Dry hopping side effect or early timing?

I have a question related to dry hopping and secondary "fermentation". Last month I brewed up a big English style IPA. I started the fermentation on November 21st and it had an original gravity of 1.081. I was using wyeast 1968 and with it's poor attenuation capabilities, the expected final gravity was 1.023. It was rather high, but I though it would be ok to finish sweeter to balance the 75IBU this beer expected to finish with.

After a long and tedious fermentation, I ended up racking to secondary on December 12. At transfer, I visually inspected the beer. The yeast had dropped nicely. The krausen had settled as well. For all intensive purposes, the beer looked pretty quiet. For my sanity's benefit, I took a gravity ready and it ended up at 1.020 which I was very excited about. I took a decision and went along to transfer to secondary. If it was going to attenuate further, it wouldn't attenuate by more than a few more points. So I did the transfer and added the dry hops. After nearly a week in the secondary, this is what I saw in my fermentor.

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l122/mithion/second_krausen.jpg

I just couldn't believe it, a second krausen. I'm not experienced with dry hopping so I was wondering if this is normal behavior when you dry hop? I'm kinda worried that I wasted the hops since with all this activity, a lot of the volatile chemicals would escape. Has anybody seen this before when dry hopping? By most accounts, I've heard the hops are suppose to gently settle down at the bottom after a couple days but I've got half sitting in the bottom and the other half sitting on top in a hop "cake".

i've never dry hopped so i don't know if thats normal or not but it looks like fermentation kicked in again for some reason. its posable that the wart stratified on you and you didn't get a complete fermentation and the racking mixed things up and the yeast woke up again.

im sure someone with more experience will give you a better diagnosis.

Looks to me like the dry hops may just be assisting in forcing CO2 out of solution. You'll know for sure when you measure the FG. Either way, don't worry. It looks normal, and your IPA should be awesome...

TipsyDragon said:

looks like fermentation kicked in again for some reason.

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That's exactly what it looks like, I totally agree with you. But the gravity readings I had were already beyond the normal attenuation of the yeast I used. I don't even think I got a krausen like this in the primary fermentation.

just because the SG was below the expected value doesn't mean that fermentation was done. thats why people check multiple times over the course of a week or so. only once 3 readings are exactly the same is fermentation is declared over.

how did you oxygenate your wort? did you shake the yeast during fermentation?

I oxygenated the wort first by splashing it into the fermentor from the kettle. And then I frothed it good with a spoon for another couple minutes before pitching. I did not shake the yeast during fermentation.

I was planning on dry hopping for a week and then bottle. That would put the expected bottling date tomorrow. Should I bottle as planned or should I wait for this krausen to drop? I'm just worried I'll get too much grassy flavor if I leave in with the hops too long.

mithion said:

I oxygenated the wort first by splashing it into the fermentor from the kettle. And then I frothed it good with a spoon for another couple minutes before pitching. I did not shake the yeast during fermentation.

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it sounds like you oxygenated enough. not oxygenating enough can cause a slow fermentation. next time pour the wort back and forth a few times. then shake the primary till your arms get tired, rest, then shake it some more. personally i use a fish take aerator and air stone with an inline air filter for 30 minutes.

shaking every day or so is a good idea. it disturbs the yeast and gets them off the bottom of the fermenter and increases fermentation.


but really all of this is assuming you didn't get a good fermentation. haven't seen any real evidence of that.

wait till all signs of fermentation are done before bottling. if you bottle and fermentation is still going on some of your bottles will explode. wait a month at least.

TipsyDragon said:

but really all of this is assuming you didn't get a good fermentation. haven't seen any real evidence of that.

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Yeah, the yeast brought it down from 1.080 to 1.020. I call that pretty decent.

wait till all signs of fermentation are done before bottling. if you bottle and fermentation is still going on some of your bottles will explode. wait a month at least.

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So it's ok to leave the hops in there that long?

I'd check the gravity again. If it's still 1.020, bottle it.

mithion said:

Yeah, the yeast brought it down from 1.080 to 1.020. I call that pretty decent.



So it's ok to leave the hops in there that long?

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No, you don't want to leave the hops that long. No more than about 2 weeks at room temperature.

Check the SG. If it's not changing, you can bottle any time you'd like. If it's changing, wait until it's not changing.

If it's still fermenting, one of the things that can happen is the co2 coming out can scrub away some of the hoppy aroma and flavor. If it's not fermenting, then it'll be fine. That's why everybody waits until fermentation is over before dryhopping.

If you want to take the beer off the hops without bottling, simply rack to a new carboy.

Thank you for all your suggestions. I think I'll keep an eye on it for now and delay bottling a bit. With a gravity reading of 1.020 going into the secondary fermentor, I can't believe it will last much longer than another week to reach final gravity. Hopefully by then, I won't have lost all the good flavor and aroma chemicals from the dry hops.

