Dry Hop Not Working?

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Tcl1999

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Hey Everyone,

I'm wondering what your experience is with dry hopping. I can't seem to get the aroma I want in my brews. Has anyone noticed a difference in kegged versus bottle conditioned beers?

I recently made my first AG beer, a nice IPA, but it's missing the fresh hop aroma, which I think is key to an IPA. I don't keg, because I can't afford it, so I've been bottling, and this one I put in a pig. Either way, they're getting priming sugar and carbonating on their own.

I've heard that the hop oils produce the aroma and most oils get lost during primary fermentation, which is why dry hopping is so effective, because it occurs after primary. Is the priming/restarting of fermentation causing this lack of good hop aroma? Anyone had similar experiences? It's killing me because this beer is fantastic tasting, but if it had the aroma it would be perfect. Thanks!
 
How much are you dry hopping 5 gallons with? You may just need to dry hop with more than what you are using. depending on the hop variety, 1-2 ounces is not enough.

How many ounces are you using at flameout? You will probably have to give some more details on your process for us to give you some feedback. Have you read about hopstands? There are a lot of threads on here that could give you some good ideas.
 
I've dry hopped 2 batches with 2 oz of hops. I got no aroma.
I am going to be dry hopping this next week with 4 oz of hops. I hope it works this time. It's really bothering me too.




Edit:

I bottle condition also.
 
Ok, so my brew was as follows:

2.5 gallon batch

6 lbs Hugh Baird English pale
.25 lb wheat

1 oz Cascade each at 60, 30, 15, and 5 minutes.

2 oz Cascade at 14 days (left in for 5 days ) in primary bucket.

There are some things I plan to try with the next batch. I did not squeeze out the dry hop addition before transfer to the pig. Also, I would like to transfer to a secondary onto the dry hops with the next batch. I know it is all trial and error, but I was sure I added enough and was still disappointed with the aroma.
 
I'm not even going to bother dry hopping in primary anymore. This time around i'm going off the trub.


anyway, It'd be nice to see how this turns out.
If I remember about it. I'll post about how my dry hopped turns out.
Been trying for months I really want to make this work.
 
They say that the hop oils get lost in primary because the oils stick to the yeast in suspension. Less yeast = less aroma loss
 
That would make sense since the yeast are top fermenting and that is where the oils reside.
 
Yeah. If this batch comes out jacked up again, I'm done trying to make beer. It's getting out of hand. Nothing I have made taste good. I don't know how people say the sample from bottling taste great. Mine taste bad, period.

I got new yeast, bottled water, fermentation fridge with temp controller so This better work.
 
I believe there are some extremes of hop aroma that for the homebrewer would requires specific techniques and/or equipment in order to match some commercial examples. If you are trying to compare your beers with those then you need to be prepared to spend a great deal of time and/or money to come close, or be ready to not quite reach the bar. Look at the thread about cloning Heady Topper - I would bet that veganbrewer (forgot users name) spent lots of time and money getting as close as (s)he did, not to mention the fact that the recipe calls for almost a full pound of the most expensive hops for 5 gallons. Bought individually at a LHBS, the hops would cost $25+ for hops alone.

That aside, you can make great tasting and smelling IPAs without blowing a big wad of cash getting there. Yoopers stone ruination clone recipe is in the realm of ~6 oz of mostly centennial hops and comes out very aromatic in the hop department. I've been noticing that dry hop aroma hits big within 2 days at most temperatures and seems to almost be already fading by 7 days. Since you're bottle conditioning, I would say that you dry hop a beer with an extra ounce beyond what the recipe calls for; in 2 days you pull a sample for smelling; if it's "there" then you bottle right away; if not then you give another day and sample again; if by 5 days you're still not there then pull those dry hops and dry hop again with another ounce or two; wait 2 days and repeat test. Bottle that batch when it's up to snuff, or beyond (since you may lose some aromatics to flocculating priming yeast). When all is said and done, make sure you're drinking that beer at close to 40F otherwise you're hiding some of the aromatics with the cold beer temps.

