Dryhopping toward end of primary is becoming popular especially with the NE IPAs. Got me to wonder if a whirlpool/hopstand could be done after primary fermentation was mostly complete. Hope would be to not drive off as much volatile aromatics from the full effect of primary.
I am considering holding back 10% of the unfermented wort until primary is nearly done. Then reheat that small volume to hopstand temp, do the hopstand in that small volume, separate hops from liquid and add it to the primary.
Interesting. I havenāt personally heard of a similar process, but it may be done by someone, somewhere.
I guess you would freeze the wort in the interim to reduce risk of contamination?
I was thinking oxidation would be limited because the wort addition would be highly fermentable, and O2 would be consumed by the reactivated yeast and/or driven off by degassing. But if my reasoning is wrong, then yeah it might be a problem.
My error the wort would be fermentable. I was just trying to remember an article about adding to the fermentor after the initial budding phase of the pitched yeast was over.
I think you could just use water to make a hop tea, and add that at the end of fermentation. Youāre not looking for isomerization, just extracting volatile compounds, so water heated to 180F should be nicely de-aerated after a 30-minute whirlpool as well.
The idea of recreating the hopstand conditions (vs a hop tea) when trying to do this is something that is ānew to meā. Iām not aware of anyone who has tried it, but at first glance, it looks/feels promising.
I came across the idea of adding a hop tea in secondary a couple of years ago ( Hop Aroma Therapy - Brew Your Own may have been where I first read it ). At the time, related articles / forums were warning about possible grassy flavors coming off the hop teas. My experience with hop teas for tasting hops is that I get a lot of grassy flavor, so Iāve never trying adding a hop tea in secondary.
Back to your suggested approach: consider using DME, rather than saving some of the wort, for the 1st couple of experimental batches.
Finally, when I did a web search on homebrew hop tea secondary to find the BYO article, I did it using both google and duckduckgo. The search results were radically different. duckduckgo came up with this potential gem (ādiamond in the roughā? Cubic Zirconia?):
I would think the risk of oxidation would be no worse than racking a beer post primary fermentation onto fruit for a secondary fermentation. I also wonder how much oxygen we introduce when dry hopping post primary fermentation, especially whole cones. I say go for it.
Well it makes intuitive sense that it should work, but that doesnāt mean it will make practical sense. Hopefully a way to enhance/prolong the short-lived fresh hoppy flavors and aromas.
I am going to give it a try and will certainly report back.
Yes! We shall see. NE IPA brewday tomorrow. Iām optimistic. One concern is I have no idea if there are solubility limits of hop oils in solution, and cramming 5 gal worth of hops into a half gal might exceed the solubility. But I also want to keep the hopstand fermented volume to minimum.
In case anyone was interested, I attempted my alternative method for late hopping and although not ground-breaking, it turned out pretty well.
I am not so sure there was much difference in flavor/aroma compared to the standard late hopping whirlpool method consumed super fresh. The advantage to this post-primary whirlpool did become apparent though, when I performed the whirlpool approx. 2 months after primary and added back to the ābaseā beer. It was just like drinking on day 1 from the tap of a fresh IPA.
I think brewing IPAs is a PIA sometimes because of such short shelf-life. So if you would be interested stocking up on a base beer in storage, and then at later date go back and add this whirlpool secondary fermentation for a fresh IPA, then this method could be of use.
Iād be happy to give the details of what I did, if anyone is interested.
