Black IPA: Lots of Trub at Bottling

Hi everyone,

My first post! I've gotten a lot of useful information from this forum, but haven't had anything good to post about until now.

I recently did my 4th batch of brew and decided to do a Black IPA. The recipe I used is below:

Steeped at 155 for 30 mins:
8.0 oz Cara Pils
12.0 oz CarafaII
1lb 8.0 oz Cara/Crystal 10

Boiled 1 hr
1lb Wheat DME
4lbs 8.0 ozs Pilsner LME

Late Add (15 mins)
4lbs 8.0 ozs Pilsner LME

Hops
1.25 oz Citra (12.3) 60 mins
1.50 oz Centennial (8.6) 60 mins
1.00 oz Cascade (5.0) 15 mins

Added Wafalock (sp) tab at 15 mins.

This is by far my biggest beer so far est 1.078 OG on Beersmith and I got a similar reading on my OG test of around 1.077. Because of this and my not having any experience with a starter (I'll definitely be trying one next time) I pitched 3 smack packs of Wyeast 1056 and fermented between 68 and 70 degrees for 4 weeks. Oh, I also strained the wort when pouring into fermenter. I added .5 ozs of Centennial and 1.00 ozs of Citra for dry hop at 6 days.

Today I bottled. Initially I had around 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, but my yield was just under 5 gallons at bottling. This batch had the most trub I've seen by far. My last few batch were done with dry yeasts and had compacted tightly to the bottom by the time I bottled. This had just tons of trub and I'm assuming hops throughout the syphon.

Did the dry hopping cause this (1st batch I've ever dry hopped) or was it the yeast etc? Is there anything I can do to make the yeast settle more (I don't have the facilities to cold crash it). It smells delicious, but I just want a better yield if possible. Thanks in advance.

 

Dry hops will add a substantial amount of trub, so it might just be that that you're noticing. It sounds like you did everything right (ample primary, decent pitch size, etc.), so that'd be my guess. As for what else you could do to clarify, you could always cold-crash it for 48 hours or so before bottling. That'll get the yeast out of solution and compact the cake a bit. You could also try using gelatin finings (best used in conjunction with cold) to do the same thing.

Overall though, dry-hopping is definitely going to have an impact on your final volume. I have a batch right now that'll have 4oz of DH, and I'm betting I lose between .5 and 1 gallon off of that alone.

 

Any idea how it turned out yet? I'd like to try a black IPA soon.

 

I'll let you know in around 3 weeks when I crack open the first bottle. I tasted a bit of the leftover that wouldn't make a full bottle and so far am pleased.

Just another thought, would putting the dry hop in a mesh bag help reduce the particles at all?

 

Yes it would. However, make sure you boil the hop bag thoroughly to sanitize before using.

The only problem I see with the trub from dry hopping without a bag is potentially clogging the siphon when bottling/kegging.

 

I can attest that dry-hopping without a bag will render a siphon useless... it took me twenty minutes to clear out the clog of crap in my tubing.. what a nightmare.

I'll never dry-hop without a bag again.

 

For what it's worth, I gave up on using bags for the actual dry hops anymore; to prevent the problems listed above, I wrap the hop bag around the end of my siphon tube when racking to the bottling bucket. I never get the extraction from the hops that I'd like with a bag, but without, I've never had a problem with this method.

 

I've been considering using this method. I too have never had the same hop character since I started using the bag. I wonder if the SS hop balls will work better.

I'm considering using one this next time.

 

I've never tried the SS steeping ball method, but I don't see how it would be any different than the bag method. Both of them keep the hops clumped together too much for the proper level of extraction (IMO). If the strainer on the siphon method fails me someday, I'll probably give it a shot though .