Another approach is to simply brew some styles that are not hop focused, or at least not so intensely hop focused.

Last, I've not seen any recipes that you've brewed so it's hard to see what kinds of things you've brewed or your process.
 
Dry hopping flavor & aroma fades fairly quickly in the bottle. That was a large reason I went to kegging. Now I dry hop in the keg and its good to the last drop. 3oz 5 gallons.
 
The amount of alpha acids play a large role in this. I usually dry hop in secondary for a week or two. I use 1 oz of high AA hops and no problems. I used to use the low AA noble variety and had similar problems. If you use the noble hops plan on a minimum of 3 oz. I hope this helps
Cheers
Kev
 
kev said:
The amount of alpha acids play a large role in this. I usually dry hop in secondary for a week or two. I use 1 oz of high AA hops and no problems. I used to use the low AA noble variety and had similar problems. If you use the noble hops plan on a minimum of 3 oz. I hope this helps
Cheers
Kev

Forgot to mention I bottle condition my beers as well
 
The amount of alpha acids play a large role in this. I usually dry hop in secondary for a week or two. I use 1 oz of high AA hops and no problems. I used to use the low AA noble variety and had similar problems. If you use the noble hops plan on a minimum of 3 oz. I hope this helps
Cheers
Kev

Alpha acid has nothing to do with dry hop aroma. If anything, what you're looking for is total oil content of the hops. One thing to look at would be making sure the beer has dropped bright (much less yeast in suspension) before adding your dry hop. Also, try shortening up your dry hop. Some experiments have shown max oil extraction at 24-48 hours! I'm on a 3-day dry hop schedule now, and could definitely go to 1 or 2 days if I wasn't so lazy/forgetful. 2 weeks is pretty long to dry hop and you may just be losing aroma by storing dry hopped beer at room temp. I'd say try a short dry hop, and then chill down the beers as soon as they're all carbonated. Keeping them cold will go a long way to preserving that hop aroma.
 
daksin said:
Alpha acid has nothing to do with dry hop aroma. If anything, what you're looking for is total oil content of the hops. One thing to look at would be making sure the beer has dropped bright (much less yeast in suspension) before adding your dry hop. Also, try shortening up your dry hop. Some experiments have shown max oil extraction at 24-48 hours! I'm on a 3-day dry hop schedule now, and could definitely go to 1 or 2 days if I wasn't so lazy/forgetful. 2 weeks is pretty long to dry hop and you may just be losing aroma by storing dry hopped beer at room temp. I'd say try a short dry hop, and then chill down the beers as soon as they're all carbonated. Keeping them cold will go a long way to preserving that hop aroma.

+1 !!!
I dry hop in primary after the beer is cleared. I dry hop for 5-7 days max and use no less than 3oz.

I cold crash for a few days and then package.

Bottle conditioned and fresh my ales shine with great in your face aromas

Don't give up, no one brews a beer out of the gate and makes an amazing beer, part of the joy is figuring it out and tweaking recipes to improve them, at least for me...

If your beer tastes bad, dry hopping it is not going to make it better. There is something else wrong in your process

To add: try to play with your additions, I like to use a 60 to get most of my IBU contribution and then concentrate the rest from 15 minutes to flameout using at least 2 oz from 5 to 0 with a hop stand at flame out as well as the dry hop
 
I just want to update everyone.

I 'm drinking an IPA I brewed using the advice given here and it worked!!

I can't believe I made an awesome IPA. 2 weeks in bottle but it taste and smells great.

1 oz 60mins

1.5oz at 20mins

3 oz hopstand 180f for about 15 -20 mins

2 weeks in primary
1 week secondary
Last 4 days on 3.25 oz of hops

2 weeks in bottle.

This is my breakthrough brew. All beers before this were **** but this one is perfect.


Thanks for the advice!





