Cold crashing and hops

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adamc

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Anyone have experience cold crashing an IPA and losing bitterness and resinous flavors?

Just briefly read an article saying some don't cold crash IPAs due to this.

The explanation was you lose hop resin due to it "sticking" to flocculated yeast.

Anyone dry hop specifically at cold crash?
 
Not personally. I cold crash some and others not. Doesn't seem to make much difference to my IPA's. But I also tend to brew lower end of the scale gravity and hops IPA's so that could be part of it. I have not dry hopped at cold crash but seems like an interesting experiment.
 
No, not during the cold crash. Although I have seen people use randalizers or hop rockets during kegging for an extra boost of hops flavor and aroma. Stone brewing uses a hops rocket for almost every style they make.
 
I secondary in my corny keg/dry hop for a week and then throw it in the fridge for a few days to cold crash. I then transfer to my serving keg and carb, or if I want to clear it some more I will drop in some gelatin and let it sit for a few more days and then transfer to the serving keg. I havnt had any issues loosing my bitterness or aroma. I do usually dry hop though with 2oz or more though.
 
I'm not sure I buy that either. Case in point, the new Stone Ruin-Ten. That beer is crystal clear, obviously filtered, and if you blind-folded me and had me smell it I would swear it was a bag of raw whole hops.
 
hop oils stick to everything including your kettle, fermenter, and yeast as well. to help bypass the yeast problem, you can crash down to 50-60 and the yeast will flocc out, then dryhop as normal. i know some brewers wont filter/fine hoppy beers because they dont want to loose those oils in suspension with the yeast. dryhopping cold takes much longer to get the same type of character. as Tasty would say its a recipe issue if your not getting the character you want. add more hops in either stages or amounts.
 
nmber0nestunna said:
hop oils stick to everything including your kettle, fermenter, and yeast as well. to help bypass the yeast problem, you can crash down to 50-60 and the yeast will flocc out, then dryhop as normal. i know some brewers wont filter/fine hoppy beers because they dont want to loose those oils in suspension with the yeast. dryhopping cold takes much longer to get the same type of character. as Tasty would say its a recipe issue if your not getting the character you want. add more hops in either stages or amounts.
Click to expand...

Again, I don't buy it. Nathan Smith dryhops when there is still yeast in suspension because he wants to purge any O2.

There are a ton of heavily hopped beers that are filtered. I've never heard of anybody or experienced drinking a beer whose hop character seemed damaged by filtration.
 
I have dry hopped my past two brews in keg on carbonation while in my kegerator at 40 degrees. I left the hop bag in the keg/kegerator on CO2 for two weeks. In my opinion this has definitely contributed to less hop aroma and flavor. I'm assuming the cold temp doesnt allow the alpha acids to break down off the whole leaf hops (basically acting like a fridge should and preserving the oils instead of breaking them doen). I will never do this again. All prior brews were dry hopped at room temperature (about 74 degrees) and the hop aromas and flavors were great. Trial and error I suppose.
Anyone else had this experience?
 
strangr419 said:
I have dry hopped my past two brews in keg on carbonation while in my kegerator at 40 degrees. I left the hop bag in the keg/kegerator on CO2 for two weeks. In my opinion this has definitely contributed to less hop aroma and flavor. I'm assuming the cold temp doesnt allow the alpha acids to break down off the whole leaf hops (basically acting like a fridge should and preserving the oils instead of breaking them doen). I will never do this again. All prior brews were dry hopped at room temperature (about 74 degrees) and the hop aromas and flavors were great. Trial and error I suppose.
Anyone else had this experience?
Click to expand...

The colder the temp=longer for the oils to extract out of the hops. I too tried this once trying to save time by cold crashing/dryhopping at the same time and the beer suffered. After talking it over with a pro brewer friend, he told me to always do my dry hopping at room temp before cold crashing to get the most out of the hops.
 
maybe the best way is a compromise: not cold crash the beer... just go a little lower yeast range of temperature ( to le the yeast seat at the bottom of the fermenter) but still have a "warm" beer that can actually extract lot of flawor/oil from hops.

Of course hop extraction dependo of lot of things (alcohol content of the beer for example)
 
I dry hop with 2 oz. at 72 degrees for 3-5 days. I then remove the hop bag from the secondary and put in a hop bag with 1 oz then put my secondary in the fridge for 3-5 days. After that, I keg it. I don't know if that 1 oz does anything, but my hop aroma and character stay with the beer through the whole keg. Now, if I could get the keg to last a month, maybe I'd know if the flavor diminished over time. :)
 
Looking back it makes sense that the hops flavor/aroma would be diminished by dry hopping in the kegerator. I hold my hops in the fridge while conditioning in secondary so they stay fresh. Makes sense that the oils would kind of "remain fresh" or not release even when on the cold wort while in the fridge. I'm never doing that again. From now on its always gonna dry hop at room temps. Great posts everyone.
 
I was just about to say the same thing! Great discussion!

I, for one, will be dry hopping 2oz citra at room temp on friday for 5 days, then cold crash for 3, then keg.

Cheers!!
 
I just bottled up my house IPA, 3 oz of Amarillo dry hopped for 7 days, cold crashed at 42 for 3 days. Opened the vessel to rack and was greeted with an amazing aroma of hops, same as prior to cold crashing, no degradation noted at all.

I've never noticed a loss of hop aroma with any beer I've crashed.
 

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