Dry Hopping Question

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stokebrewer

Dry Hopping Question

Post by stokebrewer » Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:06 pm

Morning guys

Just finished our 3rd brew last monday and its now in the ferm-fridge bubbling away nicely.

This is the first recipe we have done which calls for dry hopping, its a bells two hearted IPA recipe.

Currently, my plan is two give it till next monday (full 7 days in primary) then add the dry hops (pellets) in a hop sock we have, and place the whole thing into the primary and leave for another week before bottling and conditioning for another 2-3 weeks.

Would this be going about it the right way?

know alot of people rack to a secondary for dry hopping but we only have plastic buckets at the moment and no carboys, we dont want to risk infection by doing the transfer if its not needed.

Is my timing right? i know i am assuming that primary fermentation will have died right down by 7 days, however if its still vigorously bubbling on day 7 we will not dry hop then.

Advise would be great guys

Thanks

Rich

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by Cam » Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:20 pm

Im relatively new to all this too (6 brews under my belt but all with a dryhop). I think the times are recipe dependent and an average would be 5days after 5days but your timings wont do any harm. FYI I just have one fermentor also and dryhop this way. I also add some glass beads into the sock to weigh it down a bit and tie the sock with some string so it is suspended mid height of the beer. Obviously everything is sanitized well.

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by BrannigansLove » Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:48 pm

I wouldn't bother with a hop sock for pellets if you have the ability to cold crash. I bottled a NE IPA recently that had about 100g of pellets added in dry hop (at 7 days and 14 days), and 2 days cold crash cleared all the hop debris from the beer for bottling. I do use bags with marbles for leaf hops though.

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by MTW » Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:03 pm

I'd echo Branigan re the sock: not required for pellets. However, I've always got better results dry hopping (with loose pellets) in a second bucket. Don't worry about it not being in glass. I prefer the extra chance to eliminate sediment on transfers. Aeration is more of a concern, but as long as you're careful (I purge things with CO2, but just being careful not to splash is fine).

Whichever way you do it, if you've got a controlled fridge, then a day with the pellets at 18C, two days at 12, and then crash as cold as poss (I can get 2C easily in mine) for a few days before packaging, seems to work wonders for me.
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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by Jocky » Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:22 pm

I echo the other comments that if you can chill your fermenter for 24-48 hours you don't need to put pellets in a sock. In fact they diffuse their oils better if you don't.

Personally I like to dry hop around 5 days before bottling, and 2 days before bottling I drop the temperature in the fermentation chamber to as close to 0 as possible.

If I want to fine my beer too then I'll dry hop 6-7 days before bottling, chill 3-4 days before bottling and fine 24-48 hours before.

While you don't need to worry about not being in glass, keep that lid tightly on your fermenter as soon as it's done fermenting, and only pop it off as briefly as possible for dry hopping/fining until you get to bottling - oxygen is the enemy of hop aroma.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

stokebrewer

Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by stokebrewer » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:17 pm

Thanks for the advise guys

I do very much have the ability to cold crash in our ferm-fridge, however we only have the one fridge at the moment so we have to use it for conditioning the bottles of beer after bottling.

This usually takes a couple of weeks then we box the bottles and leave them to chill in the garage at around 5-9 degrees ambient temp.

so the problem we have with cold crashing is the additional carbing time for the bottles, i understand that dropping all the yeast out of suspension during cold crashing adds another couple of weeks onto the conditioning time to allow for proper carbonation, which means we can only do a batch of beer every 6 weeks which will make us both sad!

That said, we should be acquiring another fridge soon which will double our productivity and lead to us cold crashing most brews.

If i am not cold crashing, would it be advised to still use the hop sock for the pellets?

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by MTW » Wed Dec 14, 2016 4:14 pm

stokebrewer wrote:Thanks for the advise guys

I do very much have the ability to cold crash in our ferm-fridge, however we only have the one fridge at the moment so we have to use it for conditioning the bottles of beer after bottling.

This usually takes a couple of weeks then we box the bottles and leave them to chill in the garage at around 5-9 degrees ambient temp.

so the problem we have with cold crashing is the additional carbing time for the bottles, i understand that dropping all the yeast out of suspension during cold crashing adds another couple of weeks onto the conditioning time to allow for proper carbonation, which means we can only do a batch of beer every 6 weeks which will make us both sad!

That said, we should be acquiring another fridge soon which will double our productivity and lead to us cold crashing most brews.

If i am not cold crashing, would it be advised to still use the hop sock for the pellets?
They can take more like a week to drop out without crashing, in my experience, so if you need it faster, then leaf or bag. The temperature profile of the dry hop makes a difference though: I wouldn't want mine sat in at 20C for 7 days, for example. YMMV

I haven't found bottles take longer to condition after crashing, btw. Not for just 2 or 3 days through.

I normally manage to negotiate a warm spot in the house for at least a week, rather than tie up the fridge! :D
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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by Jocky » Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:47 pm

I've not really seen a great difference in carbing time if you're only crashing for a couple of days.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by rpt » Fri Dec 16, 2016 3:54 pm

You shouldn't need to tie up your fermentation fridge for bottle conditioning. Just put them somewhere in the house that doesn't get too cold and they will carb up in a couple of weeks, regardless of cold crashing. I always fill at least a couple of plastic bottles so that I know if they have carbed ok.

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Re: Dry Hopping Question

Post by WalesAles » Sun Dec 18, 2016 7:50 pm

stokebrewer wrote:
That said, we should be acquiring another fridge soon which will double our productivity and lead to us cold crashing most brews.
stoke,
It is WINTER! :D
You won`t need another fridge for a couple of months.
Put the beer in your shed or garage, that will be cold enough mun! :D

WA

Sent from my 4 seater sofa, MrsAles on the 3 seater sofa!

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