post-boil hops/dry hopping question

[gurtpint]

I'm working on my recipe for my next American IPA that will be around 70-80 IBUs. I've found I'm quite fond of hop flavor and aroma and will be adding a bunch of late hops and dry-hop with 80-100g of Centennial and Columbus. I'm a novice as far as dry-hopping is concerned and would like to know how/how much the use of post-boil hops would actually contribute to the taste? A lot of that aroma seems to go away during fermentation and consequent production of CO2. My intended hopping schedule will be 60, 10 and 5 minutes. Would I get more bang for the buck with flameout hops steeped at 80C for 20-30 mins and then dry hopping or should I just skip that and use a load of dry hops? What it boils down to (pun intended), would I just be wasting valuable hops and my hard-earned cash with this flameout business when I could get the same results sticking to dry hopping only?

 

[jimw86]

Nope flameout hops are an important part of aroma in beer. If your losing hoppiness in the fermentation there are a couple of factors you should look at.

1) Your brewing water. You need to treat the water right and make sure you have a good amount of calcium sulphate in the beer to accenuate the hops.

2) your yeast. Certain yeast will let the hops shine through and others wont. Make sure your using a good yeast, US05, WLP001 ect.

3) The hops themselves. You need to be using good quality fresh hops. Hops that have been opened and then stored in a freezer are fine for bittering but they will lose their aroma a lot quicker.

IMO a staggered schedual during the boil does no good. I add hops at the start and end. Dry hop after High Krausen. Put the hops in a bag and weigh it down otherwise they tend to float. I wouldnt add to much as you can over do it.

Hope that helps

Jim

 

[gurtpint]

Cheers Jim. OK, so flameout hops contribute to better results and a more "layered" (apologies if this seems like a silly term, can't think of a better one right now...) hop charge. I'll use them and probably omit the 5 min addition. My yeast will be S-05. I have a local water report and will use some brewing salts according to the forum's calculator. My first dry-hopping experiment included 50g of hops and I liked the results. Could have used more aroma though, and the IPA I'm brewing at the moment has 80g of dry hops. Will have to see if that's a sufficient amount when I bottle the lot next week. They're English hops this time and I realize that American hops contribute to a different taste with citrus and grapefruit and all that jazz.

 

[artiums_enteri]

Also if you are loosing hop aroma it is because you are dry hopping too soon, and the C02 blown off with fermentation is carrying the aroma right out of the beer. Typically dry hopping is done once primary fermentation has completed. So let the beer ferment down to FG, give it two weeks or so to clean up, get it off the yeast, and add the hops you want to dry hop with for two weeks. Then bottle or keg. This is how the American pales and IPAs get that distinct nose.