How are you dryhoping?
Here's my dry hopping routine:
With your process of warming the beer back up during dryhoping, I’d suspect that’s your cause. In my experience, most Southern Hemisphere varieties when used heavy in dryhop at temps where yeast can be active will cause hopburn.
I think it has more to do with polyphenols rather than AA
Well hopburn has nothing to do with the alpha acids, it the polyphenol content of the hops and Southern Hemisphere hops tend to have a elevated levels of polyphenol
That's interesting, when I've dry hopped in the 50's I notice my hops just sink right away and I get less aroma overall. Do you think cool + rousing is more important than not sinking? I've actually skipped the soft crash all together a few times lately and didn't really notice a difference in quality. I totally agree with the southern hemisphere comment though, I basically stopped using Galaxy all together, or only in very low quantities. I hadn't really considered Nectaron might be similar.
lol I guess I am patient, I've never understood the grain to glass in 7 or 14 day posts. Unfortunately I can't remove yeast, I'm using the modified fermonster. My hope is that this beer will be super potent and delicious in another week or so, which is what I've seen with southern hemisphere hops in the past.
Have you tried dropping the temp to 58-60 for soft crash and dry hopping at the same temp (after a few days)? I don’t have evidence for this, but I think the act of warming is what gets the yeast going rather the empirical temp (within some unknown window). I suspect there is a sweet spot with your setup where you can get the best of both worlds - low yeast interaction and suspended dry hops. 60F is sufficient to drop LA3 and it’s variants out of suspension in my hands. A lot of people have success with dry hopping at the tail end of fermentation but I can’t speak to it as this isn’t my process.
Polyphenols are primarily produced in plant leaves (bracts on hops). Very little in terms of biosynthesis in lupulin glands, so cryo(like) products should be significantly reduced in polyphenol content compared to T90.
Polyphenols are specific to the actually green plant material, so by using t45 pellets, cryo/CGX/LUPOMAX, you certain limit the polyphenols
I think low yeast count, dryhoping in mid 50s to greatly limit yeast activity, and rousing, makes a huge difference. One of the comments i routinely get about my ipas is how much aroma they have and how bright the hop character is. I know my process to keep o2 out definitely plays a big roll but a lot of the intensity of the aroma and flavor I think comes from my dryhoping process
Well what keeps the hop pellets floating is actually the yeast activity and co2, not purely the temperature. When the temp drops the yeast slow down and the co2 has an easier time dissolving in the beer. When this happens, most of the hops will sink to the bottom
I’ve done dry hopping under pressure (8-10 psi), with no yeast (cold crash then drop from the unitank), and then raise to 65+, dry hops will stay suspended. Is this bc CO2 is coming out of solution?
It’s most likely both yeast and co2 escaping solution as it warms. Though you cold crash and dumped the flocced yeast, there iastill plenty of yeast cells, millions most likely, still in suspension. So once it warms up and they will start going again
Interesting. My normal process is to soft crash to 50 and let it sit at 50 for 36hrs (not including cooling times to get it there), then I gently let it rise to ~54-56F and dry hop at that temp. Does the yeast come back up in suspension for me? Dunno, not that is visible anyways but that doesn't mean its not happening. But I've also not experienced any hop creep at all that I can detect via any off flavors or any drop in gravity anyways. Not sure if this matters to the convo here, but I also am pretty conservative when I do the soft crash. I typically take my hydro sample when there are zero visual signs of fermentation left, including zero krausen. Then I wait another day for good measure before I soft crash. So I don't rush into the soft crash and try to make sure that the yeast are done done done lol. So Im typically dry hopping around day 11 or 12ish and kegging around 14-15 days on average.
Not sure if I mentioned this, but I have a conical, so most yeast is removed (excluding what is left in suspension - one of these days I will have to count with my microscope). I usually add a small dry drop charge around 50% attenuation, similar to the "tail end of Ferm dry hop". I have also been using ALDC for the past year. Never had diacetyl issues and hop burn was addressed by being more thorough in yeast removal. I like what a warmer dry hop does for some hop cultivars depending on what I'm going for. I still keep it short 24-48hrs max.
Or you can add Aldc with your dry hop.
That is what I tried with my last two NEIPA batches. I think it was based on a suggestion here. I felt those two might have been my best executed batches. They had very limited hop burn or astringency but plenty of hop flavors and aroma. Unfortunately, one was dominated by Sabro character (I just don't think I am a fan of that hop) and the other was too thiol heavy from the use of Helio Gazer (though that batch did have a smaller than normal dry hop amount).
I can’t imagine going back to life before the Tilt
such a great tool for the cellar. I just wish they could do more than just temp and SG. Can’t wait for something that can measure pH in real time.Citra/Nelson is the combo with Nelson as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure there are other good ones, but that's a slam dunk.
Nelson/Citra
I've brewed a ton as well with nelson:
Dry hop should be no longer than 2 days for Southern Hemisphere hops or else you get the nothing but diesel dank.
100% Nelson totally agree.
You cannot go wrong with Citra and Nelson. Also Citra, Nelson and Nectaron is also amazing. I won gold with that one in our National Homebrew competition a few weeks ago.
Well just shy of 5 weeks in the keg and my Citra/Nectaron NEIPA is ****ing delicious, super pungent dank tropical fruit. A completely different beer than just 2 days ago. Full report and recipe soon.
Do you mind sharing your recipe?
Incredible stuff, congrats!! Looks like a straight juice bomb. Wish I could get it up here in MA.
The stuff of dreams for us lowly home brewers! Congratulations Brother! I'd love to try it.
They look beautifull, whats the dry hop rate on these?
Thanks! 5lb/bbl
