Oxidized Flavor with NE IPAs

Given the precautions taken with the hops, I would look at any keg cleaning residue next

 

Could it be the Zythos? I have been completely unimpressed with Zythos anywhere except for bittering. Anybody used Zythos and liked it in late/aroma additions? I get a very bland but astringent hop flavor and aroma when I use Zythos late/dry hop...maybe biotransformation of this characteristic creates 2-noneeal somehow?

 

I bet its oxygen in that tea ball. Try dryhopping without it and report back. Think about all the room between hops in that thing and you're just throwing it right in the beer.

 

Also, do you use oxiclean?

 

I have brewed using Zythos hops which is a blend of hops (I have no idea how many different varieties are used to make this blend).

I used the Zythos hops along with Simcoe and I was very pleased with the resulting beer (an IPA).

You can read all about it in post #2 of this thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/has-anyone-brewed-much-with-the-hop-zythos.53442/

Cheers!

 

I agree with OP that it is something about NEIPA's that are making this happen. OP said that he's not had this problem with lower hopping rates, I'm assuming e.g. with other IPA's. I am having similar issues, my NEIPAs are darkening more quickly in the bottle than another IPA or DIPA would have. I wonder if the higher larger amount of dry hops, dumped in in two dry hops, creates a huge O2 sponge on top of the beer interacting with whatever little oxygen is in the carboy. That may seem farfetched but it is surprising that with a single dry hopped but still very hoppy IPA this does not happen.

 

Here's my suggestion…purge your keg with CO2. I'll fill my keg with a starsan or iodophor solution and then push it all out with the CO2. I wouldn't use a steel ball personally...I'm not sure how much hops you're able to add to it, but to me it probably isn't enough, especially since hop pellets will expand i believe to 4x their dry size iirc. I've added dry hops to a steel cylinder before that was too small and the dry hops were still dry in the center.
Using a muslin bag (I'll use a 1 gal paint strainer often). Tie it off with floss and drop the hops into the purged keg. Let the oxygen from hop bag & hops diffuse to the top of the keg. I'll usually wait half an hour. Now you should be ready to fill the keg up, hope you can make it work with a closed transfer situation. If you're confident your basically 100% CO2 in the air space of the keg…then don't be shy in flipping my keg upside down a few times over the next couple days in order to get a good mixing of the dry hops into beer.

 

Not sure how/if you are taking gravity readings, but if your pulling the bung in your carboy on consecutive days to determine terminal gravity, that could be a culprit as well.

 

My current method for dry hopping this style while minimizing oxygen:

First charge of hops day 3 of fermentation as it's dying down. The beer is still pushing out CO2 so no oxygen ingest. I let that sit for a week. I fill my dry hopping keg to the brim with starsan and push that out with CO2, throw in a bag of more hops (I put sanitized saran wrap over the opening) then drop the beer out of my SS Brewbucket into the keg and let it sit in the keg at room temp for 4 days. Then I push that with CO2 into my purged serving keg using the same method with the star san and carb up. No oxygenation and big hop aroma.