Anybody doing very long and very cold dry hops?

[SanPancho]

i realize this sounds a bit bizarre and definitely not standard practice. but i made a beer twice recently, and both times i got less than great results from my hop schedule. there's only one ingredient change- i used some cryo hops this time, and older/original brews were just pellets.

so long story short, in an attempt to figure out the issue, i looked back at notes. it seems more than a few times i dry hopped for like 4-7 days, crashed, and then got busy/distracted, etc and let it sit there- crashed around 35F - on the hops for another 3-5-7 days.

so from what i can tell the only real difference was the long cold dry hop. technically it could be the cryo hops, but ive never really heard complaints about them so ive just sort of dismissed that. which leaves the long cold aging on hops.

anybody else experienced this, or doing it on purpose and getting good hop presence?

 

[FatDragon]

I've left dry hops though cold crashing - at least a couple weeks sometimes - and felt like those beers had a better hops presence than some of my other hoppy beers that had shorter, warmer dry hops. A lot of brewers dry hop in the keg, which could easily be a couple months of cold dry hopping for part of the batch.

I rarely know what I'm talking about here beyond simple anecdotal evidence or something I read in someone else's post, but it's worked for me and I'll definitely do it again.

I wouldn't rule out the cryo hops, though. It's possible that the grassy/vegetal side of dry hopping adds something that you like, and the reduced amount of vegetable material in cryo hops takes that element away from your beer. On a further extreme, I've often read somewhat negative reviews of distilled hop oil because it provides a huge punch of aroma and flavor but lacks balance and backbone, and it seems to me that the lack of a vegetal component could be the culprit there too.

 

[SanPancho]

Good point. Definitely seen tons of homebrewers say they keg hop, which would be exactly like what we’re talking about. alot of that shows up in the neipa threads too so i guess there really is something there.

In any case, im gonna run the recipe again, dry hop near end of ferment, slowly crash over 2-3 days and then let it sit for about a week. See if that gives me better presence.

I talked shop with vinnie from Russian river years ago and was surprised they hop for like almost two weeks as i recall. I didnt get into specifics but id be curious to kniw if thats all at room temp or done cold for any portion.

 

[SanPancho]

Anybody else out there doing some of their dry hopping cold? Noticing good hop presence?

 

[specharka]

Commercial NEIPA brewers regularly dry hop below fermentation temperatures to avoid hop creep and diacetyl production. That being said, they are dry hopping around 53-58F, not serving temperatures. Very low dry hopping temperatures will reduce extraction and utilization of dry hops; extending dry hopping contact time will promote extraction of vegetal and grassy flavors.

I would suggest soft crashing the beer to flock out as much yeast as possible (harvesting the yeast if desired), dry hop avoiding oxygen ingress, spend 4-5 days in dry hop contact time, and cold crash and transfer to a serving keg thereafter. You can bubble CO2 through the liquid post / racking cane to agitate the dry hops into suspension, but you really don’t want to lose any of that aroma once the dry hops have made contact with the beer.

I’ve left dry hops in my serving keg when I tapped it, and I never really encountered those vegetal and grassy flavors, but I definitely got some particulates and those threw the beer balance out of the window. Enough for me to prefer transferring to a serving keg.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Anybody else out there doing some of their dry hopping cold? Noticing good hop presence?

I usually do two rounds of dry hops with my IPAs: the first in the fermenter and the second in the keg. The keg addition goes in at transfer after I've cold crashed the fermenter and they remain in the keg until the beer is gone and it's time to clean the keg. I'm usually pretty happy with how my IPAs turn out and the hop flavor remains fresh for several months. In fact, I just so happen to be drinking a Two Hearted clone right this moment that was brewed mid-May and the hop flavor is still really nice and forward.

 

[SanPancho]

I’ve left dry hops in my serving keg when I tapped it, and I never really encountered those vegetal and grassy flavors, but I definitely got some particulates and those threw the beer balance out of the window. Enough for me to prefer transferring to a serving keg.

well aware of the science behind what we're talking about here, thats not the reason for posting. as noted in my first post- the "best" versions of this beer were when i neglected it and let it sit on hops for extended periods at crash/serving temps.

and in your experience, if you got alot of particulate in the beer then of course its gonna taste wrong. the question is whether you felt that beer had more or less hop presence/impact/flavor than one just with dry hops and no keg hops/cold hops? if the hop dust made that determination impossible, then thats understandable. id imagine it got pretty bitter.

I usually do two rounds of dry hops with my IPAs: the first in the fermenter and the second in the keg. The keg addition goes in at transfer after I've cold crashed the fermenter and they remain in the keg until the beer is gone and it's time to clean the keg. I'm usually pretty happy with how my IPAs turn out and the hop flavor remains fresh for several months. In fact, I just so happen to be drinking a Two Hearted clone right this moment that was brewed mid-May and the hop flavor is still really nice and forward.

right. this seems fairly commonplace, not sure why i didnt think of it until FatDragon mentioned it. but in my processes i wouldnt be able to leave hops in the serving tank. so as far as my main question of flavor impact/presence- keg hopping would be the equivalent of serving draft beer with a randall. of course its going to taste hoppy. your beer literally just came off the hops. so unfortunately, it might not be such a good analogy as i think about it a bit more.

but at least keg hopping seems like good evidence that the grassy/chlorophyll problem is not so much a concern with modern hop processing.

 

[Iseneye]

Big fan of keg hopping. I find I get way more aroma from it then any other form of dry hopping. Takes at least 3 weeks for it to kick in though and remains fresh for life of keg.

 

[SanPancho]

one of the brews i did originally, i left town on vacation and it sat cold for either 12 or 13 says, cant read my writing too well. so maybe theres a sweet spot somewhere around 40ish that does same job, but doesnt take quite that long.

damn. i wish i had the capacity to do split batches.

 

[FatDragon]

damn. i wish i had the capacity to do split batches.

What's the limitation? I do split batches almost every brewday doing BIAB with a single 9 gallon kettle: big grainbill + top-off water into the fermenters. My bottling volume is larger than my kettle volume! I also use rectangular jerry-can style fermenters in order to fit two batches into my fermentation chamber, which would not fit two buckets or carboys because of the hump.