(Will post a photo when lighting is better)
 
Are you guys using pellets or leaf hops? I think I remember hearing someone on a podcast (JZ?) say pellets were better for dry hopping.
 
Pellets just extract a little faster- my 1-2 day dry hop is always with pellets. I might leave whole cones in longer, but I never use them so I don't have any data on that.
 
I did my first dry-hop with only 1/2 oz. of citra hops, hoping for a fruity aroma, but got nothing. The beer is still good, but the dry-hop did nothing.
 
I agree with the short time hop . If you put some hops in a glass of beer and let it set for 1 hour it has a nice hop aroma . but you need a hop with lots of good hop aroma to start with I think .
I used hallertauer , fuggles and willamette with limited success . I use Chinook now for getting that good aroma in my blondes by pouring them through the fresh hops . So i would say again short time dry hop would be better I think .
 
Good info. I've been looking for that strong aroma that bites the nose too. Been putting dry hops in to early and for to long it sounds like.
I'm brewing batch now and I'm going to follow these guidelines:
-wait for beer to clear up first
-dry hop for few days only, not weeks
Hope fore the best.

Goodstuff
 
I do believe I read a while back that you should not put hops in too early as the yeast or something will kill off the flavor . I think if you are going to dry hop with a less strong smelling hop that you should use at least one ounce to a gallon . I guess this by judging the blondes that I dry hopped with a ounce or so of hallertuer and the like .

try taking some hop you like and put them in a glass of beer and let sit an hour in fridge and see how that tastes . this may give you an idea of how much to dry hop with and how long .
When I use Chinook in a glass of beer I use a pretty good pinch , enough to fill up a hand held strainer the size of the opening of the glass , to pour a beer through but I use it about three times .
 
I'm having problems getting enough aromatics in my APAs/IPAs as well. From reading this thread, it sounds like the yeasties may be clinging to my hop oils and when I cold crash, I may be losing a ton of my hops.

So, should I run fermentation, cold crash a few days, warm up and THEN dry hop and bottle?


Current process is small bittering addition, then huge hopburst and whirlpool (1.0oz hops per gal in final 15 minutes). Dry hop at 0.75oz per gallon with some combo of citra/cascade/jade.
 
In my experience, cold-crashing a beer and then letting it warm back up again is a bit of a waste of time. The times I've done it, when the beer warmed back up, CO2 effervesced out of solution, with bubbles popping up out of the yeast cake and clouding the beer back up again, somewhat undoing the whole point of the cold-crash.

With my IPAs, I use a slightly modified protocol to protect my precious hop aroma while still achieving clear beer.

1.) Allow 3 full weeks to ferment.
2.) Move into fridge to cold crash.
3.) 24 hours later, add gelatin.
4.) 3-4 days later, rack to secondary (5 gallon glass carboy), leaving behind yeast and sediment.
5.) Add dry hops, and leave at room temperature.
6.) Wait 5-7 days for dry hops to impart aroma.
7.) Cold crash again. No gelatin this time.
8.) Wait another 3-4 days for pellet hop gunk to drop out.
9.) Rack to keg and begin carbonating.

This produces very clear IPAs for me, while avoiding the risk of having the gelatin strip out hop aroma from the dry hops.
 
I was having problems getting the aroma and flavor I wanted in my IPAs. I am a fan of in your face west-coast style IPAs. I kept pumping up the amount of hops but my beers kept falling short of what the recipes were claiming as well as my expectations.

Eventually digging around HBT I stumbled upon a lot of the water chemistry info including the very helpful primer in the Brew Science section. Turns out the tap water I was using (because I followed the advice that if it tastes good use it for brewing) was very low in calcium content. I brewed my same IPA recipe I had been trying using RO water with calcium-chloride and gypsum additions and BAM! there was all the hop aromas and flavors that I was missing.
 

It'll strip out my yeast I need for carb'g the bottles. I don't want to monkey with adding more yeast to carb them up.

