Dry hopping w/ Sorachi Ace

I just did an 11 gal batch of American Wheat,
8 lbs white wheat
7 lbs pale ale
1 lbs munich
1/2 lb crystal 20
2 oz willamette @60
2 oz cascade @ 15
wyeast 1010 american wheat

I split the batch into 2 5gal carboys. I'm going to leave 1 alone and mess with the other 5 gallons. I want to make something like a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, but without all of that lemonade taste. I can drink 1 or 2 of them, but after that it's too much. I want to dry hop maybe 1 1/2 gallons with Sorachi Ace. I was thinking maybe .25 oz? I'm just looking for a little Lemon flavor, maybe about 2/3 less than the taste of the Summer Shanty. Any ideas? I also have some Motueka. I was thinking about doing another 1 1/2 gal using Motueka and Sorachi Ace.
Has anyone dry hopped with these 2, any tips? I don't want the "Dill" flavor I heard about .

Mods, can this thread be moved to General Techniques ? Can I do that myself?

Did you have any sparging issues without any rice hulls? That's a lot of wheat.

I LOVE Sorachi Ace it makes new Belgium Dig (on tap especially) so awesome. I'd say go for it.

Dry-hopping will only give you aroma, not flavor. As far as the amount goes, 1/4-1/3 oz. is a good amount for 1-1/2 gallons.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with Sorachi Ace yet. I tried Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace saison and liked the aroma more so than the flavor/bitterness (which may have been partially due to the fact that they bottle-condition it with champagne yeast, which dries the whole thing out). I just dry-hopped with 1 oz. SA in my green tea pale ale, which should be about ready this weekend. After I've tried one, I'll report back to you.

bd2xu said:

Did you have any sparging issues without any rice hulls? That's a lot of wheat.

I LOVE Sorachi Ace it makes new Belgium Dig (on tap especially) so awesome. I'd say go for it.

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Well I didn't list it, but yes I did use rice hulls, I only used about 1/2 lbs, because thats all i had. lol no stuck sparge, no problems at all. I batch sparge. I use a 48qt cooler w/ a CPVC manifold I made. seems to work very well, and I crush pretty fine.

drainbamage said:

Dry-hopping will only give you aroma, not flavor. As far as the amount goes, 1/4-1/3 oz. is a good amount for 1-1/2 gallons.


I don't have a whole lot of experience with Sorachi Ace yet. I tried Brooklyn's Sorachi Ace saison and liked the aroma more so than the flavor/bitterness (which may have been partially due to the fact that they bottle-condition it with champagne yeast, which dries the whole thing out). I just dry-hopped with 1 oz. SA in my green tea pale ale, which should be about ready this weekend. After I've tried one, I'll report back to you.

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Hummm , Aroma, Only? Why would that be? because they weren't boiled? If so, you think if I boiled a cup of water and put the SA in for 10 minutes and then cooled it (kinda like a tea) , then put in fermentor, I would get the flavor outa them? I'm gona try .25 oz



Cool, Sounds good to me. I would like to know how it worked out. Thanks

No other opinions?

Oops, forgot to report back. I like the Sorachi Ace better as an aroma-only hop. It came across much mellower in my green tea pale ale than in the Brooklyn saison. The dry-hopping gave it a nice lemongrass aroma that went well with the tea.

As far as back-adding it to the fermenter for flavor, you'd probably want closer to a 15-20 minute boil, but I don't know how working with an amount that small would affect your utilization of the volatile oils in the hops. Hopefully someone else can chime in on that.

you get some flavor benefits from dry hopping as a result of the way our taste/smell work but it will mostly be aroma. you could try using some lemon zest as well

I'm sorry, I never reported back, but I will now.:hs:

Here's what I did: (2) 2 1/2 gal. batches.

1 st batch of 2 1/2 gal. I dry hopped with .05 oz of Sorachi Ace

2 nd batch of 2 1/2 gal. I dry hopped with .75 oz of Motueka, and .25 oz of Cascade.

Both batches were dry hopped for 10 days, cold crashed for 2 days, and then bottled. This would be the 2 nd batch I ever bottled. I usually keg everything. The 1 st batch I bottled, I used 6 oz of priming sugar, for 5 gals. Carbed up very good. For each of these 2 batches I used Table Sugar and I think I used 2.75 oz per batch. I used some Carb Chart I found, Not sure if I used it right. I was though, afraid of "Bottle Bombs" I let them condition for 2 1/2 weeks. Popped them in the fridge for a few days before opening.

The Sorachi Ace batch carbed up "OK" could have had a little more carbonation for the style.

The Motueka & Cascade batch was definitely "Under Carbed"

Looking past the carbonation, I will have to say I am very impressed with both of these beers.

A very heavy hop aroma from the Sorachi Ace was present. My first thought was I "OD'd" on the S A. But I didn't . When I took the first taste, I got a big feeling of hops, but instantly faded to "AHH" level, It was very pleasant. A little bit of lemon kinda mixed with an almost fruity taste, And by my taste buds, A very, very , very faint taste of dill as an aftertaste. I liked it. The dill taste, however, could be in my head??? LOL It tasted very Good!

The Motueka and Cascade has an awesome aroma of tropical fruit, lemon, and lime. I really loved how it smelled. It tasted the same as it smelled. But, I think because of the very low, (IF ANY) carbonation, It doesn't make it as a "VERY GOOD" beer. More like just OK.

I will make both of these 2 beers over again soon.

So as far as the Sorachi Ace goes, In my option, the dry hopping did add alot of aroma, and also definitely ALOT of flavor. Putting it side by side , to the original American Wheat beer it started out as, after the dry hopping of the Sorachi Ace , Totally 2 different beers. Not even close to the original.

Results of my experimentation :

Just as these 2 beers became drinkable, I seen on FB my local Homebrew store posted a competition.
I never entered one of these, but I noticed that it was an AHA/BJCP Sanctioned competition.
I blew it off for a week thinking I never did a competition. Then I thought, why not, only to get the Pro FEED BACK.

So I entered 3 of my beers I had bottled in the Brew Jersey 1st annual Homebrew Competition. These 2 above I entered in Light Hybrid , American Wheat 6 D
And another Indian Brown Ale (DFH Clone) in Specialty Beers , 23 A.
To my greatest surprise, The Sorachi Ace hopped brew, took 1st place in the Light Hybrid, Belgian, German and American Wheat/Rye 6 D.
Scored pretty high @ 38.5 and very good Judges comments.

SWEEEEEEET !:rockin:

Thank You Beezer94!

Nice work!