Loss of hop aroma

Brewed an Amarillo IPA recently. Two week primary, two week secondary, dry hopped for last 10 days in secondary.

It was a five gallon batch and I used a total of 6oz of Amarillo, 2oz each for 10 min, 1 min and dry hop, plus NB for bittering. Bottled after secondary, and tasted after 10 days....amazing hop aroma. Two weeks later, the aroma is really reduced.

I've had this problem before. How do the commercials keep that aroma for longer than 2 weeks? Does kegging help preserve the aroma? How does storage temp effect it?

No guesses please...I can do that! Who has found a way to reduce the loss of hop aroma?

Thanks

All I can tell you is I dry hop for 2 weeks and my aroma begins to fall off 2 weeks after I keg. I have no idea how the big brewers do it and I have no idea how to prolong it in bottles or in a keg. Luckily after two weeks my beer is gone or almost gone. I would be interested to find out if anyone else has some advice.

How much did you prime? CO2 can mask hop aromas pretty effectively.

Primed about 3.5oz. The point is the aroma was amazing but only for about 10 days, then declined rapidly

The aroma declined 10 days after bottling, or ten days after carbonation was complete? If it was 10 days after bottling, we may look at CO2 as a possible factor. I've used my (very hard) well water for brewing before, which has created very harsh hop flavors; I've noticed with such brews that that harshness dissipates about when full carbonation is reached. I'm not certain the same thing would apply to dry-hop aromas, but it's a reasonable assumption. You could try bottling a few without adding priming sugar in the future, just as an experiment.

Also, I know you said no guesses, but I'll note in passing that all the commercial beers I've had with excellent hop aroma were filtered. I can't think of any commercial live-yeast beer that emphasizes hop aromas. Perhaps yeast activity is to blame.

I bottled, then allowed to carb for about 10 days. Aroma was great for about another 14 days, so aroma started to disappear about 24 days after bottling.

I have a new batch fermenting. I'll leave a couple of bottles uncarbed as you suggest to see if they retain the aroma.

I've had a very hoppy IPA at a brewpub nearby and have found the aroma very variable...perhaps to do with the age of the keg.

I keg. I have noticed that when I naturally carbonate, the aroma of IPAs seems to disappear faster than when I force carb a batch. I'm suspicious that the yeast may be breaking down some of the aroma compounds.

Yeah, it's sounding like yeast activity to me. The yeast consumes the priming sugar, then moves on to things like volatile aroma compounds. If you leave some bottles unprimed, I would put one or two in the fridge immediately and leave some at room temperature as a control; also put some primed bottles in the fridge as soon as they are carbonated (not sure if you already do that). The cold should keep them from starting work on hop aromas and suchlike, eliminating another variable. I'm fairly sure you'll find what the problem is this way.

Good idea about putting them in the fridge as soon as they are carbonated....I don't currently do that. I can see that the yeast could munch on the aroma compounds after finishing the priming sugar.

I'll let you know if that helps

I've been doing some research here and I'll be trying to replicate this with the next batch.

Russian River: once the beer has done fermenting they drop the temp to get the yeast to fall out of suspension first (and to collect the yeast for the next batch) then they drop hop and let the temp rise. They do 2 dry hop additions, and they re-suspend the hops with a CO2 push at the base of the conical. Alpine do something similar: they recirculate the drop hops to get them back into the beer. Both breweries go about 14 days with the dry hop. Pizza Port Carlsbad (their Poor Man's IPA has an awesome aroma) dry hop in the primary but also dry hop the serving tank which we could do by keg hopping.

Of course they can force carb in a few hours and probably get through the tank very quickly, whereas if we're using a set-and-forget method the effect of the dry hopping is probably all but lost by the time the keg has carbed and it's ready to tap. So perhaps a carbonation stone would help here.

I think 14 days after dry hopping you just have to somehow get it ready to be served very, very quickly. Alpine go from grain to glass in 4 weeks (no aging whatsoever) and their IPAs have an awesome aroma.

This is what I'm going to try for the next batch (I'll bump this thread with the results if I remember):

Ferment at low 60's, slowly increasing temp to 68 (needs to be dry; shooting for 83% atten.) and holding for 2 days for a diacetly rest. Cold crash for 2 or 3 days, transfer beer off the yeast into another carboy (CO2 push to not disturb the trub). Slowly raise temp to 68, add first dry hop, wait 7 days, add second dry hop, wait another 7 days. Cold crash + gelatin for 4 days, or for however long for the hops to settle at the bottom. Transfer to keg, add keg hops (in a weighted bag) and carb using carbonation stone. Tap in 2 or 3 days.

As a side note I dry hop w/ tea infusion balls in the keg and don't seem to have an accelerated loss of hop aroma as you describe.

I've had it happen to me as well and have been kicking around the idea of addressing it on the recipe side. Go 2-3x bigger on the aroma addition so that after the initial aroma drop out you're about where you want to be in the first place.

Anyone have experience approaching it in that way? Was is successful?

Yeast do not metabolize the volatile hop aroma compounds / hop oils; but from what I understand their cell walls do bind with them to some degree. That is why some pros recommend not dry hopping the primary, where there is lots of yeast.

Hop aroma compounds are primarily terpenes; this class of compounds are for the most part stable throughout fermentation, meaning they do not change or degrade as a direct result of fermentation. But some terpenes, due to having an unstable molecular structure, over time break down into different compounds that do not have aroma activity, or at least don't have the hop aroma activity we desire.

So my $0.02: dry hopping should take place in the presence of as little yeast as possible, and once dry hopped (there are lots of brewers who report superior dry hopping results at fermentation / room temp as opposed to chilled), the beer should be kept as cold as possible, to slow down the chemical decomposition of those compounds.