I was having problems getting the aroma and flavor I wanted in my IPAs. I am a fan of in your face west-coast style IPAs. I kept pumping up the amount of hops but my beers kept falling short of what the recipes were claiming as well as my expectations.

Eventually digging around HBT I stumbled upon a lot of the water chemistry info including the very helpful primer in the Brew Science section. Turns out the tap water I was using (because I followed the advice that if it tastes good use it for brewing) was very low in calcium content. I brewed my same IPA recipe I had been trying using RO water with calcium-chloride and gypsum additions and BAM! there was all the hop aromas and flavors that I was missing.

I use tap water under the same premise but do include gypsum additions as I've heard they enhance hop flavor. Haven't heard about gypsum or CaCl effecting aroma. Might need to look into it.
 
Truly? That's directly contrary with everything I've read in regards to gelatin.

Got a cite? Everything I've read on the topic says there'll be more than enough yeast left to process the small amount of additional priming sugar added at bottling. The only things that would prevent bottle carbing from working would be if you filtered your beer or pasteurized it.
 
Got a cite? Everything I've read on the topic says there'll be more than enough yeast left to process the small amount of additional priming sugar added at bottling. The only things that would prevent bottle carbing from working would be if you filtered your beer or pasteurized it.

You can fine your beer with isinglass (or gelatin), rack the clear beer off of the yeast and add yeast and sugar to the beer prior to bottling. This allows you to have clear, fined beer and sufficient yeast for carbonation.

https://byo.com/stories/item/1655-w...-adverse-effect-on-naturally-conditioned-beer

The more I read, it seems experience from brewers indicates that there will be sufficient yeast to carb but it may take an additional week.

I'm brewing my next IPA on SAT so I'll give this a try. See if you agree with this process...

- finish fermenting 10-14 days
- cold crash 2 days
- add gelatin for 2 days (still cold? 2 days enough?)
- rack to secondary, warm up to 70ish and dry hop 4 days
- rack to bottling bucket to bottle
 
Sounds perfect, although you probably needn't wait 2 days for the cold crash. After 1 day, it'll probably be as cold as it's going to get (or at the very least, cold enough for the gelatin to be effective). I'd add that day onto the gelatin period and give it 3-4 days to do its thing.

I wish I were speaking from experience here, but to be honest, I'm a kegger. I just bottled my first batch last night (a 1 gallon Brown Ale), and I did indeed use gelatin on it, so we'll see if it's sufficiently carbed in 3 week's time. I'm confident it will be.
 
My wife is very adverse to having beer on tap with two boys in the house so it'll be a long time before I'm a kegger.

I do have a question about keggers dry hopping in the keg though... why doesn't it get grassy? I've brewed an IPA and 'got busy' and left it sitting on hops for (2) wks and it tastes like chewing leaves off a tree. Granted, the beer was at 72*F instead of in a cooler, but it seems the kegs would pick up vegetal flavors.

- Ferment
- Cold crash 24hrs
- add gelatin for 3-4 days
- rack to secondary, warm up, dry hop
- bottle

I'll give it a try and see what I end up with. thx!
 
My wife is very adverse to having beer on tap with two boys in the house so it'll be a long time before I'm a kegger.

You can buy tap locks, kind of a pain, but less than bottling imo. Or depending on your kegerator setup you can install some sort of lock on the fridge, move the CO2 inside the fridge and just turn the gas off when not in use.
 
No it won't. There'll still be more than enough yeast to bottle carb your beer. Go ahead and use gelatin without fear.

+1 to this.

Many people bottle and use finings. And yes, I speak from experience.
 
my 2 cents is adding more yeast is just going to make more crap in the bottom of your bottle that you do not want to taste while drinking . Never used gelitin but use cold crash for a day or two and that works just fine .
 
I just brewed a altbier and I'm lagering it at 35F (I'm not able to go lower for now) for two weeks with isinglass, I'm not going to add more yeast to bottle hoping it carbs the same! It's the first time I use finning agent!
 
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