Leaf Centennial Dry Hop Failure

[BigdogMark]

I helped one of my brew buds dry hop two 10 gallon batches of his pale ale with 2 oz. of Centennial leaf hops in each batch. When we were pushing the hops through the funnel into the sanke kegs we enjoyed the aroma of the hops and commented on how good they looked because they weren't crushed and we saw a lot of the hop flowers intact. We hit the first keg after 7 days and were disappointed. The second keg was transferred and carbed after 14 days and again we were disappointed. There was no discernible nose or hoppy flavor to the beer. It was as if it was a standard pale ale.

We have previously had very good results with both leaf and pellet Centennial hops for dry hopping. The question around the brew kettle now is what went wrong? Why would there be no noticeable dry hop character added to the beers? This isn't just some hop heads complaining about a wimpy beer. SWMBO's and BMC drinkers are not detecting anything either.

Any thoughts I can take back to the brew kettle?

 

[damdaman]

Did you somehow ensure that the hops were fully in contact with the beer? I dry hop in primary/secondary pretty much the same way you're describing dry hopping in this keg, and I've found that the first hops to go in will create a little floating structure and keep most of the rest off of the beer if I don't mix them in well.

What I do is add all the hops to the fermenter, then use a sanitized utensil to gentle (so as not to aerate) push the whole hop "cake" floating at the top into the beer until the hops on top are wet enough that the weight will sink them down into the beer.

When I haven't done this I have been disappointed with the hop aroma of the finished product.