I was listening to a beersmith podcast with Mitch Steele and he recommended dry hopping after fermentation is complete and even recommended racking the beer off the trub before dry hopping. Said something about the yeast reducing the aroma of the dry hops. I put my dry hops in a bag with a spoon to make them sink to the bottle. I also, don't secondary for IPAs so the hops sit in the yeast trub. I've heard a few people mentioning that they add weights to their dry hop bags as well. What's are your thoughts on how yeast impacts dry hops? Are they good, bad, no effect? Would dry hops sitting in the trub for 5 days have any impact that we would even notice?
I dry hop in the keg, so I avoid the trub issue this way. The suggestion was that, for the most part, you could overcome the negatives associated with yeast interaction by dry-hopping with a little more. That would take care of the reduction aspect, though not the suggestion that the yeast change some of the flavor the hops impart. I don't recall, but at least one brewery specifically dry-hops with the yeast, as they find the interaction desirable in the finished product. Can't recall the brewery.
I've heard firestone dry hops during the very last of fermentation, whether that's accurate or not I am not sure. That makes sense in the fact that say you lose 10% aroma then just add more hops and call it a day. Hopefully by the end if the year I'll have a keg system set up. Seems like the best way to go for many reasons. Thanks for your input.
Yeast absorbs hop oils. This can not be disputed, but it doesn't mean you can't make an adequately hoppy beer dry hopping on the cake. Try dry hopping in the secondary as Mitch Steel suggests, then bottle. See which method you prefer. Base your judgement on familiar recipes and dry hops. I've done both many times and generally preferred dry hopping in the secondary prior to bottling. CO2 was infused in the head space of the secondary. I bought CO2 long before I surrendered to the keg. Dry hopping in the keg is currently my preferred method with respect to maximum aromatic hoppiness.
Most of all I was just curious as I wasn't aware that yeast absorbed hop oils, so when I heard that from Mitch I found it interesting. I think some of the first info I got was that yeast can help clean up some hop flavors, dry hopping with some yeast activities. Thus, the new info kinda contradicted the benefit of the yeast to hops. With the new info it got me thinking maybe hops sitting in a bunch of trub could impact the aroma a lot. I don't think it's worth the extra effort and risk of oxidation to rack the beer for dry hopping, but That could change if I do an experiment and results are much better.
Some aromatics increase with the bio transformation of yeast. There are many that dry hop in the primary. There are ones that crash the yeast and separate before dry hopping. I have been adding some hops the last degree Plato or so of fermentation in primary, then crash, keg and add more hops in the keg. Try both, combine them, decided what you like.
