My current favorite style of beer is IPA like a lot of people right now. I’m still a beginner Brewer and am on my fourth batch. I was wondering what people think about the importance of dry hopping. Seems a pain in the ass and increased risk of infection/contamination. I was wondering how much it really changes the taste profile. Has anyone done a boil, split it into 2, and dry hopped only half and tasted the difference?
T
Dry hopping will make a WORLD of difference in IPA’s and APA’s. I haven’t done side by side comparison, but I’ve brewed a specific recipe 4 times now. I’ve dry hopped 2 and skipped it in the other 2. The dry hopped version is by far the better version.
[quote=“Trapae”]My current favorite style of beer is IPA like a lot of people right now. I’m still a beginner Brewer and am on my fourth batch. I was wondering what people think about the importance of dry hopping. Seems a pain in the ass and increased risk of infection/contamination. I was wondering how much it really changes the taste profile. Has anyone done a boil, split it into 2, and dry hopped only half and tasted the difference?
T[/quote]
I’m a relative beginner, too, but I dry hopped the black IPA extract kit, per the instructions. Not a pain at all. I suppose there’s a small risk of infection, but I figured I was opening a sealed bag of hops (remember, one of the purposes of hops is to stave off bacterial infection in beer) and dumping it in the secondary, where there was enough alcohol content to ward off many bugs anyway. I’m curious why you think it is such a pain?
Pretty simple if you ask me…remove blow off tube…dump hops in…put tube back…
Agreed, not truly a pain in the ass. I guess what I’m talking about for this last recipe is that it called for whole hops. 2 ounces. After I put them in the carboy, now on day four, I realize that most are still floating on top and are dry and have not been saturated. I guess I could’ve crammed them in a bag with marbles, all sanitized of course, and let them sink. Was just wondering if it really made a difference in taste or just aroma.
I agree with dobe12, dry hopping makes a big difference. I’ve worked on a pale ale recipe and fiddled with dry hopping and a couple of ounces of Cascade for a couple of weeks is tremendous if you’re addicted to that citrusy character.
Well worth the small cost and minimal effort.
Thanks, I will continue to dry hop then without waiting time experimenting without.
There’s always room to experiment just for the sake of knowing for sure what your doing. That said dry-hoping will definitely help your IPAs. With alcohol already in the beer risk of infection from hops is pretty low. Just dump em in!
[quote=“Trapae”]My current favorite style of beer is IPA like a lot of people right now. I’m still a beginner Brewer and am on my fourth batch. I was wondering what people think about the importance of dry hopping. Seems a pain in the ass and increased risk of infection/contamination. I was wondering how much it really changes the taste profile. Has anyone done a boil, split it into 2, and dry hopped only half and tasted the difference?
T[/quote]
Having several times tasted the same beer before and after dry hopping, it’s definitely worth it. What’s your technique? Maybe we can help you with that, so it’s not such a PITA next time.
My technique – after racking to secondary, I put the hops directly into the carboy for the recommended amount of time. The first two times I used pellets, and used a straining bag at the time of kegging so as not to get hop particulate in my keg. It worked well. This time the recipe called for whole hop leaves. I put them directly into the carboy. I was worried because after several days the top half of the hops are still completely dry and are therefore not getting the hop goodness into the beer. I don’t know if maybe i should’ve put them in a bag with sanitized marbles or something. Seems awfully hard to do with a carboy. Maybe at the time of kegging, the hop leaves will all be saturated.
T
If I use whole hops, I put in a bag or nylon stocking (cheap) with a huge sanitized stainless steel bolt to take it to the bottom of the keg.
I just recently dry hopped for the first time. While it wasn’t a pain to drop the pellets in the carboy, it definitely was a pain not trying to suck them into the siphon while moving to the bottling bucket. And there was quite a bit of hop sediment at the bottom of the carboy on top of the yeast cake. This caused me to leave a decent amount of beer behind in the carboy, and also in the bottling bucket. I definitely want to learn a less messy technique for dry hopping. In all, I only got to bottle 39 beers, when I usually get 48-50.
put 'em in a nylon bag.
Has anyone had success or recommend the simplicity of adding dry hops to a first (and only) carboy without racking to a second? Maybe add during last week or so of fermentation?
[quote=“Trapae”] This time the recipe called for whole hop leaves. I put them directly into the carboy. I was worried because after several days the top half of the hops are still completely dry and are therefore not getting the hop goodness into the beer. I don’t know if maybe i should’ve put them in a bag with sanitized marbles or something. Seems awfully hard to do with a carboy. Maybe at the time of kegging, the hop leaves will all be saturated.
T[/quote]
As folks have said, dry hopping is worth the effort!
Using an auto siphon and racking out from under the floating hop raft works well once you get the technique.
A couple things to try when dry hopping in glass:
-Put your whole hops in the carboy prior to racking…hose down the hops with the incoming beer.
-After a day, all oxygen will be purged from headspace, then you can swirl the hops saturated.
-Try ending up with 5.25 gallons of beer and rack into a 5 gallon carboy…filling to the neck and saturating dry hop raft.
and start keg hopping!
Cheers
Yes, this is how I do it every time. Works great. The only issue is that you may have to gently swirl the carboy periodically to expose more hops to the beer.
10 or more days after pitching, pour in 2 oz of hops. Install the airlock. After a few days, I gently swirl as needed. Rack after about a week.
I use whole hops. I just pour them in, and then rack carefully when the time comes. I’ve used the panty hose trick before–it’s a good technique.
That’ll work.
