Dry hop when question.

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xQuestx

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I’m trying to figure out when I should dry hop. This is my first beer. I've included a tilt picture for some information on where the beer is. The start of the graph is a little off because I switched it to brewfather instead of google sheets. It started off around 1.056 Sunday the 10th, and it's saying it's around 1.018 at the moment. Thanks for any help.

tiltgraph.jpg
 
It's up to you. You could dry hop now (i.e. "fermentation dry hop") or after attenuation has finished.

Advantages of Dry Hopping during Fermentation:
- less O2 gets in
- possible biotransformation of some hop compounds to fruitier tasting compounds

Disadvantage of Dry Hopping during Fermentation:
- some volatile hop aroma compounds will be volatilized (i.e. lost)
 
I like to add dry hops towards the end of active fermentation. Usually 2-3 days after the first bubbles in the airlock. It allows the yeast to consume whatever oxygen is let in from opening the bucket and I find that the hop aroma sticks around longer.
 
There seems to be some question as to whether yeast actually consume any significant amount of oxygen once they finish their initial growth phase. It sure feels better to believe they do. At this point I'm not convinced. I think the active fermentation sould have the effect of diluting the amount of oxygen that does manage to get into the head space when the dry hops are added.
 
There seems to be some question as to whether yeast actually consume any significant amount of oxygen once they finish their initial growth phase. It sure feels better to believe they do. At this point I'm not convinced. I think the active fermentation sould have the effect of diluting the amount of oxygen that does manage to get into the head space when the dry hops are added.
Yeast begin their process by consuming oxygen and sugar, giving off ethanol, known as aerobic respiration. After all of the available oxygen has been consumed, the yeast switch to anaerobic respiration, which consumes sugar and gives off ethanol AND CO2.
To put it simply, if the airlock is bubbling, there is probably no oxygen inside.
 
I think the active fermentation sould have the effect of diluting the amount of oxygen that does manage to get into the head space when the dry hops are added.

While CO2 is being produced in significant amounts, the outward flow will tend to inhibit other gasses from entering. (I'm not talking about a CO2 "blanket," but the gas flow resulting from positive pressure.) It's what (mostly) keeps O2 from entering through an airlock during very active fermentation. It's for this reason I believe it's "safer" to dry hop during fermentation than after, it the fermenter has to be opened to atmosphere to do it.
 
Any advice on dry hopping with a tea at bottling time?
I have been thinking about this. Adding hop tea means adding water. The water would have dissolved oxygen in it. I am not sure if it would be enough to have a significant impact. That would partly depend on the amount of water for sure. Making hop tea with cooler water would seem to be an opportunity to extract flavor with a lot less bittering. Filtering the tea would reduce hop particles in the beer which might reduce the potential for introducing permanent haze.
 
I was thinking:
1. boil the water to drive off gasses
2. cool water to below 170, say 150
3. steep hops for flavor for about 15 min in water as it continues to cool
4. add some more hops for aroma the last few minutes
5. cool and add to beer with the bottling sugar
 
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I "dry hop" with an alcohol infusion on bottling day.

Get some vodka or some neutral spirit around 40%, some 200ml, let the hop in them 2 or 3 hours, smell the perfume. More than 3 hours is probably too long, you begin extracting tannins, chlorophyll, the infusion becomes dark.

Then filter the alcohol and throw the alcohol infusion into your "bucket" at the moment of bottling, just like you do with priming sugar.

Advantages of this solution:
a) you can control the amount of extraction of hop aroma;
b) you are not forced to bottle (or rack) on a certain specific day (if you let the hop too long inside your beer, you can extract unwanted aromas);
c) you are not stressed by timing about when it's the right moment to throw the hops;
d) you don't risk infection;

Disadvantages of this solution:
None came to my mind. I always used this method those few times that I had to dry hop, and I was always happy with it.

PS I only tried with with hop pellets.

PPS Doing this with 95% spirit would work but has some caveats;
a) infusion is faster;
b) you cannot really "smell" the result because the alcohol is too aggressive to your nose;
c) you have to cover your hop and that might mean "too much alcohol" (if such a concept exists for this little quantity, but the rise in alcohol content might be noticeable);

PPPS I never tried to mix the alcohol infusion directly in the priming syrup, but I suppose it can be done without problems;
 
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For anyone dry hopping during active fermentation, do you leave the hops in until you keg or bottle? Do you dry hop loose? That just seems like a long time to leave the hops in, but want to try it. I usually dry hop for 3-4 days then cold crash and keg, but always looking for better ways.
 
If i were to dry hop early i have the convenience of a conical so i would drop them out after a soft crash. personally i am not a fan of leaving them in that long and before i got the conical i would always wait to dry hop til 3 days before kegging.

cheers!
 
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