Hop Aroma

[Padalac]

some tips you could try in terms of the dry hopping:

1 fully ferment prior
2 cold crash and if possible remove as much yeast as possible (if you have a conical).
3 bring temp back up to ferment temps
4 add dry hops directly into the fermenter - forget the container.. just let the pellets break up in the beer and gradually precipitate to the bottom
5 agitate the pellets back up into suspension daily
6 give it a good 5 days
7 use the best hops you can get
8 then cold crash again to drop hops to bottom and decant beer off.

works for me!

[Jocky]

Seems like you're on your way. Good luck!

Just a minor point - alpha acid is a measure of the bittering potential, and is almost completely disconnected from aroma/flavour. For example Warrior is high alpha, but very neutral flavour; Ahtanum is the opposite.

I agree with all of Padalacs comments aside from agitation, which feels like a route to oxidation and will work against aroma (unless you do it in a purged keg).

[Jocky]

I should add that I can't stress enough - avoid exposure to oxygen as soon as you've dry hopped.

[john luc]

What is your water like. Is it hard

[sladeywadey]

I have a strong interest in this thread also - I saw a recommendation to dry hop in the keg. if you are using pellet hops, what's the best technique here?

[WalesAles]

I should add that I can't stress enough - avoid exposure to oxygen as soon as you've dry hopped.

Jocky,
How can I avoid exposure to Oxygen if the lid of the FV has to come off to be able to put the weighted Hop Bag
into the FV and then tie it to the FV handle to stop it sinking?
I`m not being pedantic, I just can`t see any other way around my method of Dry Hopping.

WA

[sladeywadey]

In terms of oxygen exposure - I was thinking the most critical exposure point is when transferring from the FV to Keg/bottle etc. I always flush out my tubing and keg with CO2 prior to any transfer activity.

[BrannigansLove]

You could try a teaspoon of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in your priming solution. I've only done this once, but it prolonged the hop aroma of a NE IPA I made. I forgot to add it in the following batch I made, and the hop aroma faded a good deal quicker.

[albino]

Some interesting new ideas here - thanks to one and all!

Padalac - I have tried cold crashing first and then bringing back to temp with decent, but not mind-blowing, results in the past. I don't know why I didn't try this again this time but it's on the list again for the future.

Sladeywadey - whilst I always try to minimise exposure to oxygen and flush the keg with Co2, I've never thought about flushing the tubing. That said, I've never been really blown away by hop aroma from the fv after dryhopping so it may be that the fix needs to come before this. However I'm going to be pressure transferring my next batch to see if that helps.

Jocky - What you say about AA% is what I'd always thought although after listening to some podcasts on the brewing network with John Palmer & Zainisaheff it seemed that they were suggesting differently http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post445/ (although it is a fairly old podcast - it's also about half an hour in before they start discussing dryhopping!!). Maybe they meant that "most" higher AA% hops were more likely to be the type to impart hop aroma in dry-hopping (Warrior etc being the exceptions)

Brannigan - I've never even heard of that concept but I'm interested. Where did you get the idea from as I'd like to read up a bit more?

John luc - Water is definitely on my list of things to improve. I got a water profile done by Murphy's with these results which I think is relatively soft



I've added their DWB as suggested but haven't really got a clue what difference it makes. Any ideas on this?

Finally, I did add 2ml of Cascade hop aroma oil from Maltmiller but, to be honest, it has added a slight vegetal tang to the taste and aroma rather than the fresh citrus/spicy/subtle grapefruit I've come to expect from a good cascade dryhopping. It's not made the beer worse and it's still very much drinkable but I'm not convinced it's the solution.
Thanks again!

[Jocky]

I should add that I can't stress enough - avoid exposure to oxygen as soon as you've dry hopped.

Jocky,
How can I avoid exposure to Oxygen if the lid of the FV has to come off to be able to put the weighted Hop Bag
into the FV and then tie it to the FV handle to stop it sinking?
I`m not being pedantic, I just can`t see any other way around my method of Dry Hopping.

