Dry Hopping Woes

[kshuler]

I still consider myself a beginner, even though I have about 40 brews behind me in the last 3 years, and I still have frequent unexpected problems and don't always get the result that is intended.

Most recently, I brewed two different batches of beer-- a Nelson Sauvin based IPA and an all Citra IPA (from the CYBI Kern River Citra recipe). THe Sauvin was fairly meh, and the Kern Citra was AMAZING prior to dry hopping. The Kern had a wonderful tropical lingering taste and finish that was astoundingly good.

Then I dry hopped.

The Nelson Sauvin was uninspiring but not bad before, and now it is overly bitter, sharp, astringent, and... has some other strange flavor... what i assume people mean by "grassy" but not exactly tasting like grass. It had 2 oz of Nelson Sauvin pellets in a hop bag for 5 days of dry hopping.

More disappointing is the Kern River Citra.... it was stellar before hopping. Now it has LESS aroma, or rather, a different aroma completely other than how it was before, and NOT in a good tropical or citrussy way. The citra used was leaf citra from the same bag (carefully vacuum sealed and frozen between use) I used in the boil to make the batch. It had proved itself in the boil. Again, it was overly astringent, way more bitter than it was before, has a "sharp" taste, and has the same "grassy" type aroma... completely effacing the tropical aroma it had pre-dry hopping.

I find myself extremely confused. I am careful with all steps in brewing. I check pH of sparge water and wort and adjust with lactic acid. I am careful to flush everything with CO2 and am overly cautious sanitizing everything. I domy best to keep temperatures within a narrow range at all stages. I kept the temp at exactly 68 degrees while dry hopping. And what's worse-- I have had some IPA's that I dry hopped with truly impressive amounts of hops that turned out unbelievably well, living up to what was expected from dry hopping and more. And for the life of me I CAN"T FIGURE OUT WHY these two batches turned out the way they did! It has happened on two other brews, as well, in my 40 batches, and despite extensive notes, I cannot for the life of me determine why it happened on any batch! When i was first starting brewing and was less careful, it seemed to work better!

Anyone have thoughts?

 

[grathan]

Perhaps hop quality is going downhill as more and more microbreweries emerge. They pay more and more for the good stuff and homebrewers get the scraps? I read recently about a screening process used to make t-45 pellets. They shake the hops over a screen and only the small resiny particles and fine vegetal matter goes through. Where does the remaining bits go???? I doubt they throw these out. Perhaps pelletize as t-90 and sprinkle a little resin in the bag to make it seem aromatic.

rant aisde, could it be oxidation? Perhaps earlier in your brewing history you didn't use large bags of hops...
When you cut open the vacuum sealed citra leaf, did oxygen rush in to fill the vacuum? Perhaps not significant on its own, but perhpas when added to other oxygen uptakes in your process it crosses a flavor threshold. You say you flush "everything with co2", you could put co2 into the vacuum in the hops bag, you could flush the headspace in the fermentor after adding hops and taking gravity readings. You could fill the siphon hose with co2 when racking.



Have you used citra to dry hop before? It is fairly potent...

How do you carbonate, by shaking a keg?

Maybe your process has improved and your getting less protein and yeast to mask the hop off flavors.

Are the hops from a new supplier or from the same old trusty source?

 

[mrphillips]

I've only dry-hoped once, and it was a 1/2 ounce of Citra. Citra is a beautiful lady, but she has a potent dark side. It might just be an issue of TOO many dry-hops. I know that for my pallet, 1/2 oz. is as much as I want to play with.

A month or 2 of age will probably take a lot of the astringency out of it.

 

[kshuler]

rant aisde, could it be oxidation? Perhaps earlier in your brewing history you didn't use large bags of hops...
When you cut open the vacuum sealed citra leaf, did oxygen rush in to fill the vacuum? Perhaps not significant on its own, but perhpas when added to other oxygen uptakes in your process it crosses a flavor threshold. You say you flush "everything with co2", you could put co2 into the vacuum in the hops bag, you could flush the headspace in the fermentor after adding hops and taking gravity readings. You could fill the siphon hose with co2 when racking.

Well, I have to admit that I don't flush the line when racking to a keg, but as for the kegs, I flush with CO2 before adding beer, alwasy purge the air out of the top multiple times when I have to open it. I dry hop in a keg, and make sure to purge oxygen at every step. When repacking the hops I do NOT flush with CO2 prior to vacuum sealing as I thought it would be a bit overkill--- there should be very close to zero oxygen left after vacuum sealing. I doubt that this is an oxygenation effect... I was much less careful before and had some wonderful dry hopped beers.

Have you used citra to dry hop before? It is fairly potent...

How do you carbonate, by shaking a keg?

Maybe your process has improved and your getting less protein and yeast to mask the hop off flavors.

Are the hops from a new supplier or from the same old trusty source?

Good questions. I carbonate just by adding pressure to the keg and waiting a week or two. NO shaking or anything. You may be on to something with the less protein and yeast thing... hadn't considered that as a possibility. Perhaps they absorb more of the polyphenols or something. I see an experiment brewing...

I have only dry hopped with citra once. It was a different batch from a different source, but didn't give me similar flavors, if memory serves, but at a much lower dose in the dry hops (like 1 oz per 5gal). Could it be this batch of citra... but then why so heavenly when it is in the boil (a large amount were whirlpool hops)?

 

[kshuler]

I've only dry-hoped once, and it was a 1/2 ounce of Citra. Citra is a beautiful lady, but she has a potent dark side. It might just be an issue of TOO many dry-hops. I know that for my pallet, 1/2 oz. is as much as I want to play with.

A month or 2 of age will probably take a lot of the astringency out of it.

Maybe that's it... and I will definitely let it sit, as it is all but undrinkable now.

 

[grathan]

The flavor that dry-hops impart can be completely different than the flavor from a boil or steep. I find dry hop flavor to be sharp grassy bitter, while steeping to be sweet, tangy, and flavorful.

But all of my favorite beers have dry hops in the recipe.


Your on the right track when you say experimenting is in order. That way you don't have such high expectations of your big batches.

A good investment would be a 1 gallon fermenter, then just make 6 gallon batches with 1 gallon going to dry hopping experiments.
Another option is a screen or bag that fits in a bottle. And just dry hop a single beer. It only takes like half a pellet to 2 pellets.