I wonder what effect water profile has on the retention of aroma?

the crown liners absorbs hop aromas

I can tell you that 6 oz in a 5 gallon batch will not get you a hoppy beer. I can't quite quantify what a hoppy beer is to you, but as a hop head, I use 4 oz for a 1 gallon batch and get commercial level hop-punched-in-the-face.

Also, someone asked, and your water profile can be an issue as well. Sulphate levels should be closing in at 200-300 ppm to really let them shine. There are far more considerations, including pH.

Finally, I'd say that you would want only 25% of your hops hitting the boil. A majority of your hop additions should be flameout/whirlpool and dry hop. If I recall correctly, 95% of Firestone Walker's IBUs come post-boil in their hoppy beers; Heady topper does not boil a single hop.

IMO! the big commercial beers do the same. That's why we now have "best by" beers. I do a lot of really big hoppy beers and within the first 2 weeks they are unbelievable and then suddenly they are great... Good and then okay.

I think that's the downside to being a hophead!


Cheers!

Calichusetts said:

Heady topper does not boil a single hop.

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If they didn't boil any hops it would be the sweetest tasting beer ever

brettg20 said:

If they didn't boil any hops it would be the sweetest tasting beer ever

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They use extract for bittering. No hops in the boil. Hops are only used for aroma and flavor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdfySDN2mF0

EDIT- You also have to realize that we are getting the worst of the hops. Commercial brewers get first dibs and even their own personal fields for consistent and quality hop yields.

Hop extract makes sense, I didn't see that in your original post so I didn't want the OP to go without bittering


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It's not you. I notice the best hop aroma from my beers is the hydro sample before bottling.

I bought a sixer of Nugget Nectar at the beginning of the month when it was 5 days old, 2/28 bottle date. That same batch a month later has significantly less hop aroma.

When hoppy beers lose some aroma over time, does the flavor change too? I'm not to much of a hop head but I just brewed a Sierra Nevada clone and dry hopped for 7 days...just wondering if I should put all the bottles in the fridge after they are fully carbonated.

If the aroma dissipation is the only change and not the flavor then I'll have room for food in my fridge...

Haders said:

Brewed an Amarillo IPA recently. Two week primary, two week secondary, dry hopped for last 10 days in secondary.

It was a five gallon batch and I used a total of 6oz of Amarillo, 2oz each for 10 min, 1 min and dry hop, plus NB for bittering. Bottled after secondary, and tasted after 10 days....amazing hop aroma. Two weeks later, the aroma is really reduced.

I've had this problem before. How do the commercials keep that aroma for longer than 2 weeks? Does kegging help preserve the aroma? How does storage temp effect it?

No guesses please...I can do that! Who has found a way to reduce the loss of hop aroma?

Thanks

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14 (primary) + 14 (secondary) + 10 (dryhop) + 10 (carb) + 14 (drinking) = 62

All commercial beers will taste dramatically different after 62 days as well. I think the main problem is your two week primary, two week secondary, and 10 day dryhop. Most breweries get their beers out the door by the time you are moving yours to secondary.

Next time try 5-7 day primary. Dryhop in primary for 3 days. Package. You'll be drinking by day 20 rather than day 48.

Then, like someone said earlier, store those bottles cold. Temperature plays a huge role in shelf life. That's why many brewers use refrigerated trucks. And, one reason why a place like Sierra Nevada is opening an east coast brewery.

Think he meant 10 of the 14 was dry hopped. So minus 10 days. But agreed, still too long,

I found this article to be really helpful for hoppy beers in general:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/09/galaxy-hopped-double-ipa.html?m=1

He mentions that the timeline needs to be accelerated for IPAs to get the best hop flavor, and I definitely have seen other places in the blog where he mentions that force carbing the beer has done wonders for getting the freshest hop flavor/aroma.

As for how the pros do it, another point he brings up a lot is that oxidation stales the hop flavors and aromas very quickly. Pro brewers definitely have the advantage here given the equipment disparity. I've found personally, that my homebrew is best within a month or two of becoming carbonated -- regardless of the style.


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Thanks for the link, PHDrunk

Hello, all. It is my first post here. I am from Brazil and I brewed a Fat Head IPA clone in May 23th. After 7 days in primary, 10 days in secondary (dryhopping) and 21 days carbonating, my IPA was ready. The aroma was very hoppy. Perfect!

After one month in room temp, this week i decided to open a bottle and I noticed that the aroma was gone. I decided to put all bottles in the fridge. I have a question for you guys.

Can I rebottled my IPA adding more hops in the bottles? If i do that, shoud i add a little more sugar to carbonate my IPA again or only hops is enough?

Thanks you guys for your support.

Gustavo

tricolorcps said:

Hello, all. It is my first post here. I am from Brazil and I brewed a Fat Head IPA clone in May 23th. After 7 days in primary, 10 days in secondary (dryhopping) and 21 days carbonating, my IPA was ready. The aroma was very hoppy. Perfect!



After one month in room temp, this week i decided to open a bottle and I noticed that the aroma was gone. I decided to put all bottles in the fridge. I have a question for you guys.



Can I rebottled my IPA adding more hops in the bottles? If i do that, shoud i add a little more sugar to carbonate my IPA again or only hops is enough?



Thanks you guys for your support.



Gustavo

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You're better off just adjusting your next batch. If you open those bottles you risk oxidizing them further. In the future I would shorten your timeline. 5-7 day primary, dryhop in primary for 3-4 days, 14 day bottle condition, store cold, drink within 3 weeks.