Dry hopping without cold crashing?

[ejf063]

Greetings,
So I am in a bit of a pickle. I am about to dry hop my latest batch but see that my old refrigerator no longer works. I have no place to cold crash the beer once dry hopping is complete. Here's the question: Without using bags or any other item to store the hops, (my process limits oxygen intake, and I would like to minimize air exposure) or moving my fermentor outside or into a cool garage, what are people's experience on just throwing in dry hops and then racking after a few days? Do hop particles ever settle without going into the cold crash? I don't think they do, but this is why I am asking. I have made NEIPA's and big IPA's before with a lot of hops, cold crashed and still picked up a lot of hop burn. I am trying to avoid that. Are there any ways to get particles to settle without pulling out a hop bag (too much oxygen intake) or throwing them into the fridge?
If anyone has insight or better yet, any ideas to help hop particles settle prioring to racking, I would be very grateful for the help.
Thanks. #avoidtheburn

 

[RM-MN]

Yes the hop particles settle without cold crashing.....sometimes. I use a paint strainer bag on my autosiphon as a filter to keep them out of the bottling bucket but since you are trying to limit oxygen exposure you might need a different method.

 

[mattdee1]

IMO, preventing dry hops from getting into your packaged beer and/or jamming up your plumbing during transfers is one of the biggest challenges to overcome with a basic homebrew setup, in particular if you're going the extra mile to keep oxygen out as much as possible because that means your physical (and visual, in the case of plastic buckets) access to what's going on inside is pretty much cut off.

If you're just opening the lid of your fermentor and using an autosiphon in an open transfer to a keg, then you can somewhat "navigate" the clogging issues on the fly. But open transfers make crappy IPAs.

I tried my closed-transfer method on a non-cold-crashed IPA and it was a bloody nightmare. The racking cane and/or keg post would clog up with hop matter and have to be cleared out every minute or so. I ended up with a lot of wasted beer, unnecessary oxygen, and a lot of frustration. Eventually I came up with a simple filter system inside my bucket fermentor and now IPA transfers are smooth as butter, with no cold crash needed. But due to geometry this system would only work on a bucket, not a carboy or similar.

I think your options (if any) will greatly depend on what kind of fermentor you're using. Maybe if you just transfer without doing anything you'll get lucky but I think you're probably in for some headaches. If I were in your position I'd probably do the dry-hop for 1-2 days inside, move the fermentor out to the cold garage for 2-3 days, then do the transfer to keg out there without moving the fermentor, since even the smallest movement can cause settled gunk to come back up into suspension.

 

[Hammy71]

Before NEIPAs, cold crashing was a kinda new gimmick in the home brew world. I know I didn't really start doing it seriously until about 3 years ago. Just be careful when you siphon off the beer to not get too much hop material/yeast into you packaging. You may end up leaving more beer than your use to in the bucket, but it's the price you'll pay.

 

[Birrofilo]

I suggest you consider some workarounds, until you restore the fridge functionality:

a) fining agents after the dry hopping is complete;

b) dry-hopping with an alcoholic infusion of the hops (you put in the beer the filtered tincture only, not the hops). Maybe that should be called "wet hopping"

 

[Franktalk]

Bags might be better than other options. I use them because I don't cold crash; cold crashing if not done under pressure, to me, presents its own oxidation issues. My rule of thumb is to add 10% more to the dry hops to accommodate for the loss due to the bag, if there is any. My IPAs and NEIPAs have plenty of hop aroma.

 

[tomead64]

I agree with Birrofilo, I have used fining agents in the absence of a place to cold crash. Using loose hops and not pelleted will be a bit less messy as well. If you will be kegging the loss of yeast to the fining agents is not an issue, otherwise, you will just need to wait longer for it to carbonate. I had one batch I actually had to go back and open all of the bottles and sprinkle a few grains of dry champaign yeast in to finally obtain carbonation. It was not ideal but at least it worked.

 

[Jag75]

I tried dry hopping commando once . I have the spike Cf5 , diy chiller and a close transfer kit. I normally use bags and never had a problem but decided to try commando .

Cold crashed for a couple days . Some of the hops (pellets) dropped but some didn't. A simple transfer turned into a long drawn-out circus act . Aroma ill say was a tad bit better , more aromatic but taste not at all . It had a more bitter taste and wasn't as good imo.

So back to bags I went . I'd rather get kicked in the nuts then hassle with plugged up lines and poppets .

 

[Vale71]

Did you actually tried to transfer only two days after dropping the hops in the fermenter? That's not nearly enough time even in a 5 gal conical, especially considering that at cold crash temperature hop material drops much slower.

 

[Jag75]

Did you actually tried to transfer only two days after dropping the hops in the fermenter? That's not nearly enough time even in a 5 gal conical, especially considering that at cold crash temperature hop material drops much slower.

No , I dry hop for 3 to 5 days . If I remember right on day 3 I dropped the temp and held it for 48 hrs . Then transferred.

