when to dry hop

[Braufather]

Afternoon all,

ive read a lot on this forum and others about dry hopping and the consensus seems to be add them just after fermentation has finished with the hops in a bag, then take them out after a week.

However given that many people just seem to use the primary fermenter, Wouldnt it be better just to add the hops for the last week, before you rack? that way you would only be disturbing the beer once, when putting them in.

or is the period just after fermentation has finished the most efficient time for extracting the aroma/flavour? cant find any discussion on this anywhere.

can anyone clarify?

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

I tend to dry hop after I rack off onto a secondary, I don't like the thought of all that trub on the bottom tainting the freshly brewed beer, I dry hop for 5 days or so then remove and replace with more hops to avoid over grassy notes from a 10 days plus dry hop in one go

 

[Simonh82]

I tend to dry hop after about a week in primary. I don't rack to secondary and I just leave the hops floating in the beer. This works better with pellet hops than whole leaf hops. If you have a lot of whole leaf hops then using a hop bag weighted down might be easier.

I've left hops in the beer for over three weeks without any issue. I think the grassy flavour thing is a complete myth as I've never heard of anyone who has actually had it occur. Saying that I've found shorter dry hops seem to give a better flavour so I would aim for 3-5 days.

If you can cold crash, this will get pellet hops to sink down to the bottom. leaf hops tend to stay floating at the top most of the time.

Whatever you do you will almost certainly be fine and will get a great boost to hop flavour and aroma. My main advice would be to drink it quickly as it can start to fade within a few weeks.

 

[terrym]

Many on here don't rack off to secondary before they dry hop, it's all done in the primary FV. But I'm in the group that rack off at the end of the primary plus a bit, say 8 days, then do my dry hop for 5 -6 days. The first part of the dry hop is at fermenting temperature, the last two days at the coolest temperature I can get which encourages the yeast to settle (although I only have an unheated garage).
The consensus seems to be that 4-7 days dry hop is best, any longer and 'grassy' flavours arise, although there are folks on here that dry hop for longer.
I used to use a large muslin bag for dry hopping, but have recently noticed a slightly better result from just chucking the pellets in and then using one of the nylon socks that fit over the end of the siphon tube (taken from a Festival kit) which keeps the hop bits out of my bottles or PB.

 

[terrym]

My main advice would be to drink it quickly as it can start to fade within a few weeks.

Agreed.
Though sometimes its a balance between a beer improving slowly as it conditions, against the declining impact of the dry hop.

 

[Braufather]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Terry's point is what instantly struck me. My beer was very cloudy (think egg nog) as IPAs can be so I was relying on time and gravity to sort that out so wanted to leave at late as possible to dry drop. if you are just doing primary and leaving your brew in their for say 3 or 4 weeks surely leaving the dry drop as late as possible is best? Only disturb beer once plus hops drop fresher?

Am I missing something?

 

[Budgie]

I was just reading this article this morning http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/07/25/dry-hopping-beer/

It suggest dry hopping should be for not less than 10 days, but I, like many others on the forum go for 4 days.

In Brewdog's DIY Dog, they suggest that bringing the beer down to 14°C after initial fermentation maximises flavour from dry hops. In the sprit of experimentation I've brought a pale ale down to 14°C over night and dry hopped today. It'll be getting bottled on Sunday so we'll see what difference, if any, it makes in a few weeks.

 

[DoctorMick]

I tend to dry hop after about a week in primary. I don't rack to secondary and I just leave the hops floating in the beer. This works better with pellet hops than whole leaf hops. If you have a lot of whole leaf hops then using a hop bag weighted down might be easier.

I've left hops in the beer for over three weeks without any issue. I think the grassy flavour thing is a complete myth as I've never heard of anyone who has actually had it occur. Saying that I've found shorter dry hops seem to give a better flavour so I would aim for 3-5 days.

If you can cold crash, this will get pellet hops to sink down to the bottom. leaf hops tend to stay floating at the top most of the time.

Whatever you do you will almost certainly be fine and will get a great boost to hop flavour and aroma. My main advice would be to drink it quickly as it can start to fade within a few weeks.

Do you know if you can still harvest yeast if you've dry hopped with pellets and let them sink to the bottom? I'd imagine you wouldn't want to harvest a load of hop debris.

 

[Braufather]

I was just reading this article this morning http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/07/25/dry-hopping-beer/

It suggest dry hopping should be for not less than 10 days, but I, like many others on the forum go for 4 days.

