Saving All Hops for Dry Hop

My routine hop schedule for APAs/IPAs is FWH to target IBUs, then all post boil hops (hop stands and dry hopping). I get a subtle, smooth bitterness from the FWH (and hop stand) with huge aroma from the dry hopping (usually do 2-3 separate additions at ~ 3 days each).

 

I've done a bittering addition only / save all the rest of the hops for dry hopping ipa before. I found it to have lots of aroma but lack hop flavor.

 

I agree. It's the hop addition at the 15 minute mark that provides the hop flavoring for the beer. Skip it and you'll leave a lot of flavor out.

 

I've done it before for an ipa and just as koopa reports, plenty of aroma, but lacking in the flavor dept.
There are plenty of instances that this technique is used for ciders, meads and soured beers.

 

I wouldn't recommend it

 

I have done it with saisons with great success.

 

I'm currently drinking an IPA that had ~ 4 ounces in the kettle and 6 ounces for a 5-day dry hop. Lots and lots of juicy Citra goodness.

 

I tend to get the most flavor out of the 25 - 20 minute mark myself, but we are splitting hairs here
Lots of these time quotes are also dependent on how fast you get your wort chilled too.

 

Dennis,

At last year's NHC in Philly both Brad Smith and Stan Hieronymus were advocates of not adding any hops mid-boil; in other words only add hops up front for bittering and then the end of boil for flavor/aroma (and maybe dry hop too). I had a fairly long discussion with Stan when he signed my Hops book on this topic. His line of reasoning was that hops which are boiled for any significant time will lose all of the essential oils and consequently lose 'flavor'.

Do you have an opinion on what is 'added' by the hops that are boiled for the last 25, 20, or 15 minutes of the boil?

Cheers!

Jack

 

It's worth noting that both the length of the stand and the temperature you do the hop stand at plays a big role in what you get out of it along the taste/aroma spectrum. If going for taste, I'd say hop standing btw the 180F - 212F range is your best bet (you will also get additional IBU's doing this). If going for aroma, I'd say 110F is the best bang for your buck. If you want both, I like adding some around 200F while in the process of slowly chilling my wort and then adding the rest closer to 110-120F and then doing the stand.

When going for aroma with them, I like them when my "grain to glass" time is quick. If, for some reason, I'm opting for a longer fermentation period, extended dry hopping, extended conditioning time, etc. then I feel as if the aroma addition from the hop stand kind of fades and gets trumped by the dry hop. Typically though I do a hopstand, do a fairly quick fermentation, and do a short dry hop for maximum aroma.

 

Hi Jack,

I think that is better advice for a commercial brewery since the beer sits in the kettle / whirlpool for so long while being moved through the chiller and being transferred to the fermentor. Although there is a well respected brewery within an hour of me (Peekskill) that predominantly does just that and, IMHO, there beers fall victim to the "loads of aroma but lacking in flavor" department too.

On a homebrew level (where our batch sizes are small and chilling rates are fast) I would say that they are giving the best advice with regards to maximizing aroma.

It's my understanding that some hop oils (the "essential oils") are much more volatile than others. Volatility obviously is what makes them excellent aroma contributors but is also what allows them to be flashed off quickly by extended exposure to boiling wort. The hydrocarbon fraction of these oils are quickly flashed off due to the heat.

Isomerization of alpha acids and oxidation of beta acids are clearly known to be the main sources of the bitterness component of flavor. As for the other components of flavor, I'm not entirely sure of the exact mechanics behind it. I always read that hop oils, oxidation, fermentation / yeast contact play a role.

Could it be possible that a longer contact time with boiling wort somehow does a better job of extracting the hop oils that aren't very volatile?

Since aroma tends to dominate flavor (and as most say makes up 80-90% of what we "taste"), could it be that boiling off some of the volatile hop oils actually allows for more taste perception? That last one might sound crazy, but I sometimes feel like I get more "flavor" out of my hoppy beers after they age a bit and the aroma tapers off! No science behind it, just an observation on my part.

Perhaps flavor is really just a half way point between bitterness and aroma in the sense that it requires partial isomerization of alpha acids and the partial reduction of aromatic volatile oils?

Moving beyond the kettle, I tend to observe that having a slightly higher FG and/or having a bit of low lovibond crystal malt in my grain bill actually helps the hop flavor to "pop" more. Something about the contrast that seems to have an enhancing effect. Of course the lowest FG and least amount of crystal of course maximizes the bitterness component of hop flavor. So maybe I get more hop flavor "pop" from the slightly higher FG and low lovibond crystal simply because it's curbing the overall perceived bitterness? Kind of like how FWH offers a smoother bitterness that people often feel adds a better "flavor" than a traditional bittering addition?

That brings up another point......length of contact time btw the vegetal components of hops and boiling wort. While most (myself included typically) try to avoid pulling some vegetal flavors into the beer due to extended dry hop contact time, I actually take it one step further. I like to also reduce the contact time of my hot side hop additions. My normal strategy when making hoppy beers is to actually skip doing a 90 or 60 minute addition and increase my 25 minute addition to get the ibu's I want. Definitely more expensive, but I like the flavor it produces myself. It's nice when I can turn the economy of scale that often works against homebrewers to my advantage vs. the big boys. Could you imagine how much it would cost them to do the same? Surely now you'd say that Stan's suggestion would provide the ultimate reduction in potential hot side vegetal flavor extraction. That begs the question though: Perhaps a little of those flavors in the hot side mix actually contributes to what we call hop flavor?

