Dry Hopping as only source of hopping

I am considering running an experiment. Brewing up a simple, normal 1.055 american pale ale, except using zero hops during the boil. I would let it ferment out, keg it and put a 5 gallon paint strainer bag filled with 1 pound of whole cone columbus hops in the keg, purge the O2.............I would let this sit at fermentation temperature for two weeks, then carb and enjoy.


thoughts...?

I would assume that the beer wouldn't really taste hoppy at all, but would smell fantastic. It would probably trick your senses enough to perceive hoppiness. It's a neat idea for an experiment.

it will be sweet and extremely flowery. if you don't boil hops, you will get no bitterness, and the sweetness of the malt won't have anything to balance it out. And a pound of hops will likely have an overpowering flowery taste and aroma.

Go ahead and give it a shot if you want, though. I love experiments.

I support this level of ill advised debauchery 100%! Why only a pound of dry hops?

Waste of a pound of hops, but if you have them to waste then I agree with going ahead and finding out for yourself what it's like. Way too sweet, but hoppy smelling is what it'll be.

Just start small and it won't be a "waste"

go for it. supposedly one of our local brew-pubs did it and it worked out.

besides, if it doesnt work, those hops will still have their AAs so you could make a hop tea and fix it.

alright....I suppose I could take and bitter it to 15-20 IBU at 60 minutes and then go for the massive dry hop.

I do have a few pounds of columbus just eating away at me. Once I open a pound of whole hops I like to use the entire thing.

I bet you'll get some bitterness, I say skip the bittering charge like you originally suggested.

Can't remember which book I was reading it in, but there was a discussion on solely making pale ales with late hop additions, skipping the 60-45 minute additions entirely. Going to try this on my next pale ale...

There is a huge difference between massive late boil additions and no boil additions. You need some bittering.

I support a one gallon test batch.

Save the hops when done and boil them in your next batch. No sense in wasting a pound of bittering.

Bobby_M said:

There is a huge difference between massive late boil additions and no boil additions. You need some bittering.

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I understand that there is a difference. However, I also believe that there is some percieved bitterness from a dry hop.

So who cares if the bitterness is measureableas long as you percieve the bitterness is there

I do agree with you though. I do have a recipe created for a big brown ale with a pound of columbus at 3 minutes. 45 IBU or so.

What happened here? Anyone try this?

I had a brew that is along the lines of what this post was going for. Not to sure how I felt about it. Nice hop aroma but no bitterness to counter the sweetness. Almost a watery / no body consistency.

Hop on top

http://chameleonbrewing.com/beers.php

Wouldn't head retention be poor as well with no hops in the boil?

I'm not saying don't try it...just something to keep in mind.

Noone seems to mention the preservative aspects of hops, those alpha acids come from boiling the hops. I think the beer would sour pretty quickly.

We used to, and still do, heavily salt meat and/or smoke it to preserve it too. But at the same time, it's not completely necessary because we do have refridgeration, so we do have unpreserved meat at any time of the year.

I agree that there will be less preservative effects, but at the same time, it's not like the only containers we have to store the liquid in are wood barrels, and the coldest place a cellar. We have well sanitized kegs or bottles and again, refridgeration.

I would probably be inclined to drink it up sooner than later though, but we don't really know how it ages.

I'd be more concerned about the flavor, and that bitterness to sweetness effect. I'm also not a big fan of lots of hops, so I'd lean towards trying it, other than for the fact that the bittering at least covers up the taste of sorghum. ...kinda.

KevinM said:

We used to, and still do, heavily salt meat and/or smoke it to preserve it too. But at the same time, it's not completely necessary because we do have refridgeration, so we do have unpreserved meat at any time of the year.

I agree that there will be less preservative effects, but at the same time, it's not like the only containers we have to store the liquid in are wood barrels, and the coldest place a cellar. We have well sanitized kegs or bottles and again, refridgeration.

I would probably be inclined to drink it up sooner than later though, but we don't really know how it ages.

I'd be more concerned about the flavor, and that bitterness to sweetness effect. I'm also not a big fan of lots of hops, so I'd lean towards trying it, other than for the fact that the bittering at least covers up the taste of sorghum. ...kinda.

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Um, have you ever actually tasted the beer on top of a starter after a day or so, especially in the summer? Some folks actually add a hop pellet or two to keep it from souring. Those aren't in wood barrels.

And even beer that has hops in it has the potential to get infections and sour in kegs or even glass bottles, in the fridge, so I don't think your argument/analogy works here. Beer is not cured or salted meat.

I have actually, not in the summer though. I didn't think it was too bad, kinda sweet for me though, but I had used BRS rather than sorghum. The sorghum starter was quite metallic/twangy, but that's expected for sorghum, so it's neither a positive or negative result of testing. While we do know the preservative effects of hops, there's no denying that, it still looks like that's not a reason to always require hops.
Sake, for example, contains no hops, and can be a 5% abv carbonated drink. I can't really compare to sake, wine or mead which are all unhopped, because they tend to contain more alcohol. Hard Cider doesn't require hops either, and can often be made with a low abv.

And I did say that I expect that it would need consumption sooner than later, however I didn't really explain it.
I expect that it's life span without hops, or other preservative would be at most, 3 months, and that's probably pushing it. Then, I would expect the lactic acid to start to overwhelm the unhopped ale. This wouldn't be bad to do in small batches, such as a gallon or two at a time. (other than for the how does it taste factor). And yes, I expect that there would be a greater chance of having it start souring early on, compared to a hopped beer.

