02/11/10 - APA

[Barley Water]

Build yourself a "Randall". Basicly, you run your beer through a bed of hops between the keg and the faucet, it's hopping as close to the glass as you can get. Check out the Dogfish Head website, those are the guys that invented the thing.

[coatesg]

One of the local brewers made a dry hopping device for their US IPA - basically a corny keg, filled with hops (columbus and centennial for his beer) which the whole batch is recirculated around for about 2 days. Awesome aroma.

[mysterio]

One of the local brewers made a dry hopping device for their US IPA - basically a corny keg, filled with hops (columbus and centennial for his beer) which the whole batch is recirculated around for about 2 days. Awesome aroma.

Could you explain that a bit further?? Sounds amazing.

[coatesg]

As far as I understand (from chatting with them, and from other articles), the corny is filled with your dry hops, and you then recirculate the entire batch via a filter using a pump and let it go round and round continuously through the hops for days - kind of like a hopback, only continuous usage, and used after the ferment rather than before. You'd obviously need a big batch to warrant this, though I guess you could possibly rig something up on a smaller scale with a bit of DIY.

Some links:

http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2010/11/l ... 9-ipa.html
http://www.lovibonds.co.uk/shop_product ... =882&cat=0

You could drop Jeff a line too - he might be able to explain further.

[bosium]

What a brilliant idea! You could make a ten gallon batch - filling two cornies. You could then daisy-chain the two kegs along with a third baby keg filled with hops and then recirculate the beer cold through that cold system using a march pump or whatever for a day or two.

Or... you could just serve the beer from one keg through another filled with hops?
Hmm...

[coatesg]

I was thinking you'd need a few barrels brew length to make it worthwhile - I reckon it all needs to be done under pressure in a sealed, purged environment to avoid oxidation by splashing, and to avoid too much foaming due to the pumping. Still, it is a great idea, and you get a load of aroma due to the constant flow of beer over the hops (allowing quicker/more aroma and flavour pickup by the beer than having a few hops floating around in the fermenter/conditioning tank for a while).

I have three buckets worth of goldings and first gold from this season that would make for an awesome experiment to make an English take on the hop-bomb, but I can't brew anywhere near that much beer!

[WishboneBrewery]

Interesting stuff, the Aussie version is called a 'Hop-Inator' as far as I know.
Is it possible to Bottle-Dry-Hop?

[coatesg]

Use a counter pressure filler to bottle it I guess.

[WishboneBrewery]

I was thinking more like the Chilli in the bottle type of thing, actually putting a Fat hop cone in the bottle. Probably be a right pain in the arse!

[coatesg]

Ah right - see what you mean now. Suppose you could, though not sure I'd want to be picking the leaves out of my teeth though!

[WishboneBrewery]

Could be a bit messy I suppose, and annoying to clean after.

[mysterio]

As far as I understand (from chatting with them, and from other articles), the corny is filled with your dry hops, and you then recirculate the entire batch via a filter using a pump and let it go round and round continuously through the hops for days - kind of like a hopback, only continuous usage, and used after the ferment rather than before. You'd obviously need a big batch to warrant this, though I guess you could possibly rig something up on a smaller scale with a bit of DIY.

Some links:

http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2010/11/l ... 9-ipa.html
http://www.lovibonds.co.uk/shop_product ... =882&cat=0

You could drop Jeff a line too - he might be able to explain further.

Great stuff. It sounds like a major hassle which is all the more impressive that a brewer will go to that length in order to get the best hop aroma possible. Not sure how I would rig up something like that at home ... although I do have a pump and a water filter housing...

[Barley Water]

Sierra Nevada is making a beer called Torpedo, maybe you guys have tried it? Anyway, the "Torpedo" is a great big tank full of hops which the beer is circulated through much in the manner you describe. This particular set up is however not used at the "point of sale" so to speak because of course they end up bottling (and I assume kegging) the beer afterwards for serving. Dogfish Head's Randall on the other hand is designed to add hop aroma and flavor as close to the glass as possible so you hook it between the keg and faucet. What you can do at home is get a canaster water filter and pull the filter element out. You replace the element with a tube which has holes drilled in it is such a way to to force the beer to go through the hops before exiting the filter. After that, it is simply a matter of a little plumbing and you splice the contraption into the beer lines. The thing works well with a CO2 driven dispense set up but I bet it would work just fine with a beer engine as well. The reason I don't use mine much is because I rarely use whole hops and pellet hops will plug everything up really badly (I know, I have tried). Also, this seems to work better with higher alcholol beers like Imperial IPA's which frankly don't turn me on that much. Actually though, I am currently drinking my Dogfish Head 60 clone so maybe I will load up my "Randall" and screw around with it again.

[WishboneBrewery]

I think I read something on Twitter about Roosters Brewery buying a Hop-Torpedo type thing.

[mysterio]

I had the Torpedo, it had sadly lost all of its hop character by the time it got here (which can't have been more than 2 - 3 months?), same with the Dogfish 60 + 90 I tried.

Although I had another bottle of Stone Ruination (which I love) a couple of days ago, which to my horror I gave to my brother last year and he had been storing in a warm cupboard. Still, we drank it and it was still pretty hoppy.