing to the point where it could ignite if sufficient vapors were present. At wort boiling temperatures, all hop essential oils have surpassed their flashpoints, so a vigorous boil will drive them off fairly quickly.”

Dry hopping is below all of the essential oils flashpoint temperatures and therefore they will not vaporize.

Cheers!

 

@JackHorzempa I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying. The flash point is where oils starts to vaporize, but at this point by no means are they anywhere near completely gone. Not until their boiling point will they evaporate quickly. I'm also not trying to say that you don't retain more oils at dry hop temps, you certainly will. Hydrocarbons act differently at different temps, but weather its a solubility issue at certain temps or what, I'm not sure. But there is, from my experience, much more hop character throughout the entire beer from flame out and whirlpool/hop stand than simply the big nose you get from dry hopping.

 

That's interesting that you say that. I just had an e-mail exchange with the head brewer at Trillium in Boston. They are brewing some of the best hop forward beers anywhere right now. I asked for some tips. JC's advice was to move some of my whirlpool/hop stand additions to the dry hop stages. More dry hops then boil hops. Their beers have a huge nose and bright hop character that sails strong from start to finish of every sip. I can't argue with his results. He also suggested adding the first stage earlier in primary. Most say with 1 to 2 points to go after 7 to 10 days. He was saying between day 3 and 5. Again his results are solid. I plan on experimenting with it.

 

Thats cool, you definitely get big aroma. Starting your dry hop schedule 2 points before FG is a traditional way of dry hopping, like in a cask beer. The english have dry hopped using hop plugs for years. The beer is usually racked into the firkin/kilderkin/barrel about 2 points above FG.

 

If you look at just AMOUNTS, dryhopping is already where most hops are used in most American IPAs...typically for a 5 gal batch: <1 oz bittering, maybe a couple oz late in the boil and whirlpool and the rest (over half) as dryhop additions...usually.

Sometimes, it's WHAT you dryhop with that makes the difference...pungent aroma is what we've come to expect from an American IPA.

 

@telejunkie (Dave Green) wrote an excellent article entitled Advanced Dry Hopping.

http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3187-advanced-dry-hopping-techniques

Cheers!

 

The other advice I forgot to mention was that he uses exclusively pellets. Here's some of his advice below. I had already been implementing some but not all of his techniques. I was more impressed that he took the time to offer me anything.

"Dry hop a bit earlier when yeast is still active, and dry hop 'warm' ie. Mid 60Fs. Don't try to get all the yeast out before dry hopping. More important for the yeast to have a chance to bioconvert the precursors present in aromatic oils in the hops.

Dry hopping w leaf hops, im not a fan. Quality is usually quite low vs pellets. Very oxidized.

Purge the keg w co2 w hops added, before racking in beer. Once beer is on dry hops, give a cpuple more blasts pf co2 and release a cpuple times. Then repressurize to ~5psi or so.

4 day dwell time.

Cold crash w hops in the beer, bring up Then rack out to co2 purged serving keg or force carb and serve from the same keg you dry hopped in. Once cold you don't really run the risk of over extracting vegetal flavors.

Use a very fine mesh bag for pellet hops,.something to weigh it down so hops stay submerged, but kept off bottom by tying the bag up w some Glide floss (unflavored...this is just teflon), run the floss up out of lid, tie to lid top.

Otherwise the poppits will get clogged. Which is super terrible. Agitate the keg once a day until you drop it cold...advantage of a Corny vs a conical fermenter!"

 

thanks Jack for the shout-out!

Would mostly agree with Jesse14 and JC's advice. If you go through that article, both Matt Bryndilson of Firestone Walker and Peter Wolfe from A-B talked to me about adding two doses of dry hops, the first dose of dry hops just prior to primary fermentation finishing up (Peter actually recommended racking onto dry hops in the secondary just prior to primary finishing up to prevent oxidation issues & allow biotransformations to occur on hop oils), and a second round of dry hops after yeast has dropped from suspension. The big caveat about adding hops to a still active fermentation is beer volcano potential. I wish I could share a pic Bryndilson sent along...looks like a 150 bbl fermenter exploding from the top hatch.

You can get a ton of hop character from a well played whirlpool addition...but to get that added, fresh & raw edge you need to dry hop. Also an ultimate goal is to try to get almost zero uptake of oxygen during transferring & when adding dry hops. Hopefully you can get some of that advice from the article. (hmmm, actually doesn't look like the sidebar on that topic was included). Best of luck!

 

AROMA STEEP!!! I think that's the best way to do it. I used to keg hop but I stopped because I was getting too much resin and grassy notes.

 

If doing this, is the premise going to be that the yeast left in suspension will be enough to fully attenuate and clean up the beer? That would seem to really require an "art" as to when to rack the beer over. I don't take a gravity sample until I transfer so I don't introduce any O2. So I would just have to pick a time to transfer based on falling Krausen or past experience with a certain strain I guess.

 

agree and yes that is the premise...I've actually never tried so I'm preaching about something I actually don't have any experience with...just conversation with Peter. But if you're good at gauging this (or have one of those either beer bug or brew nanny devices that take real time gravity readings) then it maybe worth a try.