Using the meat example again, I get a piece of fresh meat. I do NOT expect that to last more than a week, even in the fridge. I have a nice salted virgina ham, I can expect that to last for a year in the cellar which isn't as cold as a fridge. Still doesn't stop me from getting fresh meat. I like a good steak every so often. I expect the same of the unhopped beer; it definately wouldn't be as durable as preserved beer (hops or gruit or juniper). Make it, drink it soon and let us know how it tastes is really what it comes down to. Don't let "it's always been done that way" stop a person from trying it out. Especially when you tell us what your repeated results actually give.

Here's something useful. There were some people who have tried this at basicbrewing.com search for base malt experiments and you will find three videos in which they attempted unhopped "beers" in 2008. Out of three trials, two, using dry yeast, did become sour during fermentation, however one was not. And the one that was not, was said to be drinkable, but somewhat yeasty due to the yeast character, if I heard them correctly. It was also tepid since it was not chilled.

So yes, it's possible, it's drinkable, you're going to have to be very careful with it, and yes it'd be prone to becoming sour. Even if it's fine out of fermentation, I would expect that room temperature storage is not a good idea, and that leaving it as such (with any exposure due to ..anything really...) will expose it to souring elements and as such, would need to be preserved in the cold, and not left at room temperature to age, like we would do for normally hopped beers.

My stance was and still is, that assuming that there is no contamination during intial brewing, that refridgeration will preserve an unhopped beer compared to no refridgeration, and yes, I completely agreed and still agree that it is more likely to sour sooner than hopped beer. How soon at refridgeration temperature is the question I was wondering about, but again, I get mentally side tracked, hmm... would flash pasturization do anything in a commercialized setting to this style. But the more important question is how does it taste?

From personal experience with a higher % beverage, I know my unhopped, unpasturized sake will last for a few months in the fridge and is still good, but that will not last for a weekend outside the fridge. At least it was only a half gallon bottle that I forgot to store away, the lactobacillus really went to town on it.

ooohhhh, that reminds me, I still have two bottles left in there that I really should finish up... that's going on 4-5 months now... (And they tasted fine two weeks ago when I was actually bottling the things to put into smaller containers).

Preservative powers be damned! I want to try an IPA with zero boiled hops in it dammit!

Now who's going to brew it for me?

Sake actually sours really fast if you don't pasteurize it

I am doing this "experiment" right now I guess, sort of. I made a coopers india pale and did not add any hops during the boiling. I started my fermentation on sept 18, added 4 oz of hop pellets on oct 13 and am now going to try and cold crash it before bottling.

HAREEBROWNBEEST said:

I am doing this "experiment" right now I guess, sort of. I made a coopers india pale and did not add any hops during the boiling. I started my fermentation on sept 18, added 4 oz of hop pellets on oct 13 and am now going to try and cold crash it before bottling.

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Was the extract hopped? If so you've got boil hops in there.

what do you think of this process? will it work? thats what its all about right? this is my second attempt at making beer. i started with a mr. beer kit that was weak, i was cleaning out the garage, saw the kit and decided to try it again, only this time with a real kit. i get carboys from my work (biotech) so i got some good equipment to work with. i tell you man this is better than any garden ive ever grown, its exciting stuff, i look at it every day just to see all the activity going on, ITS ALIVE!!!

bigbeergeek said:

Was the extract hopped? If so you've got boil hops in there.

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Yes i believe it was....SWEET! No matter how it turns out im proud of my baby, ha ha. Cant wait. what do you think about the cold crashing? 1-2 days ive read on here or until it clears up?

I know everyone says you get no bitterness from dry hops, but I have a story to relate.

A few years ago we did a club brew at a commercial brewery (brown ale) which everyone then took home and did their own thing with. The wort itself was approximately along the lines of Newcastle in terms of bitterness.

One of the guys took his 5 gallons home and pitched US-05 and dry hopped the crap out of it. He said he didn't know exactly how much hops he put in, but essentially he cleaned all the leftover hops out of his freezer and dumped them all in as dry hops.

We did side-by-side tastings at a meeting a couple of months later. His beer was way more bitter. I don't mean just "seemed" bitter, but actually tasted much more bitter than the other beers people had brought using the same wort. So, while maybe you don't get AS MUCH bittering without a boil, I still firmly believe you do get something.

weirdboy said:

I know everyone says you get no bitterness from dry hops, but I have a story to relate.

A few years ago we did a club brew at a commercial brewery (brown ale) which everyone then took home and did their own thing with. The wort itself was approximately along the lines of Newcastle in terms of bitterness.

One of the guys took his 5 gallons home and pitched US-05 and dry hopped the crap out of it. He said he didn't know exactly how much hops he put in, but essentially he cleaned all the leftover hops out of his freezer and dumped them all in as dry hops.

We did side-by-side tastings at a meeting a couple of months later. His beer was way more bitter. I don't mean just "seemed" bitter, but actually tasted much more bitter than the other beers people had brought using the same wort. So, while maybe you don't get AS MUCH bittering without a boil, I still firmly believe you do get something.

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+1

I will take a look at it and try to find the supporting documentation, but I know there is a commercial brew that has zero hops in the boil, only whirlpool and dry hops that measures 20-30 IBU in a lab.


EDIT: Found it!

"Pelican Pub's Kiwanda Cream Ale's only addition of hops is at the whirlpool and they publish that they end up with 25 IBUs in that."

For better or for worse, I'm interested in how this turns out.

Prepare for your beer to be somewhat sour... Without a bittering charge most beer turns out a little twangy.

it would be sour or way too sweet tasting

i would at least try to do a steep in combination with the dry hop. steeping will bring out some of the bittering compounds of the hops, but i dont think the flavors will integrate very well.

FatherJack said:

it would be sour or way too sweet tasting

i would at least try to do a steep in combination with the dry hop. steeping will bring out some of the bittering compounds of the hops, but i dont think the flavors will integrate very well.

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Hopefully it falls right in the middle somewhere:rockin:

I've always wanted to make dehydrated water. It sounds delicious.