Dry hopping an IPA

gosplan

Hi all,

Anyone have any experience dry-hopping an IPA with cascade pellets.

Put 50g into a 23l IPA 3 days ago. Took a sample yesterday and enjoyed the change in flavour. However sample was taken from the top where lot of hop powder was floating so got a grassy kick.

It's all gone to the bottom by this evening so I'm sticking it in the fridge for 48 hours to crash cool before bottling.

I understand that crash cooling slows dry hopping down but if they've all gone to the bottom anyway, then it can't have that much of an impact surely?

Plan is to bottle in 2 days. Anyone any experience of similar with some good advice to offer?

Is 5 days dry hopping with those quantities enough?

mayto

Five days should be plenty of time for dry hopping eith pellets. You will get a nice aroma and flavour from the oils in the pellets. Its normal for the pellets to sink after a few days, cooling makes them sink quicker. Ideally you want the pellets to settle at the bottom before bottling so the bits of pellets do not end up in the bottle. But any hop particles will settle in the bottle too so will not be a problem.

gosplan

mayto wrote: »

Five days should be plenty of time for dry hopping eith pellets. You will get a nice aroma and flavour from the oils in the pellets. Its normal for the pellets to sink after a few days, cooling makes them sink quicker. Ideally you want the pellets to settle at the bottom before bottling so the bits of pellets do not end up in the bottle. But any hop particles will settle in the bottle too so will not be a problem.

Read somewhere that you can loosely fix a muslin net around your syphon to prevent any particles travelling into the bottle.

mayto

gosplan wrote: »

Read somewhere that you can loosely fix a muslin net around your syphon to prevent any particles travelling into the bottle.

I have seen that mentioned also about using a muslin bag. I crash cooled my latest pale ale which was dry hopped with pellets and it was clear when bottling anyway.

sharingan

gosplan wrote: »

Read somewhere that you can loosely fix a muslin net around your syphon to prevent any particles travelling into the bottle.

I have done that. I use Voile (fine mesh curtain material) as it drains better - I have loads since I BIAB. Put it on at both ends.

It will also prevent a lot of standard sediment too, especially if you use a yeast with good sedimentation properties.

gosplan

Cracked one of these open last night. 'twas my first home brewed beer.

Notes are:

Fully carb'd after only 10 days (used coopers drops) - thought this would take longer because crash cool would slow yeast down.

Easy to notice the all glucose carbonation. Going to use malts only in future.

Really hoppy taste - maybe overdid it here.

No clarity to speak of at all - doubt crash cooling for the 3 days did much.

Tastes of very separate things - very uncomplex.


Can anyone tell me re: the taste, is this where the improvement comes with time in the bottle? Do the different notes blend together?


Plus side: use of secondary left little sediment, somewhere about 6.5% with a nice kick, only had one due to fear of horrible yeast hangover/death but feel fine today.

BeerNut

gosplan wrote: »

Can anyone tell me re: the taste, is this where the improvement comes with time in the bottle? Do the different notes blend together?

It'll change all right. It may get better, it may get worse, it may alternate between them. There's no real hard and fast rule. Have you posted the recipe anywhere?

gosplan wrote: »

yeast hangover

I don't think that's a thing. Alcohol causes hangovers; yeast is an indirect contributor

gosplan

BeerNut wrote: »

It'll change all right. It may get better, it may get worse, it may alternate between them. There's no real hard and fast rule. Have you posted the recipe anywhere?

Tis just a muntons gold IPA kit with some cascade.

BeerNut

Ah. Well, a kit is really someone else's recipe. If you don't like how it turns out just don't make that kit again.

gosplan

BeerNut wrote: »

Ah. Well, a kit is really someone else's recipe. If you don't like how it turns out just don't make that kit again.

True.

It's growing on me though. Had another this afternoon (followed by a snooze).

It basically just like that 'Proper Job' IPA for anyone that knows it ... but slightly stronger in ABV.

My problem is that I'm not that mad about IPA but wanted to go for a good forgiving ale kit first time out.

One 3kg muntons kit, extra 1kg brew enhancer, 50g cascade pellets, coopers carb drops and about one month patience.

Lovely Bloke

I dry hopped a Coopers IPA with 30g of Cascade for a week, have been opening bottles of it the last couple of nights and it's brilliant.

gosplan

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

I dry hopped a Coopers IPA with 30g of Cascade for a week, have been opening bottles of it the last couple of nights and it's brilliant.

Yeah, reckon 50g of pellets was too much on the hoppy side. Still nice but bit of grassiness.

tteknulp

gosplan wrote: »

Yeah, reckon 50g of pellets was too much on the hoppy side. Still nice but bit of grassiness.

It will improve given some time , 2-3 months cascade mellows quite a bit , try chinook or citra in your next one , i think there nice in a IPA

sharingan

gosplan wrote: »

It basically just like that 'Proper Job' IPA for anyone that knows it ... but slightly stronger in ABV.

Yes! I knows it! Great beer from a great brewery (St Austell). If you ever get to find a bottle of Tribute (or even get it on tap) try it. Its a top English Pale Ale.

gosplan wrote: »

My problem is that I'm not that mad about IPA but wanted to go for a good forgiving ale kit first time out.

Give IPA a chance. They are a complete beer fan beer. They can be subtle, or totally over the top, but they are unapologetic about being beer.

If you want a beer kit that may suit you more, look for a brown ale 3Kg kit. Lots of flavour, more malt than hops, might be easier on the palate, and a good beer for the winter.

sharingan

gosplan wrote: »

Yeah, reckon 50g of pellets was too much on the hoppy side. Still nice but bit of grassiness.

The grassiness is a risk with the dry hopping. Also, it will mellow out in time.

Smuggle away some bottles into somewhere you can leave them alone for a month or two. The hoppiness will subside with time, and the beer will find its stride.

gosplan

While I'm here I might mention that based on advice that I got elsewhere on the Internet, I dry hopped two batches of Pilsner with leaf Saaz by just throwing the leaves in.

Do not do this, it's a disaster if you're not crash cooling/largering them. (One is muntons 3kg pilsner kit with ale yeast - no room in fridge to larger that so treating it like an ale)

Hops all over the place, syphon useless (even with muslin/filter attached). Had to pour the last third of a batch out of carboy through a sieve into bottling bucket - disaster.

Think leaf hopping with carboys might just be a bad idea. The coopers pilsner is in largering now and hops are slowly sinking which is fine but putting them in caused some trapped air in the carboy and hops plus beer began to swell up the airlock. I just drained about 2 pts and all was fine but could yet have disastrous consequences.

All in all, unless you have some way of getting a giant teabag in and out of a carboy neck, I'd say stick to pellets if you're using one for secondary.

I'll only be using leaf hops again of largering and then only if putting say 20l into a 23ll carboy (and even then be prepared to lose the last few bottles which you won't be able to extract from the hops at the bottom).

I mean the idea of the carboy was to reduce exposure to air ... and then I had to go and pour it out through a sieve.

sharingan

Use hop bags (or muslin) and weigh them down with sanitised glass weights (marbles etc.).

I keep kicking myself when I do dry hopping and forget to bag the hops. I always bag my hops during the boil (as I do no chill and need to fish them out afterwards).

But yeah, losing loads of beer, and clouding the rest is no fun.