WA

I'm saying do what you can to avoid it where you can. You're not a commercial brewery, so just do what you can. Minimise opening time; inject CO2 back in maybe; but most of all avoid doing extra steps that are unnecessary but might add in oxygen exposure.

I'd like to ask what's the rationale behind weighing down a hop bag AND then tying it to stop it dropping to the bottom?

If you can crash chill then just lob pellets in as they are - 24 hours of crash chilling before bottling drops them out.

[WalesAles]

I'd like to ask what's the rationale behind weighing down a hop bag AND then tying it to stop it dropping to the bottom?

If you can crash chill then just lob pellets in as they are - 24 hours of crash chilling before bottling drops them out.

Jocky,
I weight down the hop bag so that it is fully submerged in the FV. I tie it off so that it is about 50mm off the muck in the
FV bottom. When I pull out the bag, I am not disturbing any muck off the FV bottom.

WA

[BrannigansLove]

Some interesting new ideas here - thanks to one and all!

Padalac - I have tried cold crashing first and then bringing back to temp with decent, but not mind-blowing, results in the past. I don't know why I didn't try this again this time but it's on the list again for the future.

Sladeywadey - whilst I always try to minimise exposure to oxygen and flush the keg with Co2, I've never thought about flushing the tubing. That said, I've never been really blown away by hop aroma from the fv after dryhopping so it may be that the fix needs to come before this. However I'm going to be pressure transferring my next batch to see if that helps.

Jocky - What you say about AA% is what I'd always thought although after listening to some podcasts on the brewing network with John Palmer & Zainisaheff it seemed that they were suggesting differently http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post445/ (although it is a fairly old podcast - it's also about half an hour in before they start discussing dryhopping!!). Maybe they meant that "most" higher AA% hops were more likely to be the type to impart hop aroma in dry-hopping (Warrior etc being the exceptions)

Brannigan - I've never even heard of that concept but I'm interested. Where did you get the idea from as I'd like to read up a bit more?

John luc - Water is definitely on my list of things to improve. I got a water profile done by Murphy's with these results which I think is relatively soft



I've added their DWB as suggested but haven't really got a clue what difference it makes. Any ideas on this?

Finally, I did add 2ml of Cascade hop aroma oil from Maltmiller but, to be honest, it has added a slight vegetal tang to the taste and aroma rather than the fresh citrus/spicy/subtle grapefruit I've come to expect from a good cascade dryhopping. It's not made the beer worse and it's still very much drinkable but I'm not convinced it's the solution.
Thanks again!

Someone on the AHA forum suggested it. The idea being that it acts as an anti-oxidant. As I said, I've only done it once, but the results were sufficient for me to definitely try it again.

[Padalac]

Seems like you're on your way. Good luck!

Just a minor point - alpha acid is a measure of the bittering potential, and is almost completely disconnected from aroma/flavour. For example Warrior is high alpha, but very neutral flavour; Ahtanum is the opposite.

I agree with all of Padalacs comments aside from agitation, which feels like a route to oxidation and will work against aroma (unless you do it in a purged keg).

Hi Jocky,

thanks for that input. Usually I presume that the fermentation action would blow all the air out of the FV, and effectively purge the (small) headspace with CO2 - what do you reckon to this?

The vitamin C thing sounds interesting.. might have to try that

[Piscator]

The vitamin C thing sounds interesting.. might have to try that

Crikey, beer will end up being sold in Holland and Barrett as a heath food next - made with whole grains and greens and a source of vitamin C

[BrannigansLove]

Seems like you're on your way. Good luck!

Just a minor point - alpha acid is a measure of the bittering potential, and is almost completely disconnected from aroma/flavour. For example Warrior is high alpha, but very neutral flavour; Ahtanum is the opposite.

I agree with all of Padalacs comments aside from agitation, which feels like a route to oxidation and will work against aroma (unless you do it in a purged keg).

Hi Jocky,

thanks for that input. Usually I presume that the fermentation action would blow all the air out of the FV, and effectively purge the (small) headspace with CO2 - what do you reckon to this?

The vitamin C thing sounds interesting.. might have to try that

If you do try it, please report back. The more data we gather, the better idea we'll have on whether it's actually doing anything useful.