Dry Hopping advice

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kvh

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I just ordered a copious amount (in terms of homebrew batch sizes, anyway) of freshly picked, frozen, and sealed organic hops. Enough to last me a couple years I'd bet.

I want to know something about dry-hopping. Should I have any concern about adding 'un-sanitized' hops to the brew? Do I add it after the primary when there's an alcohol content to the batch? Will the 8% alcohol in the beer kill all the nasties at this point?

I'm a fan of hops, and with 5 varieties coming my way, I have some room to play.

Thx.

kvh
 
Just toss them in the secondary. Hops have natural antibiotic properties (which is one reason they were added in the first place) which won't spoil your beer.

One note, most people don't usually keep hops more than a year, refreshing their supply with each new harvest.
 
One note, most people don't usually keep hops more than a year, refreshing their supply with each new harvest.


Well I may just have to share them then.

thx for the advice.

kvh
 
Freeze them, if possible. Becides, I've never met a hophead that wasn't boosting the hopping, batch to batch, they won't last as long as you might think.
 
Pellets work well for dry hopping.
If you have too many hops just find a Pliney clone and you'll be burning them up mighty quick.
 
Yeah I just threw them in the secondary. My question is this.... I put some lemon in as well..... tasted it and both hop and lemon needs to mellow out a bit. I get these very small bubbles rising though. The gravity has stayed the same. It was 1.008 when I dry hoped and its still 1.008. What's the deal with the small bubbles.... very small bubbles. Airlock activity is non-existent. Ouside of mellowing it taste great... smells great.....
 
OK, still learning here, but dry hopping in the secondary does exactly what? Hops off set the "malty" flavor of beer, correct? Won't dry hopping bring the beer towards a more bittery flavor? Why would anyone want a "bitter beer face" brew?
 
As a certified and unabashed Hop Head, I will say that there never is enough. Dry hopping, though, is more for aroma and flavor than bittering. You need to boil the hops for extended time in order to effect the bittering. That is why typically bittering hops are 60minute boil hops, and hops at the end are called aroma hops.
I like to think that hops complement the malt flavor more than offsetting it.
 
Thanks, that makes sense. I remember in some of my reading exactly what you just said. Boiling brings out the bittering and dry hopping brings out the aroma. I can understand that. Thanks again.
 
Catfish said:
Pellets work well for dry hopping.
If you have too many hops just find a Pliney clone and you'll be burning them up mighty quick.

With pellets, wouldn't they break apart into a gazillion tiny pieces and then make it into the bottles at bottling time? How would they be filtered out later? :confused:
 
You just need to let the secondary settle out a little. When I dry hop, I also put a screen, usually a grain bag scrap, on the end of my racking can to filter out the particulate when I rack to the bottle bucket. I have not had any issues with hop residue in bottles.
 
I think it is a good idea to do a couple dry hop additions, and make sure the beer is still. CO2 activity will drive off the aroma you are looking for.
 
Brewpastor said:
I think it is a good idea to do a couple dry hop additions, and make sure the beer is still. CO2 activity will drive off the aroma you are looking for.

So you would not just do them all at once? How long is a general rule to let them in? I mean is there a minimum time to get the result you're after?
 
Brewpastor said:
I think it is a good idea to do a couple dry hop additions, and make sure the beer is still. CO2 activity will drive off the aroma you are looking for.

Do you re-rack every time you do a new dry hop addition? Do you just add new ones on top of the old, or do you remove the old ones first (assuming this is when a hop bag would come in handy)? I never would have thought about doing separate dry hoppings.
 
I called my hop supplier, who promptly realized he'd forgotten to ship my order.

They're shipping monday to arrive wednesday (so they don't sit in the UPS warehouse over the weekend).

And yes, they're already vaccuum packed, frozen, and will be shipped with an ice pack.

Thanks for all your help everyone.

Oh, and regarding the pellets vs. whole hops debate, I read an article recently stating that a local brewery, Clipper City in Baltimore, uses hop pellets in one of their commercial brews, their Loose Canon Hop3, http://clippercitybeer.com/home/beers_heavyseas.htm.
 
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