Dry hopping, inadvertently while fermentation still going

[Majd]

I brewed a double IPA, 83.3 % 2 row, 10.0 % Munich, 3.3 % caramel 35 and 3.3 white wheat. Used Safeale 04.
I pitched in a healthy big starter, fermented starting 63 F moving up to 68F. OG was 1.075, after 2 weeks gravity was 1.022. Did not really think much about it so I racked it up to a clean carboy and dry hopped with one ounce Zythos and one ounce of citra (pellets for both). Lo and behold, the beer took of fermenting once again after racking it, and kept fermenting for 10 days. Now gravity is 1.010, but the dry hopping has been on the beer for 10 day (little too long).
My two questions are:
1. Would that give the beer a grassy taste? When I took the last sample today, I thought I felt grassy note, but I’m not a judge nor I have that refined pallets, I may be just imagining it coz I’m concerned about it!!
2. With 10 days of somewhat active fermentation, would dry hopping be still effective? In another words, will the Co2 take out the hop aroma / flavor and leave me with grass taste?
Any advice?
Cheers

 

[DLR1987]

I think you may be getting grassy notes from having them in for 10 days. What temp are you dry hopping at? And the yeast will definitely consume some of the hop compounds. Maybe not all, but definitely some.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Majd]

At this time during the dry hopping it is at room temperature ranging between 60 to 70 F.
So is there a remedy for the grassy flavor?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[DLR1987]

Did you taste it before you dry hopped it? What was you hop bill during the brewing process? I feel like 10 days is pushing it but shouldn't be overly grassy. In my experience anything over 12+ days gets a little vegetal and grassy.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Majd]

It was little too sweet to judge before dry hopping. My hop schedule during boil was: Simco ( whole cones) and zythos (pellets) 60 minutes, zythos and citra 20, 10 and whirlpool for 15 minutes.
I should have not dry hop since the gravity was screening high still, but I did not know better. I feel that taking the carboy out of the fermenter fridge to room temperature and raking some yeast kicked in the fermentation. I should have done so, then dry hop at this time where the gravity is 1.010


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[fearwig]

I don't want to be a bucket evangelist, but wouldn't it be cool if you could dry hop in a bag, and then pull them out after they've been in too long? Jussayin'. I know some people do this in carboys too but they seem to have trouble getting it out of the neck (though at least you reclaim some hop juice from all the squeezing).

I've got some nice carboys, and they sure don't see a lot of action anymore.

Anyway, all that aside, the takeaway from this is that 1.022 is a very suspicious FG for any OG under say 1.090. At least for me. I'm sure there are exceptions, milk stout and such, but not a DIPA with 3% caramel!

 

[Majd]

Yeh lesson learned. But I'm sticking to carboys. I started a bucket brewer and was converted. If I was on top of it I could have racked it again to another carboy right before it started grassing up (lol).


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Holter]

I don't want to be a bucket evangelist, but wouldn't it be cool if you could dry hop in a bag, and then pull them out after they've been in too long? Jussayin'. I know some people do this in carboys too but they seem to have trouble getting it out of the neck (though at least you reclaim some hop juice from all the squeezing).

I've got some nice carboys, and they sure don't see a lot of action anymore.

Anyway, all that aside, the takeaway from this is that 1.022 is a very suspicious FG for any OG under say 1.090. At least for me. I'm sure there are exceptions, milk stout and such, but not a DIPA with 3% caramel!

Thats a marketing angle i think Northern Brewer needs to tackle with their big mouth bubbler carboys. I would buy those things just for dry hopping ease - that big mouth opening would allow you to bag your dry hops in a huge nylon bag and pull out the whole bag at once without squeezing it. I just dont buy glass anymore after I broke a glass carboy and sliced a foot.

You say your OG was 1.075 and this is for a IIPA so I would assume your target FG was somewhere around 1.010 +/- .002. I like to dry hop about 80% of the way through expected attenuation. Your expected attenuation is 65 gravity points (again, guessing) which would put your prime spot to add the dry hops @ 1.023, so I dont think the timing was all that bad. I have a calculator built on my blog to keep me from having to do math all the time for this type of situation (HERE). The risk you run with fermentation is that the activity will burn out some of the oils in the hops you dry hopped with. I just add more hops to compensate for whatever loss I am going to get due to fermentation - but usually that last 20% is the slower less aggressive part of the fermentation and it has very little impact.

10 days is a bit long, if the beer isn't finished fermenting yet I would transfer the beer over to another fermenter to get the beer off the hops - or just keg it and let it naturally carb. If you smell the beer and it doesn't smell hoppy enough, then add some dry hops to the third fermenter for 3 days and rack to the keg after the fact. Just use CO2 wherever possible to keep the O2 impact as low as possible since you are including a number of transfers in this situation. At the risk of too much linkage, I also just posted some of my thoughts and process notes on dry hopping on my blog if you want to look HERE. I dont think there is a definitive idea of how long is too long, or what temp to dry hop at, but if your fermenter was too hot I have seen that produce grassy notes from dry hopping.

Hope that helps!
Holter