Dry Hopping Lagers

[6Trails]

What are peoples thoughts/advice on the best practice for this? I'm looking to make an Italian style pilsner soon and my last dry hopped pils, albeit a NZ one so much larger dry hop, was a disastrous butter bomb.

For my ales I'm letting fermentation finish out for a few stable days around 22, dropping to 15 and dumping yeast, and then dry hopping for 3 days before dropping dry hops and cold crashing. All with good results.
For a lager I'll be finishing out for a few stable days at 16, so I could just drop the yeast and add the dry hops for 3 days then (basically just doing the same as above but without the soft crash), or would I be better to add the dry hops while it's still fermenting in the 15/16 range and then dropping the lot (yeast and hops) after a few stable days.

Could be that either method will work (or neither will for some reason I'm not thinking of), but interested to hear peoples experiences. Cheers.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I have only done one. I brewed the Lager and lagered it for about 6 weeks and only dry hopped after lagering and ahead of kegging. Not sure if this is the correct method, but I didn't want the hops sitting in the beer for 6 weeks. I guess I could have dry hopped at the start and pulled them out, but didn't want to lose any hop flavour and aroma over the lagering period or crack the lid open. Result was really good. Got a good balance of the hop flavour in the beer. Took a bit of time to fully clear after dry hopping, but if you're not after perfect clarity then thats not an issue...didn't impact flavour or any other aspect of the beer other than initial clarity, and it did clear up after a couple of weeks in the keg. You could always fine if you're that fussy.

 

[The Baron]

I wonder if when you dry hopped it re-started fermentation again(hop creep) and that is what caused the Diacetyl buttery taste maybe

 

[hoppyscotty]

Maybe try a forced diacetyl test before the final crash?

 

[YeastFace]

ALDC

 

[6Trails]

I have some ALDC, just got my hands on it and have never used it before. Is it as good as the reports I've heard, would I need to do a temperature rise at all?

 

[6Trails]

I wonder if when you dry hopped it re-started fermentation again(hop creep) and that is what caused the Diacetyl buttery taste maybe

Yeah it must have been that, was aroun 100g also where as this one I'm planning will be 30g (22 litre batch).
On that NZ pils I dry hopped at 15C just as I started the 1 degrees per day ramp down to 2C instead of leaving it sit at the higher temp for 3 or 4 days first.

 

[YeastFace]

I have some ALDC, just got my hands on it and have never used it before. Is it as good as the reports I've heard, would I need to do a temperature rise at all?

Has been good in my experience, good as insurance. I've read some people add at yeast pitching and then again when dry-hopping, not sure of the efficacy of the second addition.

Theory is no as it stops the yeast from creating the diacetyl precursor. You may still wish to raise temp to help drove attenuation.