Saving used dryhops for the next brew day

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

avaserfi

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2008
Messages
626
Reaction score
1
Location
College Station, TX
I have a IPA on tap right now with about 1.25 ounces of whole simcoe sitting in the keg. Since it has been about a month I was thinking about removing the hops and using them for my upcoming brew day. I figure the aroma might be gone, but they should be fine for bittering additions.

Has anyone tried this out? How does it work? Also, would it work to freeze the dry hops for later use?
 
Brewing Network did a frugal brewing show on the Sunday Session and I asked them this very question! Their response was "no reason you couldn't do it".
The only reason I have not tried it yet is that the hops you would choose for dry hops are not quite what you would NORMALLY use for bittering. I have not heard of anyone dry hoping with say, Magnums.

Try it! Post back with your results!
 
Isn't the lupulin what causes the bitterness, the flavor, and the aroma, based only on whether the hops are boiled for a long time, a short time, or not at all?

If so, it would seem that even though the hops used for dry hopping weren't used for bittering, the lupulin would still have diffused into the beer.
 
I have done it before, and found it very successful. I just threw my dryhop hop sack into my boil at 60 min. In Beersmith i did set them to 75% utilization, but that was just because i figured some AA were lost.
 
That's interesting. I'll have to listen to that podcast.
 
Personally, I wouldn't mess with it unless I was brewing the same day that I took the hops out of the other beer.

Also, even if the alpha acids aren't soluble at room temps, wouldn't some of the alpha acids rinse off the hops just from the mechanical action of being submerged? I wonder how much utilization you lose my using dry hops. I imagine it is inevitable that you will lose SOME, but how much would be interesting to know.
 
Would this also be true of hops added at flameout or even the last few minutes of boil? While some aroma hops aren't great for bittering, if I'm using something dual purpose I wouldn't mind getting twice the mileage out of them, so long as it doesn't affect the beer much.
 
Back
Top