Dry Hopping

I dry hopped an IPA about seven days ago with about 1 1/2 oz of pellet hops. They broke apart and have formed a "hop cake" about a half inch thick on top of the fermenting beer. Is this normal or should they have sunk into the beer?

 

It will sink in a few days. A cold crash helps. It's normal.

 

Totally normal. Did you dry hop during or after ferm? Better flavor if you wait for active ferm to stop, then dry hop.

 

Dry hopping after fermentation generally yields better results. I'm 50/50 on transferring to secondary before dry hopping. After 7 days, depending on the recipe, yeast, fern temps, etc., primary fermentation may have completed.

To answer your questions, it's normal and they should drop after a few days. As stated before, a cold crash will help a lot. If you have the means to cold crash, I don't think you will find many who would not recommend it. When I dry hop I use a muslin bag to contain the hops. Some say its better to let them free float like you are doing. I think I may try that next time. Either that or I may try the tea strainer I bought a few weeks ago.

 

Thanks for the info. I dry hopped while in the secondary so active ferm was complete. Im gonna bottle it today so I guess I'll find out soon enough.

 

Another dry hopping question:

My goal is to brew a beer like Heady Topper (eventually). For now I'm shooting for low bitterness, but heavy hop flavor and aroma with more basic techniques than the HT clone boys are doing. My first batch fell way short on the aroma, and I'm trying to correct that this time. The original recipe used 3 oz of Falconer 7C added 1 oz each at 60/10/5 min. This time around I repeated this, but will add 1 oz of Aussie Galaxy as a dry hop. My plan is to ferment down to my target gravity of 1.015 or so, rack to a carboy, and then do another 10-14 days in the carboy at 65 degrees. I'll add the Galaxy for the last 7 days.

Now, I did a gravity check today and I'm at 1.02 with slow, but active fermentation (OG was about 1.056). I tasted the beer and again it wasn't remotely as hoppy as I'm looking for. My question is will the Galaxy make a huge difference? Or should I add even more hops? I have an extra ounce of Cascade I picked up today and could add this as well.

 

Dry hopping doesn't add much to flavor, it's more to increase the aroma. If you want more hop flavor at this point I think you can make a hop tea and add that. I've never done it before so I could be completely wrong. Search hop tea and see if it is an appropriate technique.

 

Not a very satisfying discussion on hop teas.. some have good results, some bad. Hard to know what to do. Is there no consensus on the best way to infuse your beer with extra hop flavor and/or aroma?

 

Wel,since our senses of smell & taste are linked,aroma from dry hopping does give a fuller sense of the flavors as well. But this works best if dry hopping with the flavor hops used in the boil.

 

Besides this?
http://www.dogfish.com/company/tangents/randall-the-enamel-animal.htm

Once it's brewed, there isn't much you can do. Dry hopping also suffers from diminishing returns. For a five gallon batch, the difference between 1oz to 2oz of hops for a dry hop should be noticeable. 2oz - 3oz, not nearly as much, and above 3.5oz is pointless. This is from the book "For The Love of Hops" where they talk to various commercial breweries, and I've done calculations converting pounds and barrels to oz/gallons.

They also recommend doing multiple dry hopping for the big hop forward beers. Take your total dry hop amount, split it up into two-three additions, and put each one in for about 2-3 days and remove, putting in the next round of fresh hops.

For a real prominent hop flavor/aroma, look at a hop stand at the end of your boil. On the last Double IPA I made, the aroma just from the hop stand was so wonderful, I couldn't tell if dry hopping actually did anything more.

 

Just an update to the floating hop issue. Tried to transfer to the bottling bucket with the hops on top and it was a mess. Even ended up getting hops in some of the bottles. Will wait longer next time for them to sink.

 

Thank you for the ideas. Interesting device!

Update on my brew.

Sparkling Amber LME x 2 at 60 min
Left out 1 lb dextrose called for in recipe..oops.
Partial boil 2 gallons.
Falconer 7Cs at 60/10/5.
Unintentional hop stand, as I chilled my wort outside in the snow, but it took 2-3 hrs to reach 85 degrees (probably a bad thing). I pitched Wyeast British Ale III, as it had already been smacked at brew time and I didn't want to leave it overnight.
Primary ferment x 10 days. Last 3 days SG was 1.02 and not dropping.
Racked to secondary, mostly spent at 68F.
1 oz Galaxy the next day, then 1 oz Cascade the next (no hop bag, right into the carboy, and I would agitate it daily). Total 7 day dry hop. Last two days were a cold crash to 55F. I had planned for 10, but then my local brew shop guy said don't go over 7, so I decided to bottle early.

SG still 1.02. Racked to bottle bucket using a sanitized long nylon bag as a sheath for the siphon- it worked very well. Aromas from the secondary were FANTASTIC! WOW the citrus in those Galaxy hops really comes through. The initial product definitely tasted way better than my first batch at this point. It still has that "homebrewed" taste though. Mistakes were made, but much was learned for the next round.

For my next batch I'm working on the following for a IIPA:
Conan culture from a can of HT.
Full 5 gallon boil- ordered a 3500W induction burner.
Working on a HT clone recipe using extract. Lots of hop combos to choose from.
Maybe a hopshot.
Will do late additions of extract.
Hop additions at 15/10 or 10/5. Goal would be more hop flavor, since aroma will come from the later additions.
Will do a hop stand for 30 min at 165F. I have an immersion chiller now.
Primary ferment in low 60s. Working on a water bath system with PID to keep it where I want.
Will divide up the dry hopping (probably 3 oz) in 3 additions over last 7 days.
Will allow a longer secondary ferment of 14 days total.
Liked the cold crash.