In Brewdog's DIY Dog, they suggest that bringing the beer down to 14°C after initial fermentation maximises flavour from dry hops. In the sprit of experimentation I've brought a pale ale down to 14°C over night and dry hopped today. It'll be getting bottled on Sunday so we'll see what difference, if any, it makes in a few weeks.

Thats interesting. my black ipa has been in FV for two weeks now so maybe i could add the hops now. no brew fridge yet but i could open the window a bit to get temperature lower to around 14C for the next week or so then bottle.

 

[Simonh82]

Do you know if you can still harvest yeast if you've dry hopped with pellets and let them sink to the bottom? I'd imagine you wouldn't want to harvest a load of hop debris.

I'm sure you can still harvest from the FV if you have used pellet hops, although it isn't the technique I use. If you can cold crash then stuff tends to stratify quite well, so if you syphon off the beer carefully you could probably scrape back the hops and reveal the yeast below. You will end up with a few bit of hop matter in there but it wouldn't be anything to worry about.

The other option is yeast washing, which again, I've never done. I believe you just collect some yeast/trub/hops from your FV and dilute it down with boiled cooled water, give it a shake and let it settle a bit. The yeast tends to sink slowly so when the trub has formed a layer you pour the water/yeast off. You can repeat this process a couple of times to improve results. I found info

Personally, rather than collect yeast from the FV, I over build my starters and save some of the yeast. I think i've got a better chance of keep the yeast clean and can be fairly confident about the amount i'm pitching using starter calculators.

Added to that, I've just started slanting yeast for storage, as you can keep it happily for 6 months+ without mutation or degradation. It turned out to be much simpler than I though.

 

[terrym]

There was a link to a scientific article which appeared on this forum some time last year which seemed to confirm that higher temperatures give better results for uptake from a dry hop over a given time scale. Also the uptake diminishes with time as you might anticipate. In extreme I suppose its a bit like making tea; you wouldn't expect much from a cup of tea where the tea bag has been infused with cold water, even if you left it for an hour or two.
So what I do is dry hop for about six days with the first part at fermenting temperature, say 19*C, and the last two days at the lowest temperature I can get (unheated garage) to encourage the yeast to settle.
And I always rack off before I dry hop. That way if I want to re-use the yeasty trub from the bottom of the FV I can recover yeast without it becoming contaminated with hop bits.

 

[DoctorMick]

I'm sure you can still harvest from the FV if you have used pellet hops, although it isn't the technique I use. If you can cold crash then stuff tends to stratify quite well, so if you syphon off the beer carefully you could probably scrape back the hops and reveal the yeast below. You will end up with a few bit of hop matter in there but it wouldn't be anything to worry about.

The other option is yeast washing, which again, I've never done. I believe you just collect some yeast/trub/hops from your FV and dilute it down with boiled cooled water, give it a shake and let it settle a bit. The yeast tends to sink slowly so when the trub has formed a layer you pour the water/yeast off. You can repeat this process a couple of times to improve results. I found info

Personally, rather than collect yeast from the FV, I over build my starters and save some of the yeast. I think i've got a better chance of keep the yeast clean and can be fairly confident about the amount i'm pitching using starter calculators.

Added to that, I've just started slanting yeast for storage, as you can keep it happily for 6 months+ without mutation or degradation. It turned out to be much simpler than I though.

Thanks, the overbuilding route is the one I'll be taking but it seems difficult to get the quantities needed without a stir plate. At the minute I'll be harvesting the trub from the first batch with a new yeast and then overbuilding from that so it's only the first brew that should be an issue so I'll just make sure it isn't a hoppy brew.

 

[Simonh82]

Thanks, the overbuilding route is the one I'll be taking but it seems difficult to get the quantities needed without a stir plate. At the minute I'll be harvesting the trub from the first batch with a new yeast and then overbuilding from that so it's only the first brew that should be an issue so I'll just make sure it isn't a hoppy brew.

I think you can still use the overbuild method without a stir plate, it just takes a bit longer. There are some interesting experiments on this site and here which suggest that a shaken starter will produce as much yeast as a stirred starter, they just do it in a longer time.

I've had some success overbuilding shaken starters. I managed to culture up enough yeast from two bottles of Duvel to pitch into a 7% beer and have a good quantity of yeast left over. It does take a few days and some regular shaking but it worked well for me.