 

Below is an extract from Dave Green’s (@telejunkie ) article entitled Hop Stands that was published in BYO March/April 2013:

“Dry Hop Considerations

Another factor to consider is how to handle dry hopping your hop-forward beers if you employ an extended hop stand. Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery performed an extensive study on hop stands and dry hopping under the guidance of the Portland, Oregon brewmaster at the time Van Havig, (now of Gigantic Brewing Co., Portland, Oregon). The study was published by the Master Brewers Association of the Americas Technical Quarterly and considered beers that were hopped in four different ways, short hop stand (50 minutes) and no dry hops, long hop stand (80 minutes) and no dry hops, no hop stand and just dry hops and finally half the hops in hop stand (80 minutes) and half the hops for dry hopping. Beers produced using exclusively hop stands and the beers produced using exclusively dry hops will both result in well-developed hop characteristics, but there were some nuances. The long hop stand developed more hop flavor and aroma than the short hop stand indicating that essential oils were still soaking into the wort after 50 minutes. The exclusively dry hopped beer received its best marks in the aroma department, higher than the hop stand beers, but scored lower for its hop flavor. The beers where only half of the hops were added for the hop stand and half were added for aroma ended up scoring high in both departments. Havig's study also showed that adding 1 lb./bbl (0.45 kg/bbl) Amarillo® dry hops produced the same amount of hop aroma as ½ lb./bbl (0.23 kg/bbl), indicating diminishing returns at higher dry hop rates.

So if you are just giving this technique a try, here is what I would suggest based on the study's findings. Take all the hops you plan to add for late addition hops and dry hops and cut them in half. Add half at knockout and the second half as a dry hop addition. Again, don't feel the need to go overboard with these additions.”

FWIW, my personal method for the aroma hop addition is end of boil (with a hop stand) and dry hopping.

Cheers!

https://byo.com/component/k2/item/2808-hop-stands

 

Dennis,

Thank you for your prompt response to my query.

You articulated a number of questions in your response. I will comment on your questions (I will not claim that these comments represent ‘answers’).

“Could it be possible that a longer contact time with boiling wort somehow does a better job of extracting the hop oils that aren't very volatile?” I am personally not aware of any essential oils that are not very volatile. 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

I will readily admit that I don’t know flashpoint values for other essential oils (e.g., Linalool, Geraniol, B-Pinene, etc.). Do you know these values?

“Since aroma tends to dominate flavor (and as most say makes up 80-90% of what we "taste"), could it be that boiling off some of the volatile hop oils actually allows for more taste perception? “ It seems to me that Brad Smith and Stan Hieronymus would state that since all of the flavor hops essential oils have been volatized during the extended boil (25, 20, or 15 minutes) then the flavor hops have ‘lost’ their flavor.

“That last one might sound crazy, but I sometimes feel like I get more "flavor" out of my hoppy beers after they age a bit and the aroma tapers off! No science behind it, just an observation on my part.” My guess here is that the hop flavor/aroma of the hoppy beer has matured/mellowed with additional conditioning time. I personally prefer to drink my bottle conditioned IPAs with 4-5 weeks of time post bottling day. I suspect that maybe some of the aroma may be diminished at this point but I would suggest the aroma that is there is a ‘better’ aroma (not simply a case of ‘less’ aroma).

“Perhaps flavor is really just a half way point between bitterness and aroma in the sense that it requires partial isomerization of alpha acids and the partial reduction of aromatic volatile oils?” Again, based upon what I learned from Brad Smith and Stan Hieronymus all of the aromatic volatile oils are completely gone with the many minutes of boil.

Cheers!

Jack

 

I've read about that study before and, while it doesn't really explain the mechanics behind them, the results they had match my observations.

It's my understanding that the volatile oils are called "essential oils" so that would be correct. My point was that I believe there are some oils in hops that are less volatile and hence are not included in the "essential oils" category.

My theory was that such less volatile oils might be flavor contributors and might be better extracted by boiling wort (unlike essential oils). Although this isn't the best example of one that might contribute to flavor (since it eventually becomes volatile post fermentation so it becomes an aroma contributor) Peter Wolfe did a great thesis on hops where he discusses glycosides and what he says seems to tie into my thought process laid out in my previous post....

1.3.5 Glycosides: these are the combination of hop oils with a sugar molecule. Glycosides are less volatile than the hop oils themselves and thus provide the hop plant with a means of transport and storage. In brewing glycosides are extracted during boiling and survive that boil better than the essential oils. Hydrolysis of the glycosidic bond is know to occur in beer and most likely the low pH environment is the cause. Once the clycosdic bond is broken the essential hop oil is freed and able to contribute to hop aroma. In my brewing I commonly observe more hop aroma in the finished beer than what was present in the wort.


Another interesting quote from Peter's paper tying glycosides to hop vegetative matter..

Glycosides are present not only in the lupulin glands but in the cones and surrounding vegetative tissue as well. When a CO2 extraction is performed onhops, the remaining spent material has a potentially high glycoside content. This is a potential flavor source from what has been traditionally considered a waste stream. A variety of glycosides have been found in hops, including linalyl glycoside (linalool) and geranyl glycoside (geraniol).

Not sure if they are correct, but a few internet searches yielded the following:

Linalool 131F
Geranioil 446F
B-Pinene 96.8F

 

I believe longer contact time with boiling wort does a better job of extracting any/all hop oils. Then there's that race against volatility, which varies depending on the compound.

 

P.S. If anybody hasn't read Peters thesis yet, you really should consider doing so. Be forewarned that it's nearly 100 pages long though. I conquered it over the course of a weeks worth of bathroom breaks at my (no pun intended) shitty former corporate job

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/34093/Wolfe_thesis.pdf?sequence=1

 

There goes the weekend.