1 gallon IPA experiment - dry hopping whole leaf vs pellets

I wanted to do an experiment comparing whole hops vs pellet hops for dry hopping. I made a 1 gallon batch with 2 cups extra light LME, using a little bit of every hop I had with the following hop schedule:

60 minutes: 7g mix of Apollo, Bravo, Columbus, Magnum, and Galena

20, 15, 10, 5: 7g mix of Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo, Centennial, Falconers Flight, Chinook, Nugget, and Sorachi Ace

I ended up with 3 liters at 1.066 OG, IBUs calculate to 179. By filling my 5 gallon kettle with ice water and sticking my 1 gallon kettle inside of it, I was able to cool the wort exceptionally fast. I pitched ~48 billion cells from a Wyeast 1272 American Ale II yeast slurry and am doing primary fermentation in the kettle.

Once gravity is down to 1.016, I'll split it into two 1.5 L glass bottles, dry hopping one with 7g whole leaf Simcoe and Amarillo, and the other with 7g Simcoe and Amarillo pellets.

I must really be doing something right. Gravity was down to 1.011 after only 4 days. I transferred to two 1.5 L glass bottles and added dry hops. I plan to bottle next week.

I made another 1 gallon batch. OG is 1.050, IBUs calculate to 92, pitched ~33 billion cells.

Gravity was down to 1.008 after 3 days. I split in into two batches, but only used 3.5g of hops in each. I also had a bit left over, so I bottled 2 beers with 1g pellet hops and 2g sucrose in each bottle. They will probably have a bit of trub, but I might have found a way to have an IPA ready in a week.

I am curious to see what you find. I just switched over to pellets and did not get the aroma from the pellets that I'm used to with whole hops.

I bottled the 1.066 OG batch, gravity was down to 1.009.

I made another 1 gallon batch. OG is 1.071, IBUs calculate to 132, pitched ~65 billion cells.

I bottled the 1.050 gallon batch, gravity was down to 1.005.

I tested out the 1.066 OG/1.009 FG batch. There is no question in my mind that leaf hops are much better for dry hopping, although I found they had less carbonation than the one dry hopped with pellets. Not a big deal, I'll just make sure to use a little more sugar next time.

1.071 OG batch was down to 1.010, moved to secondary, at this point I'm just dry hopping with leaf hops, so now the comparison is fresh leaf hops vs older leaf hops. I'm also trying another dry hop/bottling combo, but this time with leaf hops.

Cold crashed the 1.071 OG batch, will probably bottle tomorrow.

I like the play-by-play. Thanks.

I've done the dry hop/priming combo with both pellet and leaf hops now, neither works very well. Doesn't have as much flavor, foams like crazy when I open the bottle, and actually seems like it has less carbonation. Bottom line is that primary fermentation, dry hopping (secondary fermentation), and priming (bottling) can't be combined if one wants an optimum IPA.

ianmatth said:

I've done the dry hop/priming combo with both pellet and leaf hops now, neither works very well. Doesn't have as much flavor, foams like crazy when I open the bottle, and actually seems like it has less carbonation. Bottom line is that primary fermentation, dry hopping (secondary fermentation), and priming (bottling) can't be combined if one wants an optimum IPA.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand this post. Are you saying that brewers who dry hop with either leaf or pellet hops in a secondary (after primary fermentation is done and the beer is racked to secodnary) and then bottle can't have an optimum IPA?

What I meant by dry hop/priming combo is that after primary fermentation I was trying to dry hop and carbonate the beer at the same time rather than first dry hopping and then bottling (carbonating).

Bottled the 1.071 OG batch, FG seemingly went up to 1.011 (1.012 at 44 degrees), still a DIPA at 8.26%. Since I felt my first two one gallon batches tasted better with leaf hops for dry hopping, that experiement is done. I did do another gallon batch with a 1.080 OG and IBUs calculating to 187. I think for this batch I'm going to experiment with dry hopping at an equivalent of 3 oz per 5 gallons vs 1.5 oz per 5 gallons and see if I think the 3 oz per 5 gallons tastes that much better. After that, I think I'm going to go back to 3-5 gallon batches. 1 gallon batches are great for experimentation, but I have a great racking cane attachment for my 3 gallon better bottle, so I actually think I can transfer to secondary and bottle faster while working with 3 times as much beer and end up with less trub.

I racked the 1.080 OG batch to secondary and started dry hopping. Gravity was down to 1.012. The experiment this time will be 5 days vs 7 days of dry hopping with Simcoe and Amarillo leaf hops at the equivalent of 3 oz per 5 gallons. I'm also dry hopping a little bit with Centennial pellets.

Bottled the 5 day dry hop batch, gravity was 1.010. It's funny how much my 1.071 OG/1.011 FG batch tastes like Southern Tier 2xIPA, but then again they are both 8.2% DIPAs.

I can't really tell much of a difference between the 5 day and 7 day dry hop batches, but I could definitely tell a big difference with the Centennial pellet dry hop, I actually like it a lot better than the Simcoe/Amarillo mix.

ianmatth said:

I tested out the 1.066 OG/1.009 FG batch. There is no question in my mind that leaf hops are much better for dry hopping, although I found they had less carbonation than the one dry hopped with pellets. Not a big deal, I'll just make sure to use a little more sugar next time.

Click to expand...

This is not at all adequate time to judge the result. From brew date to this post only 19 days have elapsed. 19 days is a typical time from brew date that I'm bottling, let alone drinking my beer. In my experience aroma peaks around 4-6 weeks after bottling. This is especially true with dry hopped beers. It takes a while for the harshness of the poly-phenols to drop out. The beer is far too green before that. It's probably worth mentioning that a scientific study done at the University of Oregon specifically contradicts your results.

