dry hop with cascade?

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BetterSense

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I'm making a blonde and the hydrometer samples just seem kind of bland. I screwed this up mashing and it came out too thin, so I added malt extract to bring the OG up. I'm not getting any real flavor or hop aroma from it, so I was thinking about tossing in 1/2 oz of cascade that I have in the fridge as an experiment. Is cascade suitable for dry hopping? Are pellets ok to toss right in the secondary or do I need to use a hop sock thing?
 
I dry hopped my last brew with cascades and it turned out great. You can toss pellets right into secondary, but personally I prefer to use a hop sock// bag. Less crap during bottling. Good luck!
 
Cascades are great for dry hopping. In fact it is one of the classic dry hop for APA and IPA. You can add them to the secondary with nothing else needed. Rack after 5 to 7 days.
 
Cascade is a great dry hop for pales and ipas (and probably a lot more brews). I dump an ounce or more of pellets in my secondary, let 'em simmer for a week or so, then crash cool to 34°F for four days and all the pellet bits go straight to the bottom of the carboy before I rack to a keg. Good stuff!

Cheers!
 
Well, I dumped a leftover 1/2 oz of cascade pellets in when I racked to secondary last night after 12 days in the primary. I just hope that the pellets settle out...I'm used to my beer being clean in the secondary (that's the point) so it's weird seeing chunks of hops swirling around in there...it's like I was making it dirtier.
 
Well, I dumped a leftover 1/2 oz of cascade pellets in when I racked to secondary last night after 12 days in the primary. I just hope that the pellets settle out...I'm used to my beer being clean in the secondary (that's the point) so it's weird seeing chunks of hops swirling around in there...it's like I was making it dirtier.

Two days ago I had two IPA batches simmering at 68°F in carboys with nice thick layers of pellet bits - Amarillo in one and Citra in the other. Then I turned the ferm fridge controller down to 34°F. This morning the hop bits are all on the bottom and the chill haze is about halfway down. By Monday I'll have 10 gallons of bright IPAs ready to keg...

Cheers!
 
I don't have a fridge that I can turn down that low unfortunately.

If you can get the brew down into the low 40s that's probably plenty to sink the hops. I go down to 34°F to drop the chill haze, too (I'd go a few degrees more but don't want to stress the fridge that hard)...

Cheers!
 
Cascade and Centennial are my favorite 2 dry hoppers. They really add a nice floral aroma to a boring brew. 2 ounces of fresh-dried-from-home Centennial 2 days ago already perked a flavorless ~6% pale ale. Kyle
 
+1 on Centennial. My father in law grows hops for me, and I had an oz left over from last fall that I hadn't used. Brewed a couple days ago, and decided that the Centennial had lost a lot of AA sitting in the fridge vacuum seal bag, so I used some week old Cascade instead for bittering...BUT, the point of this is that I put a handful of the Centennial right into a glass of my IPA and wow what an incredible aroma it had and really livened up the beer.

Sorry for the side track. I dry hopped this same IPA with 2 oz of Cascade...but again it was last years harvest so I'm thinking it could have been better with fresh hops. Pellets would be the next best thing, instead of 10 month old leaf hops.
 
I just dry hopped a wheat-ipa with 2 oz cascade. I dont have temperature control either.

I would recommend rocking the keg a bit (without splashing) to drop them from the surface, but you will have to deal with some of them if you cant cold crash.

I used a sanitized moslin bag over the end of my siphon to keep hops out of my bottling bucket, but still had a hell of a time keeping it going. The flavor was def worth the effort, but unfortunately I lost a good bit of beer in the process. I will def keep the hops in a hop bag when dry hopping from here on out.

Best of luck to you.
 
Well I bottled them last night. For the past couple days I've been keeping a fresh jug of ice in my chamber next to the secondary. When I bottled, my floating thermometer said 14 degrees C. I hope that's not cold enough to cause my beer to be over-carbed. I'm not sure if the "coolish-crashing" helped, but all the hops were settled to a thin layer on the bottom. I left a bit of beer behind with the hops and very little made it into my bottling bucket. I'll have to wait another couple weeks to try the beer.
 
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