To dry hop or no?

[MotoGP1000]

Just brewed an IPA yesterday. 3# of flakes oats and 15# of 2row

1oz mosaic hops at 5min and then a massive pound of hops (mix of enigma, mosaic, and motueka)

Question is. With that kind of hop-load, any reason to dry hop? Also... dry hopping tends to make my beer burn

Thoughts?

 

[downzero]

If that's a 5 gallon recipe, you're going to have a boozy IPA. Whatever it takes to chill that out is probably to your benefit.

 

[jrgtr42]

Sounds like you answered your own question.
If it makes it burn, then why do it?
Did you plug your numbers into a calculator and see what the IBUs are as it sits?

 

[mattdee1]

In my experience, dry hops almost always do more harm than good unless you've got a really good process in place for avoiding oxygen on the cold side (i.e., closed transfers during packaging, no cold crashing unless under CO2 pressure, no opening fermentors to pull samples, etc.)

I've done at least 15-20 10gal batches where I've split it into 2 fermentors. To get a bit of variety, I'll dry hop one fermentor and not the other. Before I got my oxygen game under control, there wasn't a single one of those beers where I preferred the dry hopped beer. Not a single one. Dry hops won't necessarily "ruin" the beer but IMO, without properly managing oxygen exposure, the only thing they bring to the table is rough edges.

 

[MotoGP1000]

Sounds like you answered your own question.
If it makes it burn, then why do it?
Did you plug your numbers into a calculator and see what the IBUs are as it sits?

Yeah. The dry hop shouldn’t be adding any ibus since it’s done on the cold side. I guess as far as lending flavor, I dumped a whole # of hops into the hopstand. How much more flavor can you get? Lol

 

[MotoGP1000]

In my experience, dry hops almost always do more harm than good unless you've got a really good process in place for avoiding oxygen on the cold side (i.e., closed transfers during packaging, no cold crashing unless under CO2 pressure, no opening fermentors to pull samples, etc.)

I've done at least 15-20 10gal batches where I've split it into 2 fermentors. To get a bit of variety, I'll dry hop one fermentor and not the other. Before I got my oxygen game under control, there wasn't a single one of those beers where I preferred the dry hopped beer. Not a single one. Dry hops won't necessarily "ruin" the beer but IMO, without properly managing oxygen exposure, the only thing they bring to the table is rough edges.

I do close transfer as well. But yeah, I agree. The o2 is tricky. The only way I’ve gotten past the burn is cold crashing. I was actually told by a brewer buddy of mine that owns a successful craft brewery that my neipas are too green. I should be sitting on them for 2 weeks. Gonna try they with this one. I always thought neipas with high flocc 1318 could be kegged quicker. But I guess I’m wrong

 

[couchsending]

You added 16oz of hops in the whirlpool? To a 5g batch? That’s way too much. You’d be much better off taking 12oz out and using it in a DH then adding it on the hotside. It’s just a waste of hops in my opinion.

You lose so much from the hops during fermentation either from blow off or yeast flocculation dragging oils with them. Dry hopping is a much more efficient way to get maximum flavor and aroma into the final beer.... you just have to know how to do it correctly.

 

[Homergah]

Yeah. That beer is always going to be too green, as in grassy. That's way too big a hop load. My opinion, cause I've done that. Not a pound, but close. That beer never was enjoyable. Hopefully your mileage varies greatly from mine.

 

[MotoGP1000]

You added 16oz of hops in the whirlpool? To a 5g batch? That’s way too much. You’d be much better off taking 12oz out and using it in a DH then adding it on the hotside. It’s just a waste of hops in my opinion.

You lose so much from the hops during fermentation either from blow off or yeast flocculation dragging oils with them. Dry hopping is a much more efficient way to get maximum flavor and aroma into the final beer.... you just have to know how to do it correctly.

That’s an interesting technique I haven’t tried. Less whirpool the a massive dry hop. Well see how this one turns out. Maybe I won’t do any dry hops at all just to see what that big whirpool addition will do then the next one do the big dry hop like you suggest

 

[couchsending]

I think people would be surprised at the ratio of WP to DH in their favorite commercial hoppy beers.

I almost never experience hop burn and I generally dry hop a hoppy beer in the 6-7% range with 9-12 oz in 6 gallons. Only beers that might burn are those ones with lots of Galaxy, Enigma, or Vic Secret. They’re the major offenders when It comes to hop burn.


Dry hopping a bit colder and cold conditioning your beer for the right amount of time eliminates the burn. You have to have the correct technique and gear to do it however. Even the tiniest amount of O2 pickup will negate all those hops added on the cold side.