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/34093/Wolfe_thesis.pdf?sequence=1

ianmatth said:

I've done the dry hop/priming combo with both pellet and leaf hops now, neither works very well. Doesn't have as much flavor, foams like crazy when I open the bottle, and actually seems like it has less carbonation. Bottom line is that primary fermentation, dry hopping (secondary fermentation), and priming (bottling) can't be combined if one wants an optimum IPA.

Click to expand...

I'd never add hops to bottles (especially pellets) nor have I heard of anyone else advocating doing so. In addition to more or less guaranteeing stinging harshness from hop bits getting stuck in your throat, the hops will provide thousands of nucleation sites to drive the CO2 out of solution when you open the bottle, causing gushing and flat beer if you manage to get some of it in the glass.

Thanks for the link to the study. I had seen people listing scientific studies in other leaf vs pellet for dry hopping threads. In those threads I see most people saying they think leaf hops give more flavor, maybe we're just not giving it enough time. Interestingly enough in some other threads I see some very experienced members saying hop aroma fades quickly. I'm not necessarily sold on leaf hops for dry hopping yet, but from my personal results from this experiment the way I did it, I like the leaf hops better. 1 week primary, 1 week secondary, 1 week conditioning usually works pretty well for me. My 1.050 OG/1.005 FG beer I did in this experiment was possibly the best beer I ever had. Maybe if I get more of a pipeline I can have beers that end up conditioning for longer.

Interestingly enough about hopping in a bottle, I actually did a single bottle using Centennial pellets to dry hop (although I poured the beer through a strainer into another bottle before adding priming sugar), and I liked that better much better than the Simcoe/Amarillo leaf dry hopped beer. So there is some personal evidence that pellets work pretty good for dry hopping.

Also, another interesting thing I saw about dry hopping in a bottle was a someone who bought a 12 pack of Bud Light and threw about 1g of 12 different kinds of hops in each bottle, recapped them, let them sit at room temperature for a week, and then used it as a way to gauge dry hop flavor from different hops. I was actually thinking of trying that, but maybe with something a little higher end, but somewhat inexpensive, like Long Trail IPA. However if I did that I think I would strain them before drinking them because I don't want hop particles in my beer.

ianmatth said:

. I think for this batch I'm going to experiment with dry hopping at an equivalent of 3 oz per 5 gallons vs 1.5 oz per 5 gallons and see if I think the 3 oz per 5 gallons tastes that much better. After that, I think I'm going to go back to 3-5 gallon batches..

Click to expand...

Great posts. Enjoyed reading your thread. What were the results from the amount of dry hopping used? Were 3oz better than 1.5oz or was there a diminishing return?

Cheers!

3 oz was better than 1.5 oz, can't say if it was necessarily twice as good, but it seems the more hops used for dry hopping the better. For the Heady Topper clone people are using 5.5 oz for the first dry hop and then 2.75 oz each for the 2nd and 3rd dry hop.

AnthonyCB said:

This is not at all adequate time to judge the result. From brew date to this post only 19 days have elapsed. 19 days is a typical time from brew date that I'm bottling, let alone drinking my beer. In my experience aroma peaks around 4-6 weeks after bottling. This is especially true with dry hopped beers. It takes a while for the harshness of the poly-phenols to drop out. The beer is far too green before that. It's probably worth mentioning that a scientific study done at the University of Oregon specifically contradicts your results.

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/34093/Wolfe_thesis.pdf?sequence=1

Click to expand...

There are a helluva lot of hopslam drinkers that would categorically disagree with you that aroma peaks 4-6 weeks. People complain once that one hits 4 weeks from bottle it's not the same beer (for the worse). Same goes for many, many other ipas. And alot of commercial breweries are grain to bottle in less than 19 days.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

It's been over a year since this thread has been active and I've done A LOT more with dry hopping since then. For one, I tested and reviewed 30 different dry hops (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/review-30-dry-hops-448562/), but I'm going to come back to the leaf vs pellet debate.

My issue with pellet hops is that they often leave hop dust in my beers, even when I put them in the tightest mesh bags, and while it is possible they might actually provide better hop flavor and aroma, if I had to choose one or the other I would choose leaf hops because they never leave hop dust in the beer, and hop dust gives an astringent taste to me. That being said, I actually use both now. I'm typically doing multiple dry hops now, so I will generally keep my IPAs in primary and dry hop with pellet hops before I transfer to secondary and do a final dry hop with mostly leaf hops. I may also cold crash before transferring to get more yeast and hop dust out of the beer. I also find that if I do a dry hop that is both leaf and pellet hops, the leaf hops seem to hold the pellet hop dust in the mesh bag.

Negatives for pellet hops: hop dust
Negatives for leaf hops: don't stay fresh as long, suck up more beer (which really isn't an issue as I will squeeze them out and make a few beers separate, why let any beer go to waste.)

On a final note about the freshness of aroma and taste, as well as my general take on aroma, I judge a beer by the taste as I drink a beer rather than sniff it. While taste is based on aroma and they are usually pretty in line, there are some notable exceptions. Nelson Sauvin hops come to mind as I think they have the best aroma ever, but taste really funky. If you want to experience this, get Stone Enjoy By IPA or just make an IPA and use a lot of Nelson Sauvin in the dry hops. That being said, from my experience with commercial beers, Stone Enjoy By (which they make a big deal about drinking within a month) lost a little aroma and even less taste after a month. For a beer which IMO smells better than it tastes, that is an issue. On the other hand the best beer I ever had was a Heady Topper that had been sitting in the fridge for 5 months. Maybe it's the can that caused it to not loose any taste, and maybe it actually lost flavor and aroma, but the reason it taste better IMO was because the yeast and hop dust had fully crashed out.