 

[Vale71]

Greetings,
So I am in a bit of a pickle. I am about to dry hop my latest batch but see that my old refrigerator no longer works. I have no place to cold crash the beer once dry hopping is complete. Here's the question: Without using bags or any other item to store the hops, (my process limits oxygen intake, and I would like to minimize air exposure) or moving my fermentor outside or into a cool garage, what are people's experience on just throwing in dry hops and then racking after a few days? Do hop particles ever settle without going into the cold crash? I don't think they do, but this is why I am asking. I have made NEIPA's and big IPA's before with a lot of hops, cold crashed and still picked up a lot of hop burn. I am trying to avoid that. Are there any ways to get particles to settle without pulling out a hop bag (too much oxygen intake) or throwing them into the fridge?
If anyone has insight or better yet, any ideas to help hop particles settle prioring to racking, I would be very grateful for the help.
Thanks. #avoidtheburn

Hop parrticles always settle as they are heavier than beer which means they have negative buoyancy and must sink. They will however do so with different speeds according to particle size and also with a speed that's inversely proportional to the beer's viscosity. The latter means that the colder the beer the longer it will actually take for beer to clear of hop material. It's however not recommended to dry hop at very high temperatures (say higher than 16-18°C) as this might cause undesirable aromas to be extracted. How long it will take for the beer to clear depend mostly on how tall your fermenter is. If it's a small fermenter you might manage to get clear beer in just a few days, if it's a larger fermenter and maybe a conical which will be taller because of the slender shape than that might be unrealistic to expect.

 

[Vale71]

No , I dry hop for 3 to 5 days . If I remember right on day 3 I dropped the temp and held it for 48 hrs . Then transferred.

Okay obviously it was too short a timeframe or you wouldn't have had any issue. I'm assuming you dumped all material until you only got clear(ish) beer coming out of the dump port, correct?
For reference I dry hop 10 gallons of beer in my 14 gal SSB Unitank at around 12°C and I don't even touch the transfer port before at least 10 days (with heavy hop charges make that at least 14) have passed. Until then it's dump port only to avoid clogging of the output port. The finest particles really drop very slowly and they're still large enough to clog a QD poppet.

 

[ejf063]

I tried dry hopping commando once . I have the spike Cf5 , diy chiller and a close transfer kit. I normally use bags and never had a problem but decided to try commando .

Was your DIY chiller cold enough? what temp did it get to?

Hop parrticles always settle as they are heavier than beer which means they have negative buoyancy and must sink. They will however do so with different speeds according to particle size and also with a speed that's inversely proportional to the beer's viscosity. The latter means that the colder the beer the longer it will actually take for beer to clear of hop material. It's however not recommended to dry hop at very high temperatures (say higher than 16-18°C) as this might cause undesirable aromas to be extracted. How long it will take for the beer to clear depend mostly on how tall your fermenter is. If it's a small fermenter you might manage to get clear beer in just a few days, if it's a larger fermenter and maybe a conical which will be taller because of the slender shape than that might be unrealistic to expect.

So I have glass carboys which I have manufactured to kinda keep air out. Once fermentation is finished, I swap the carboy cap out with a new one. The new one has a balloon on one of the antena while a racking cane is in the other. The racking cane is hooked up to my co2. Once I dry hop, I will rouse the hops by sliding the racking cane into the, turn on the co2 for a couple of seconds (I watch the balloon, it never gets fully inflated) then turn off the gas and raise the cane out of the beer. Everything is tightened with hose clamps afterwards. All of this is done at room temp in my basement (66-68*). I know rousing the yeast will cause them to stay in suspension. But typically, I would throw the carboy into the refrigerator after about 3-5 of this rousing, to cold crash and drop everything out. Then, I rack using the same racking cane and swapping out the balloon with a co2 line. I never really had a problem with hop particles after a cold crash but Vale is saying that step is not even necessary?

 

[Jag75]

Was your DIY chiller cold enough? what temp did it get to?



So I have glass carboys which I have manufactured to kinda keep air out. Once fermentation is finished, I swap the carboy cap out with a new one. The new one has a balloon on one of the antena while a racking cane is in the other. The racking cane is hooked up to my co2. Once I dry hop, I will rouse the hops by sliding the racking cane into the, turn on the co2 for a couple of seconds (I watch the balloon, it never gets fully inflated) then turn off the gas and raise the cane out of the beer. Everything is tightened with hose clamps afterwards. All of this is done at room temp in my basement (66-68*). I know rousing the yeast will cause them to stay in suspension. But typically, I would throw the carboy into the refrigerator after about 3-5 of this rousing, to cold crash and drop everything out. Then, I rack using the same racking cane and swapping out the balloon with a co2 line. I never really had a problem with hop particles after a cold crash but Vale is saying that step is not even necessary?

My chiller gets cold . Ive had the fv down to 38 . Ive never paid attention to the temp of the chiller when I did get that low but I'm thinking the glycol was probably high 20's to low 30.

 

[Spivey24]

In my experience, when dry hopping loose, the cold crash doesn’t help much anyway. It doesn’t seem to help the hop particles fall like it does for other things in suspension. Reducing the hop burn just takes time regardless of cold crash when dry hopping loose. I dry hop in a bag now and just flush with CO2 after.