Dry hopping - when, for how long and how ?

[tobyho]

Hi

We did a brew at the weekend which we want to dry hop with Nelson Sauvin. Some simple questions -

When do we dry hop ? The yeast took 36 hours to visibly start working. It's been coming along nicely now for about 24 hours ?

Do we dry hop now in the fermenting bucket or wait a week or so and add them in the barrel ?

Finally, do we have to use a muslin sack ? or Can we just drop them in (they are pellets)and then filter somehow ?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[RobWalker]

you generally dry hop immediately after fermentation. the vigourous ferment will blast the aromas off otherwise..

You can do this either in the FV or the barrel, but you will need to reopen your barrel after a week so don't worry about carbonating at that point. Use a muslin bag, and you will need to weigh it down with sanitized marbles or something similar or they just float. it's better to dry hop in clear beer so if you use a quick fining agent, do it in the barrel and it will take on more flavour.

I wouldn't filter them out, I've only had bad things :lol: I think you might be able to leave pellets behind as they form a sludge on the top which you just leave behind on racking.

 

[tobyho]

thanks, again, Rob.

How long should we leave them in the fermenting bucket for ?

Should we sterilise the muslin sack ?


And.. where can we get the muslin sacks ? i can get them from brew.uk for a quid but they want £4.99 to deliver. can we get them in sainsburys etc ?

 

[RobWalker]

not sure, but my LHBS sells them for 25p each :shock: I assume anywhere that sells home baking stuff like wilko, lakeland might be a good punt. worst case scenario, ebay.

definitely sterilize it! infections are easily picked up from fabric. the dried hops themselves are a natural preservative so infection chance is pretty low from them.

I usually go about a week, anywhere between 3 & 14 days is normal.

 

[zgoda]

People here often use ladies stockings, of course sterilized, and preferably new.

 

[markmark]

I ferment in the primary and then syphon to a secondary vessel after 7 days. I add finings adjunct while siphoning and then a day later I add cellarbrite (finings) and the dry hops. I don't bother with a muslin bag, I just put them in the secondary. Pellets will sink and you just rack the beer off them leaving them behind. If I'm using flowers or a mixture, then I just wrap a small piece of sanitised muslin around the end of the syphon before transferring to keg.

 

[joe1002]

It's better to dry hop in clear beer so if you use a quick fining agent, do it in the barrel and it will take on more flavour.

I didn't know that, interesting, thanks :thumb:

 

[markmark]

it's better to dry hop in clear beer so if you use a quick fining agent, do it in the barrel and it will take on more flavour.

That is contrary to what I read in 'For The Love of Hops'.
It put forward that there are reactions and interactions between the yeast, yeast by-products and the hops and these, although poorly understood, did contribute to more aroma and flavour.

 

[RobWalker]

it's better to dry hop in clear beer so if you use a quick fining agent, do it in the barrel and it will take on more flavour.

That is contrary to what I read in 'For The Love of Hops'.
It put forward that there are reactions and interactions between the yeast, yeast by-products and the hops and these, although poorly understood, did contribute to more aroma and flavour.

interesting. I got my info from Stone Brewing and they know a thing or two about dry hopping! the idea there was that when the yeast drops, it takes some aroma with it. presumablyif you bottle when its still cloudy that isn't a massive issue because it remains in a low volume bottle. perhaps the same with kegging an entire batch - probably the only time that you suffer is bottling a batch that has been dry hopped and THEN cleared out, if what stone says is true.

these are assumptions btw!

 

[markmark]

The thing is Rob, we can only take what we read in books in good faith and we must put trust in the author.
Also it is very difficult for us as home brewers to replicate what the pro's do and even more so to properly analyse why particular methods produce any given result.
I think you should also bear in mind that aroma and flavour are very personal and subjective things......some flavours that one person person can taste in spades may not even be discernible to the next drinker.
'For The Love of Hops' is a very, very interesting read and there is a lot of discussion in there with some of the bigger US craft brewers.....all of whom use different post boil hopping techniques.
The one that sticks in my mind is Sierra Navada and a process they use for one of their beers that involves pumping finished beer from tank to tank several times with the dry hops in and a lot of CO2 purging.

 

[RobWalker]

yeah i agree there! things don't scale up the same sometimes too, and we don't have the machinery for it...these things have all been tried and tested on 5000L batches, not 5 gallons, so things can change...you can only do your best and go with what works. home brewing is basically a lot of hear-say and still isn't far removed from the days of using the burco clothes boiler to make beer :lol:

at brewdog they have a hop cannon that literally propels the hops through the beer at high speed. a crazy technique and one that someone will probably replicate at some point :lol:

being honest, there must be a better way than just floating them about in the beer for home brewers. if anyone's got any suggestions, chuck them this way!

 

[Duxuk]

I've tried chopping the flameout hops in a food processor so they look like oregano. It seems to release more flavour. I forgot today Still, I'm sure the beer will be OK. Haven't tried it with dry hopping but it's an easy enough thing to test.

 

[Stone Cold]

I have planned on trying to dry hop during fermentation, anyone got anything to say on this about this?

 

[RobWalker]

The aroma will blow off if you do it at the start of fermentation, Stone Cold. Immediately after fermentation is fair game though!

 

[Stone Cold]

I dry hop all my beer in the firkin because i have no conditioning tank its a good method but takes up to a week to re settle and pubs dont like that, I will try in the fv next when i start chilling down but i worry about it being sat in a open fv for a week

 

[phettebs]

I just kegged my American IPA last night and I added an oz of whole Centennial in a muslin bag. I put it right in the keg and it stays there until the beer is gone. It works a treat.

 

[joe1002]

I have read about getting grassy flavours if left in too long. Seems like this is not a problem for you Barry?

 

[NickW]

Is it because the beer is cooler so this prevents the grassy taste?

 

[joe1002]

No idea, I am interested to find out though.

 

[Stone Cold]

never had a grassy taste with dry hopped cask even after 2 - 3 months, kept cool