Dry Hop Tea? Fermzilla All Rounder

[Joetp]

Hi there,

I currently have my Christmas NEIPA in the Fermzilla - it has nearly fermented to FG (if not already hit FG). I did a dry hop charge at yeast pitch and the beer is tasting nice and hoppy, but I want to boost it during cold crashing with a further dry hop charge, but I don't want to open the fermenter. I plan to make a dry hop tea at around 60 degrees c and transfer into the fermenter from a PET bottle under pressure so as not to introduce oxygen.

Has anyone tried this method of dry hopping? Any success stories?

Thanks!

Joe

 

[Dorst]

In theory this should work. Hop isomerisation in water is lower than beer/wort. Isomerisation in beer is already reaching it's limits at about 8 grams per liter. So I think you will not get super great extraction out of your hops or you will need to add a lot of water.

What prevents you to introduce the hops in your pressure chamber PET bottle method to your beer? Perhaps a tiny bit of sugar so that any oxygen introduced is driven out by the CO2 produced by the sugar?

 

[Broken Toe]

So I've done this with a hoppy lager and an IPL of late (50-100g in 1L of water). Both came out with more bitterness then I anticipated, not unpleasant mind, but certainly less aroma than I would have gotten from a dry hop charge. For a neipa though I'm not sure how much more bitterness you might want to add...

 

[Joetp]

So I've done this with a hoppy lager and an IPL of late (50-100g in 1L of water). Both came out with more bitterness then I anticipated, not unpleasant mind, but certainly less aroma than I would have gotten from a dry hop charge. For a neipa though I'm not sure how much more bitterness you might want to add...

Out of interest, how hot was the water when you added the hops?

In theory this should work. Hop isomerisation in water is lower than beer/wort. Isomerisation in beer is already reaching it's limits at about 8 grams per liter. So I think you will not get super great extraction out of your hops or you will need to add a lot of water.

What prevents you to introduce the hops in your pressure chamber PET bottle method to your beer? Perhaps a tiny bit of sugar so that any oxygen introduced is driven out by the CO2 produced by the sugar?

Wow... I don't want to add 10 litres of water to my 22-litre batch hahaha! I have 80g of hops to play with. I've tried opening on another batch - it wasn't oxidised, but as the beer is carbonated in the fermenter at this stage due to pressurised fermentation, it means the beer starts foaming and it's messy. It can't be good for the beer, put it that way!

 

[Dorst]

I've seen the hop fountains when opening a pressurised fermenter so I understand the hesitation.

I think by adding hops to warm water you will extract more bitterness out of the hops as well. This method would work well if you found that your beer was lacking bitterness and you wanted to back-bitter it. If you are looking for those hop oils/aromas common in a NEIPA I'd still look at getting hops into the fermenter.

Good luck! :)

 

[Broken Toe]

Out of interest, how hot was the water when you added the hops?

Added at 70°C and then let it drop to about 40°C over 20 mins or so. My guess would be the 50g I added on the most recent batch probably added around 10 ibu just based on impressions

 

[chillipickle]

Let the pressure out very slow it should keep the foaming to a minimum.

I hardly ferment my neipa's under pressure now to begin with.Maybe 2 or 3 psi it makes it easy putting the first dry hops in.With verdant ipa yeast there is normally a pretty big krausen after 2 or 3 days, low psi stops it erupting and keeps all the nice fruity esters of the yeast.Belive me i has a close call once where i let the pressure out to fast when it was at 8 or so psi.

First dry hop is normally the small one 120/150g, by day 5 or 6 it's normally at the end of fermenting, there is still a krausen. Time to dump the 250g+ hops in.After hops are in i let the pressure build up.I normally purge a few times to get rid of any o2, then let pressure rise ready for cold crashing.

 

[chthon]

There are two kinds of bitterness in hop. The one from alfa-acids is only created by boiling. But hop has also an intrinsic bitterness, which you can taste when you make a hop tea. This is the same kind of bitterness as some fresh herbs or salads posses.

The alfa-acid bitterness will decrease in time. The "herb bitterness" will change over time, but will keep bitter. Depending upon the hop this bitterness can be more or less harsh.

The "herb bitterness" can not be expressed in IBU, because IBU can be exactly measured (and approximately calculated) because the isomerized alfa-acids can be measured. This is not the case with the "herb bitterness", because there are too many factors which influence it.

But you can taste the herb bitterness by making a tea, and you could probably dilute your tea to taste which dilution suits you best.