I also think that the starter calculators suggest very large pitches of yeast. This is often a good idea but it doesn't mean you will make bad beer if you don't follow it to the letter.

As an example of another approach, Brewlabs send their yeast on agar slants which is just a smearing to yeast cells on top of the slant and nothing like as much as you might get in a vial of liquid yeast. They recommend adding the yeast to a 300ml starter and shaking it periodically. Then pitching 24-48 hours later. By my back of a *** packet calculations that will produce between 15-30bn cells, which in theory is nothing like enough to ferment a beer. Yet many people say the Brew Labs yeast is some of the best yeast you can get. I've just used my first slant from them and decided to step it up again from 300ml to 1L but the beer went off like a rocket.

 

[Braufather]

in terms of reusing yeast, i currently have a stout in a FV. i used liquid yeast and made a starter for it so i take it that it is ok to use again? if so after ive racked current batch to a barrel, then straight away, can i just poor my next batch in on top ? ie no need need to clean and sanitise the FV, or pitch fresh yeast?

 

[geetee]

I'm making a New Zealand hopped ale ,38 litres at about 6.0% and so far have added green bullit for bittering, 25g of Rakau and Motueka at 10 and 5 minutes and also 25 g of Nelson Sauvin and New Zealand cascade steeped for 1 hour after flame out.

I am also planning to add the same amount of nelson and cascade after two days fermenting and then make a hop tea with a further 25g of these just before bottling.
Hoping to catch some flavour from that lot!

 

[DoctorMick]

in terms of reusing yeast, i currently have a stout in a FV. i used liquid yeast and made a starter for it so i take it that it is ok to use again? if so after ive racked current batch to a barrel, then straight away, can i just poor my next batch in on top ? ie no need need to clean and sanitise the FV, or pitch fresh yeast?

The Yeast Book recommends you only reuse yeast with beers that are the same colour or darker so you couldn't reuse yeast from a stout with a pale for example. I'd have thought you'd be able to rinse the yeast to get rid of the stout and reuse it but the book doesn't say that and I've never tried it because I've started to plan my brews around the yeast.

Either way, I'd still harvest the yeast to a sanitized container and clean the FV as usual tho.

 

[Robin54]

I'm making a New Zealand hopped ale ,38 litres at about 6.0% and so far have added green bullit for bittering, 25g of Rakau and Motueka at 10 and 5 minutes and also 25 g of Nelson Sauvin and New Zealand cascade steeped for 1 hour after flame out.

I am also planning to add the same amount of nelson and cascade after two days fermenting and then make a hop tea with a further 25g of these just before bottling.
Hoping to catch some flavour from that lot!

I think you will!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Braufather]

The Yeast Book recommends you only reuse yeast with beers that are the same colour or darker so you couldn't reuse yeast from a stout with a pale for example. I'd have thought you'd be able to rinse the yeast to get rid of the stout and reuse it but the book doesn't say that and I've never tried it because I've started to plan my brews around the yeast.

Either way, I'd still harvest the yeast to a sanitized container and clean the FV as usual tho.

it will be for another stout - all be it milk stout as opposed to dry, is was the labour saving element that really appealed! ie not having to make another starter or clean then sanitise the FV- so if it stout again am i good to go?

 

[DoctorMick]

it will be for another stout - all be it milk stout as opposed to dry, is was the labour saving element that really appealed! ie not having to make another starter or clean then sanitise the FV- so if it stout again am i good to go?

Yeah, you definitely won't need another starter if you're reusing straight away and stout to stout won't risk any of the flavours of the previous brew interfering with the new brew. A lot of people reuse the entire yeast cake by just putting the new brew into the FV and don't have problems, I just wouldn't risk it myself. If you do decide to harvest and clean the FV you'll only need about 500ml of the harvested trub.

 

[Braufather]

so after 1 month in primary, I moved my black ipa( complete with oily mouth feel!) to secondary and dry hopped 4 days ago at 18- 19 degrees. I am thinking of moving outside for 24 hours to cold crash before bottling- however i guess that the movement in and out ( incluidng stairs) will disturb all the yeast that the cold crash was supposed to settle, so I am asking myself is there any real point? just leave it where it is and bottle from there?

(ps i decided not to save the yeast with my stout , cant deal with any more unknown variables at the moment! filed that for a later experiment)