Well this isn't going as well as I had hopped. It's been 10 days in secondary and there is still a bit of green foam on the beer. I looked closely and there is still tons of CO2 being produced. I've been keeping it warm (around 70) to try to help the yeast finish it's job but it's taking forever. With all the activity I'm seeing now, the dry hopping will have been useless. Do you guys think I should cold crash it and bottle it or wait until Saturday and rack off the hops to a tertiary fermentor?

You are not alone in this. I have experienced this phenomenon FOUR times with two different yeast strains: S-05 and S-04. All 4 beers had stable final gravities that were in spec for the yeast, but a little on the high side. All sat activity-free for 3 or 4 days following racking to secondary + dry hop addition, then kicked back to life and re-fermented for a 1-2 weeks. All three S-05 batches wound up beyond 80% attenuation (including an imperial IPA that hit 89%), with the S-04 reaching about 75%.

None of my beers using liquid yeast with starters have ever gotten "stuck" like those 4 batches did. It's just really weird.

As far as dry hopping too long, I stuff a paint strainer bag into a star san-filled pitcher for a few minutes, shake it out like mad, and shove my sanitized autosiphon into that, and into the carboy to act as a hop stariner. This keeps nearly all of the hop matter from entering the tertiary fermenter.

greenbirds said:

You are not alone in this. I have experienced this phenomenon FOUR times with two different yeast strains: S-05 and S-04. All 4 beers had stable final gravities that were in spec for the yeast, but a little on the high side. All sat activity-free for 3 or 4 days following racking to secondary + dry hop addition, then kicked back to life and re-fermented for a 1-2 weeks. All three S-05 batches wound up beyond 80% attenuation (including an imperial IPA that hit 89%), with the S-04 reaching about 75%.

None of my beers using liquid yeast with starters have ever gotten "stuck" like those 4 batches did. It's just really weird.

As far as dry hopping too long, I stuff a paint strainer bag into a star san-filled pitcher for a few minutes, shake it out like mad, and shove my sanitized autosiphon into that, and into the carboy to act as a hop stariner. This keeps nearly all of the hop matter from entering the tertiary fermenter.

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I'm really glad to know I'm not the only one to whom this has happened. By the way, those 4 beers you brewed where this has happened, were they brewed close together in time, or spread across over several months?

Several months apart for each one. Different carboys, different recipes, different yeast lots.

greenbirds said:

Several months apart for each one. Different carboys, different recipes, different yeast lots.

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You guessed where I was going with this. A bad yeast lot would have been too easy. Well, it looks like mine finally settled down. I think it actually might be ready to bottle today. I'll check the gravity today, I just hope I'm not down to 1.005 or something. That wouldn't taste right for an IPA.

mithion, have you had a chance to taste this beer yet? If so, was there still good hop aroma or did it all get blown away.

I have a beer in the secondary that's doing the exact same thing. It'll be a week after dry hopping on Saturday (twoo weeks after rack to secondary), and it's still going like crazy, after being activity free and stable gracity for over 2 weeks prior.

I really hope it settles down soon. I was originally planning on a 7 day dry hop, but now it looks like I'm going to be closer to 2 weeks.

The beer finished at 1.012 which is amazing considering I used London ESB which is known to attenuate less. My initial gravity was 1.081 which would mean it attenuated around 85%. That's 15% above what this yeast is suppose to do. However, I'm really happy it did go overboard since the projected final gravity was around 1.023-1.025. That would have meant a cloyingly sweet IPA. Although the beer was absolutely delicious, I found the hop aroma and flavor a bit lacking. I think that additional activity in the secondary blew away most of the good hop flavors/aroma. I could definitely taste a bit of hop but it just wasn't as pronounced as I would have wanted. Next time, I'll transfer to secondary and wait a few days before dry hopping to make sure activity isn't kicked up again.

mithion said:

I'll check the gravity today, I just hope I'm not down to 1.005 or something. That wouldn't taste right for an IPA.

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1.005 would probably indicate an infection. But your beer isn't infected. It appears quite healthy. Sometimes, when you transfer from primary to secondary you kick up the yeast and get some additional activity. Not uncommon.

The additional krausen does not indicate heavy activity. I doubt it drops below 1.016. Sometimes big beers create little commotion during fermentation, and small beers can create a lot of activity which is seemingly uncharacteristic.

It ended up finishing at 1.012 which is ideal. It was definitely not an infection. The beer tastes really good. Big dollop of malts with a slight fruitiness. No hint of funk from an infection. I tried to mash the beer at 150F to get a really fermentable wort knowing I was gonna use wyeast 1968. Maybe that's why it just continued to ferment into the secondary. I just stirred up enough yeast to get things going again.

You could always rack to a tertiary and do another dry hop if you want to add in some hoppy flavors that got carted away during your true secondary fermentation. Or just keep what you have done if the taste is appealing to you now. Either way it sounds like you have a real fantastic beer on your hands.