So, when bottling an IPA last night it ,once again, that the hops left after dry hopping and the leftover beer had much more aroma than the beer bottled. Now the beer itself smells and tastes great, but it seems I am wasting hops with so much aroma potential being tossed out. Usually I dry hop for 7 days and for this batch it was 10 days. Is a hop rocket the best way to add more hop aroma or is there another method?
In my experience, a hop rocket isn't any better than the same size KO addition...dry hopping in a keg is probably your best bet.
oxygen uptake is one of the achilles heel of brewers trying to brew an IPA. Even with specialized equipment, some oxygen ingest is a guarantee and that is oxygen uptake is going to have a negative effect on your aroma...the key is to minimize it. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out my system to basically eliminate it...yet putting my recent brew against JC's IPA @ Trillium in a blind...his still kicked my ass in aroma. Side note...one thing, are you using oxygen absorbent bottle caps? It was shown by some study that I read about by Peter Wolfe (brewing scientist at AB-InBev), it was shown that those caps not only absorb some oxygen...but a lot of hop oils as well.
I use swing top bottles. I have. Heard to. O2 stripping hops and I am not super carefull when racking or bottling. Must be it's time to start.
I've recently had the exact opposite problem, where my aroma is incredible (hop candy) and the taste is underwhelming. I haven't used CO2 transfers, but will take on that endeavor on my next batch. I've since started water chem adjustments and pH monitoring, but still had a similar issue.
I drank a homebrewed (bottled) IPA last evening that was bottled on 4/23/15 so that beer is presently 2.5 months old. That beer still had a nice and notable aroma but in fairness the amount of aroma was less than it was one month prior. Some BAs seem to have the opinion that hoppy beers need to be kegged but it has been my consistent experience that bottled homebrewed hoppy beers hold up as well as commercial hoppy bottled beers. There is no doubt that air (oxygen) is the enemy of beer and that oxidation will manifest itself in hoppy beers via hop aroma fade. Steps need to be taken to minimize ‘exposure’ of the beer to air (oxygen) during the bottling process. One step is to minimize splashing during bottling. Cheers!
I bottle everything, and definatly do some splashing when bottling. Still, the dregs I dump out after racking are more intense smelling than the beer. Perhaps it is normal. The batch in question, as well as others, was dry hopped with citra, cascade, Amarillo Columbus and chinook, 1 oz each. A fairly stiff mix for me.
I brewed a Stone Ruination clone back in March of this year, and swore to take as many precautions as necessary to avoid oxidation – dry hopped while there was still airlock activity, purged headspace with CO2, avoided any kind of splashing during bottling, and I still get some of that caramelly, sherry-like sweetness associated with oxidation. The 140+ IBUs are still there, but the dank quality associated with some of the great commercial IIPAs is not. It's still a tasty sipper at 8.5% abv - I just pretend it's a heavily hopped American barleywine and all is good I guess the point is, you can make a tasty IPA, but to make it outstanding (super fresh, dank hop aromatics and flavor) you've got to really work at eliminating oxygen completely. I don't think I've got the right equipment for that yet...
