4 months in primary on dry hops experiement

[Simonh82]

I brewed a session IPA back at the end of September. Due to life getting in the way I've abandoned it in the primary fermenter where it has been sat on the dry hops for almost 3 months now.

I'm planning to keg it when I get my kegging equipment sorted in the new year, so it will probably be 4 months after the brewday. I'm just treating this as an experiement now to see what prolonged exposure to dry hops and yeast will be.

I'm aware of all of the usual warnings that the yeast will rupture and the dry hops will leave a grassy taste but I've never experienced this when I've left it for about one month or so before.

It's been in my brew fridge at about 5°C for the majority of the time so I'm hoping the cold temperature will have slowed down yeast decomposition and the extraction of any unwanted things from the hops. It's also a stainless steel fermentor so I'm hoping oxygen isn't an issue.

I'll update when I'm drinking it.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Do you intend to force carb it or bottle carbonate?
If it's the latter, based upon a brew that I left on the trub in a fridge for several weeks longer than intended, I would pitch more yeast before bottling.

 

[Simonh82]

Hi!
Do you intend to force carb it or bottle carbonate?
If it's the latter, based upon a brew that I left on the trub in a fridge for several weeks longer than intended, I would pitch more yeast before bottling.

I'm planning on force carbing.

 

[_jon_]

Really interested in hearing how this goes. Keep us updated :)

 

[DoctorMick]

I think the low temp will mean the beer is fine, the yeast will be having a snooze and I’ve found hop extraction is much less at lower temps. I’ve had a stout in my fv for a month which is a lot longer than i usually have anything in there for but I’m not concerned, it’s been at about 4c for the last 3 weeks. My biggest worry is if the beer turns it to be amazing and I then feel the need to tie up my fv for that long again to try and reproduce it!

 

[Duxuk]

I was inspired by Tiny Rebels Cwtch, which is an extract kit, to use a similar type of hop treatment. With the Cwtch you soak the late hops in boiling water and after some minutes chuck the lot into the FV and leave the hops for the entire fermentation. I was told that it added an extra layer of flavour. What I did was add the late hops at flameout, cool and add the lot for fermentation.
It isn't 4 months of exposure to dry hops but does also include some time at a high temp.
The effect in the 3 or 4 brews I've done like this seemed to be that it added a "malty" flavour. Bit of a surprise there and I don't think the flavour was anything to do with malt, it's just that that's what it tastes like. Perhaps there was some grassiness in there. My bottle count was reduced by about 10% and I decided it was not the best way to treat the hops. The flavour just wasn't as fresh. I've started to cool to 80C and add the flameout hops for 30 minutes and have found this to be the best way for me.
I'll be interested to hear your impressions after such a long soak.

 

[Simonh82]

I finally got around to kegging this beer after over 15 weeks in the primary fermentor and over 14 weeks sat on 150g of dry hops.

The good news is the beer is entirely drinkable and really quite nice. I can't detect any flavours that people associate with yeast autolysis which is one concern I had.

I also can't detect the often cited grassy flavour people talk about, although the hop aroma and flavor have changed from what I would have expected from a beer like this which didn't get left for 3 months. The delicate fruity aroma has faded significantly although I can still detect some of them. There is still a very strong hop flavour but it is a bit more like a herbal piney flavour with citrus in the background.

One thing I would say is that it is more bitter than I would expect but the bitterness isn't like normal hop bitterness. I think the prolonged dry hopping has extracted polyphenols which are also bitter but to me taste slightly different. This would tie in with the appearance of the beer which seems to have a permanent haze to it. I know hop polyphenols can contribute to haze so I suspect this is the culprit.

Overall I think the prolonged dry hop didn't ruin the beer but I don't think it benefited it either.

 

[BeerCat]

Good to know its come out good. I bet that put a smile on your face. I have left mine for 2 or 3 weeks before and never noticed grassy flavours either. Also i thought yeast autolysis was only a problem with commercial breweries as large amounts of yeast generates heat.

 

[Braufather]

I read the grassyness is minimised if you dry hop whilst yeast is still active, and is more likely to be present if you dry hop later. Seems this could back that up if you dry hopped after a week. Out of interest how much of the trub if any did you take from the kettle into the fv?

It also looks a good plus for stainless steel.

 

[simon12]

Thanks for sharing, what hop or hops were they?

 

[Simonh82]

Thanks for sharing, what hop or hops were they?

50g each of Simcoe, Cascade and Apollo. I've not used Apollo before and I'd had it around for a while, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's not often used as an aroma hop but I've seen some single hop IPAs with it so thought I would use it up in this brew.

 

[simon12]

Cheers just wondered if they where all very high alpha as I read/heard they gave less of the grassy flavour you didn't get.

 

[Simonh82]

The apollo were about 20%, the highest i've ever used. Simcoe were probably ~13% and Cascade ~7%.