Will dry hopping be worth it for me?

[davidgrace]

I don’t usually dry hop, but recently I have been inspired to do so in order to get a big hop aroma especially in IPA brews. However, I have also heard that the big aroma doesn’t last long in the bottle. Since I move through my brews quite slowly (approx 10-12 months for a batch) I am wondering if dry hopping will be worth it for me.

 

[terrym]

You have nothing much to lose if you try a dry hop on a single beer and then sample it along the way and see if it suits your situation. Otherwise my experience was that any impact of dry hopping was gone after about 4 months, so I don't bother any more. Others may find differently

 

[Gingerbrews]

My brews never last as long as 4months!!

 

[Duxuk]

I'm with Terrym on this. After dry hopping since about 1989 I've stopped! A good dose of hop at somewhere between 20 and 5 minutes and a flameout amount having cooled to 80C is giving me better beers with long lasting hop flavours. Admittedly I don't tend to have it hanging around too long!

 

[phildo79]

I find dry hopping is great for aroma but that it really starts to fade after about a week. I think your set-up plays a big part in this though. If you ferment under pressure and do a closed transfer to a corny keg, apparently this helps keep the aroma for a lot longer.

 

[S.R.S]

can't you just add more dry hops so the taste and aroma last longer?!

 

[davidgrace]

I'm with Terrym on this. After dry hopping since about 1989 I've stopped! A good dose of hop at somewhere between 20 and 5 minutes and a flameout amount having cooled to 80C is giving me better beers with long lasting hop flavours. Admittedly I don't tend to have it hanging around too long!

Thanks, this is very helpful. I notice that Greg Hughes in his Home Brew Beer book does not include dry hopping at all in his recipes. Just for clarification, are you saying I start chilling and check the temperature until it reaches 80% and then put the "flameout" hops in?

 

[London]

I notice that Greg Hughes in his Home Brew Beer book does not include dry hopping at all in his recipes

He does in the Black IPA and Imp IPA.

 

[phildo79]

can't you just add more dry hops so the taste and aroma last longer?!

Sometimes I am adding over 100g of hops just for dry hopping. How much more do I need to add and how much longer will the aroma last? 100's of grams of hops aren't exactly cheap.

 

[davidgrace]

He does in the Black IPA and Imp IPA.

Thanks for the correction. Two recipes that include dry-hopping is a very small percentage.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Is dry hopping better with leaf or pellet hops?

 

[AXW123]

I listened to a podcast recently that said - based on a recent scientific study that anything over 120g of dry hopping would have very diminishing returns

 

[Duxuk]

Thanks, this is very helpful. I notice that Greg Hughes in his Home Brew Beer book does not include dry hopping at all in his recipes. Just for clarification, are you saying I start chilling and check the temperature until it reaches 80% and then put the "flameout" hops in?

That's it. It takes a very short time for the temp. to drop to 80 celcius so give it a stir and watch carefully. I then just leave it for 10 minutes afterwhich I continue to cool to pitching temp. I've tried a longer steep than 10 minutes but found not difference.

 

[chthon]

For amounts: apparently after 8g/litre, the returns diminish. This based upon a scientific study by Tom Shellhammer (Brulosophy report).

As for the form of the hop: pellets are better because everything has been crushed, also the lupulin glands. Due to this, pellets work better for dry hopping. Additional advantage is that pellet hops drop out better than leaf hops.

I am currently experimenting a bit myself, and the last thing I did was a load at flameout, and a hop tea and dry hop at the tail of the fermentation (and I discovered at bottling time that Eastwell Goldings induce hop creep , bottling moved to a later date).

 

[Cheshire Cat]

What's hop creep?

 

[davidgrace]

That's it. It takes a very short time for the temp. to drop to 80 celcius so give it a stir and watch carefully. I then just leave it for 10 minutes afterwhich I continue to cool to pitching temp. I've tried a longer steep than 10 minutes but found not difference.

Thanks again. I will follow this process.

 

[chthon]

What's hop creep?

(Some) Hops also contain amylase enzymes and are able to split complex sugars into sugars which can be fermented.

What happened is that in first instance my fermentation was slowed down, so I added the hop tea (made at 80° C, with wort, so no enzymes there) and the dry hop. I had some initial fermentation because the hop tea was made with wort (deliberately), but that stopped after a day or so, and then I put my fermenter in a colder place to let the yeast drop out better. I also plugged the airlock to prevent sucking in air.

The day before bottling, I put the fermenter back at normal ambient temperature. When I wanted to bottle, I pulled the plug, but after the initial pressure was released, the airlock bubbled faster than was possible due to only release of CO2 out of solution, and it kept up for about 24 hours.

Hop creep is not new, it is described in older brewing literature, and seems to have been rediscovered in the last couple of years, probably through the advent of massively hoppped IPAs.

It is also not consistent, sometimes it occurs and other times not, investigations (by scientists and brewers) are still on-going.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Merci

 

[davidgrace]

I'm with Terrym on this. After dry hopping since about 1989 I've stopped! A good dose of hop at somewhere between 20 and 5 minutes and a flameout amount having cooled to 80C is giving me better beers with long lasting hop flavours. Admittedly I don't tend to have it hanging around too long!

I followed your advice on an alternative to dry hopping and it worked well for my Citra Smash. You say, “A good dose of hop at somewhere between 20 and 5 minutes and a flameout amount having cooled to 80C is giving me better beers with long lasting hop flavours”. Does that “good dose” mean adding up what the recipe specifies for both 20 and 5 minute hops plus what it specifies for dry hopping?

 

[Duxuk]

Erm....I never really follow recipes. I have a system which I've evolved over 169 AG brews. Gawd knows who drunk all that beer. My current way, for a 23l brew, is to use a not too harsh bittering hop like Goldings at the start of a 60 minute boil. 20g seems a good amount. I'm currently then adding 50g of hops at 10 minutes then another 50g at flameout, cooled to 80 C. I'm loving using Mosaic for the 2 additions. I've just bottled one with Amarillo at 10 mins and then Citra after flameout. I know from previous experience that this will be lovely