Dry hopping

[PatDaddy]

How much is enough to get a characteristic west coast aroma and flavour? I'm currently drinking two 1.5 gallon experimental batches I've made. I dry hopped both with 2 oz of hops (1 batch was 2 oz of Amarillo, the other 1oz of Citra, 1 oz of Amarillo) and there is very little hop flavour or aroma in the batch. I used pellets and made sure to add them after air lock activity had stopped. The dry hops were in the fermenter for 2 weeks. ProMash tells me this is the equivalent of nearly 7 oz of dry hops for a similar 5 gallon batch. Another strange thing is, both beers smell sour, but neither tastes sour.

So what am I doing wrong here? Are pellets not good for dry hopping?

 

[david_42]

Massive amounts of dry hopping will not compensate for lack of favor and/aroma hops. You have to balance things.

All those citrus hops, I'm not surprised it smells a bit sour.

 

[troub]

You may have overdone it a bit in terms of both amount and duration. For a five gallon batch, I've gotten good results with 1-2 oz. for 7-10 days, and GREAT results with a beer where I did (IIRC) 2 ounces for 10 or 12 days with an additional 2 ounces for the last 5-6 days (10-12 days total, these additions were concurrent, not back-to-back). Dry hops will give you mostly aroma, and the idea is to get an extra boost of especially fresh volatile oils that cause that great hop smell. You also want to choose the right hops for your bittering, flavor, and aroma, and mix and match them to complement each other. As already said, you've got a LOT of citrus character in these dry hops. It's possible that with the amounts you used, it's just overwhelming rather than complementary. I could see such an intense concentration of hop aroma compounds, with those hops, indeed smelling sour/catty/ammonia-like, etc. More isn't always better.

For flavor, you need to add more around the middle toward the end of the boil. Balancing hop varieties and amounts throughout the boil is essential.

 

[GASoline71]

Dry hopping is more for aroma. All my dry hopped beers hit you right in the nose when you raise a pint to drink.

The hop bittering is more in the boil.

Gary

 

[PatDaddy]

david_42: My hop schedule for a 1.5 gallon batch was:

0.25oz Warrior 60 min.
0.25oz Warrior 15 min.
0.25oz Warrior 10 min.
0.25oz Warrior 5 min.
1.00oz Amarillo Flameout
2.00 Amarillo Dry Hop

The other was:

0.5oz Citra 30 min
0.5oz Citra Flameout
1.00 Citra Dry Hop
1.00 Amarillo Dry Hop

Suggestions on how to alter the hop schedules?

troub: I will try cutting down on time/amount of hops next time in the dry hop phase. Although the batch I have currently fermenting is a 5 gallon batch boiled with 6 oz of Amarillo and dry hopped with 6 oz of Amarillo.

GASoline71: "All my dry hopped beers hit you right in the nose when you raise a pint to drink."

This is what I am aiming for and continually miss the mark. I do not know what I'm doing wrong.