What happened to my dry hop?

[biggtime]

Afternoon all. Having a few dry-hop disasters and wondering what is going on. Two beers in a row have taken on no discernible aroma from a big dry-hop!
I'm using whole leaf hops. First time round it was approx 90gms of Target and Bramling X in 25 litres in secondary for a week at cellar temp (11-13 degrees C), and they all just sat on top, some staying completely dry.
Second time round it was 100gms of Archer and Boadicea in 25 litres in secondary for a week, at around 13 degrees C. And this time I made sure they were wet from the start, and periodically shook the secondary to make sure they weren't just sitting on the top.
In each case, no discernible hop aroma despite time and quantities. What am I getting wrong? Hops are loose. Should I bag and weigh down? Should I be using pellets for better results? This is the first time I've had problems with this approach.

 

[Covrich]

I think the temperature you want to dry hop at makes a big difference.. I think dry hopping at around the 20ºc mark (similar with fermenting) is optimal.

So I think one of the first things to look at is temp I would say.

 

[clibit]

I've only ever dry hopped with whole hops, which I have always bought - though I now have a couple of pellet hops just arrived - some people say pellets work better for dry hopping. Those hops are all English so may not be delivering the level of dry hop aroma you are looking for? American IPAs dry hop with much more intense hops like Cascade, Simcoe, Centennial, Amarillo etc. English hops deliver a much more delicate aroma.

 

[biggtime]

Yeah, I know they're pretty delicate, hence a hefty whack of them. After all, that's about 4gms per litre. And still nothing. And I mean really nothing, as opposed to 'can it compete with Citra or Centennial'.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

never had an issue with dry hopping but I do it at room tempurature, so this could be the issue you have.

I use a muslin bag with the hops in weighed down with a couple of (steralised) marbles so that the hops soak correctly.

 

[biggtime]

Definitely sounds like temperature and not weighing down have got things to do with it. Had far better results in the past, including with the same hop schedule but it may just have been warmer at the time, for instance.

 

[clibit]

I'm tending to do hop steeps after the boil and not bother very often with dry hopping myself. It's different, but I like what it does. It uses less hops and it avoids the dry hop faff. Less aroma than dry hopping but lots of flavour.

 

[pms67]

I have found pellets to be far superior than leaf hops although much messier to deal with.
They seem to penetrate flavour right into the wort.