Tasting the wort & dry hopping

[farmer brown]

Hey All,

I have 2 questions.

Im new to full mash brewing, I've dont maybe 2 which came out ok but Im now looking to try some dry hopping techniques to help with the flavour. My questions are as follows.

1) When tasting the final wort, how much will that taste change during fermentation and maturation? Does it become less bitter? Im guessing that it all mellows but Im just wondering how much and in what way does the wart changes from its first tasting? I read that its all about balancing the bitterness of the hops and sweetness of the grains? It tasted slightly bitter but I dont want to start adding more sugar as Im trying to stick to a recipe. Should I just take notes and add less bittering hops next time? Or will the bitterness mellow?

2) When dry hopping, as everything in brewing beer has to sanitised, is it safe to just add hop's? They are normally boiled so there is no worry about any contamination? As dry hopping is added to the brew when its all clean and sanitise in the fermenting bin, wont adding hobs cause problems? Or maybe hop's have already been sanitised?

Thanks all!!

I must say I'm really enjoying this homebrewing malarkey, I've become a little obsessive about it

Steve

 

[pittsy]

1) yeah it does change . best to take notes and add more or less next time and dry hopping is more for aroma/flavour not bittering the bitterness will mellow also when fermented
2)no need to worry about hops as far as sterilizing go they have antiseptic properties but if using hop bags those need sterilizing or boiling
to help you there are beer tools that can help try this and add your ingredients etc , hope this helps http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

 

[beffrey]

Hops are an antiseptic so you shouldn't worry about infection.

I suggest you put a 30g of hops in a muslin bag with a shot glass or marble to ensure it sinks. The bag and marble/hops will need to be sterilised/ boiled briefly before you do this.

Add the hops after ~4 days when fermentation is pretty much complete and leave in there for another week or two.

Anything you can do is the re-use these hops for bittering for your next brew. In doing so you can assume that 25% bitterness has been lost through dry hopping. I have just done this, so not sure how it turns out!

I can't help you for the first question but am interested in responses re. that.

 

[farmer brown]

Thanks very much !
Great help, I'll get started on my dry hopping tomorrow as tomday is the third day of my primary fermentation. I'm thinking of bottling the 5 gallon into 5 x 1 gallon demijons and experimenting with different hops. I'll leave one un-hopped to see how the original tasted, the other ill try some variations? I'm guessing maybe 7g's in each 1 gallon demijon?

Thanks is again

 

[bobsbeer]

Make sure the DJ's can take the carbonation pressure. Most are not designed to hold any pressure.

 

[beffrey]

Sounds like a good idea, fb.

One thing I have heard is that you generally get better results if you dry hop with more than one hop - you could could instead try a variety or pairs/trios?

Also some hops seem to get widespread bad press for dry hopping. Fuggles springs to mind, but if it is only going to affect a gallon of beer than that's no big a deal and well worth an experiment.

 

[farmer brown]

Thanks for the advice, just looking at my hop collection for dry hopping, I have:
1) challenger
2)brewers gold
3)hallertau hersucker pellets
4)first gold
5)cascade
6)goldings
7)fuggles
8)citra
9)chinook
10) simcoe

Any advice to which cambinations I could use?

I used cascade and fuggles in the boil.

Bob- I'll be using airlocks for each demijon So should be ok

Thanks all !