Hops catalyzing additional fermentation?

I am trying to duplicate cinderlands squish recipe which the head brewer gave me. The beer same in color and appearance but does not have as much residual sweetness nor as much oat mouth feel. My OG was 1.056 vs brewers 1.054. My final SG in was 1.012 same as brewers (three successive tests one each day same). Then I transferred to secondary and dry hopped with same hops (which is 6.2 ounces in 5 gallons). I got called out of town and the hops sat for 2 weeks and a day. Prior to leaving there was noticeable additional fermentation going on. Brewer said it happens due to hops being dried at lower temperatures now and the enzymes making more fermentable sugars. When I got back, the SG was down to 1.0054. All gravities corrected to 60F. I don’t know how long the brewer dry hops for all I know is he dry hops at 60 does a free temperature rise, does a VDK check then cold crashes for 6 days at 33 F, dumping trub daily. He cold crashes to get the hops to settle out and improve yield (I was tempted to suggest he centrifuge). Since at 2 weeks and a day my hops had already settled I did not cold crash just kegged it. I am wondering if the 2 weeks and a day of the hops sitting could be the root cause for the difference in flavor/mouthfeel.

Questions as follows

  1. could the taste be less sweet due to the gravity being lower? 1.012brewer vs 1.0054 me. I will measure his beer FG out of can when I get some more of the brewers cans.
  2. could the lack of sweetness adversely impact the mouth feel of the malted oats? The grain bill is half vienna malt and half malted oats so I should have had the oat feel as indeed the brewers beer does.
  3. I am thinking of trying to compensate for lack of same residual sweetness aka fix my beer with small amount of apricot puree. I will keep the keg cold and not bottle to avoid bottle bomb. Comments/suggestions welcome.

When a brew dries out… you’ll loose the other complex mouth feel that the sugars give, supporting the malts… Hence the “dry” brews from the mid 80’s…
Have you tried to add some type of sweetener to a glass? Measured as accurately as you can?
There could be some other under lying “salts” that a well versed brew can/would add to add mouth feel…
Just some ideas…
Sneezles61

Sneezles thanks-Your comment made me realize that I did not add salt to the beer when I tasted it. I added CaCl2 and CaSO4 to the mix of distilled and well water prior to brewing to match the brewers water profile. I calculated the amount of NaCl to add but did not add that to the brew water. I always add NaCl after I brew and taste it. I add it to a glass in small amounts till I get it just right. I just forgot to do this. Thanks for reminding me. I will try the salt first then look at the puree addition if that does not help. But salt makes things taste sweeter that’s for sure as long as not overdone. Suspect will have to both add salt as well as sweeten it a bit. Will find out.

Not senile yet I just drove 9.5 hours and slept for 6 and was tired when I kegged and tasted it.

fyi here is water profile after all chemicals added

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salt and mango puree at a dose of 3lb 1 ounce/5 gallons did the trick. Not as hop harsh and felt that mouth feel around back of tongue. I might have been able to use more puree but thats all I have :frowning:

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“Hop Creep”. It’s a thing.

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I agree. Sounds like hop creep which has been tough to nail down as some varieties exhibit it more than others. 1.012 vs 1.005 is a pretty drastic change, and the enzymes provided by the hops could certainly attach the dextrins supplied by oats could be affected.
Studies show that you’ve likely absorb all your hop oils in about 3 days so what I’ve started doing is cold crashing after 3 days of contact.

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Thanks for your helpful comments. I have another beer going into dry hop with same hop additions. This time I cooled it to 60F. I am adding hops now, will let it go for 3 days, do a vdk check, then cold crash to 33F for 6 days. This is what the head brewers instructions said to do. I was not able to do this for numerous reasons including my old temperature controllers not working with new code required GFCI and arc fault breakers and my kegerator tied up with other beers. Lesson learned follow the instructions exactly! I had to buy new temperature controllers. I was actually dry hopping at 74 F and the bubbler would not stop bubbling prior to my leaving for over a week.

I salvaged the beer with salt addition and puree but its not the same and not as good as the brewers beer.

As a brewer who dabbles on both the homebrew side and the commercial side one is not dependent on the other. What we do on the commercial side doesn’t always translate to the home brew side, and vice versa.

Yeah I hear you Loopie. The head brewer told me they to not pilot anything small scale because it does not scale up.

Since you have some commercial experience, perhaps you can help me with the hot side hop addition info. Hotside they hop with citra and amarillo at whirlpool. They calculated IBU to be 28. So I calculated the time I would need with these two hops to get to 28 and came out with 17.5 minutes. I cool with stainless coil using well water which is very cold and I drop temp to below 180 in like a minute or less because I stir like crazy during cooling. But it came out a little more bitter but then again my gravity was too low with hop creep. Captain obvious tells me stop the hop creep with 60F addition for three days and see if bitterness is same. If not do another trial with reduced time in boil for hotside hops.

My question for you is what are the whirlpool conditions specifically time and temperature. Comments welcome.

IBU calculations below 12.6 and 15.4 IBU for the two hops

So recipes don’t scale linearly. But they do scale, just takes some work. And, it helps if you maintain an exact process.
Hop creep is introduced once you add the dry hops. The enzymes will remain despite racking off the DH. So, packaging is important (kegging and keeping cold vs. bottle conditioning). One thing you can do is use whirlpool hops at a higher rate and your DH dosage at lower rates to combat that.
Whirlpool conditions for us depends on what beer we’re making. No whirlpool hopped beers will get a 15min whirlpool right after boil and then a 20min settling time. We do 10bbl and it takes about 45mins to knockout.
Whirlpool hopped beers go through our plate chiller and recirculated back to kettle. Takes about 30mins to get the temps dropped and stabilized.
You can then continue to whirlpool or add hops and go to chiller.