Dry hoping a chocolate stout, yay or nay? Anyone done it?

hatrickpatrick

I'm making a chocolate stout from a kit at the moment (Bulldog Easter Chocolate Stout] - really looking forward to it!) and it's bubbling away at the moment - the corner of my room where the fermenter is had a chocolatey smell all evening after I mixed it up and sealed it in last week :cool:

The kit came with a packet of hop pellets for dry hopping. I'm just wondering, to anyone who's made a chocolate stout before, did you bother dry hopping it, and how does it taste? I can't visualise (or whatever the taste equivalent of visualising is) the combination of hop aroma and chocolate flavour to decide whether it's a good idea or not, if what I'm going for is a solid chocolatey vibe.

Unfortunately, the kit instructions are generic - as in, all of the bulldog 4.Xkg kits come with the exact same instruction leaflet, it's not specific to the beer you're making, and the options it outlines for dry hopping are therefore the same in every kit. I strongly suspect that the actual kit makeup is similar - as in, the fact that they put hop pellets into the box doesn't tell you anything about whether it's recommended, since I think they just do it with all of their kits as standard to give you the option.

What say ye? To hop or not to hop? If I do hop, I usually do it literally the day before bottling as I find that this actually maximises the hop aroma - earlier and you only get bitterness without aroma, or at least that's been my experience.

Thoughts? How will this impact the chocolate flavours?

BeerNut

I'd leave them out. I can't think how that would cause a problem, but I can see how they might mess things up.

irish_goat

I wouldn't put them in either. Chances are an it's an English variety so you'd be looking at more floral, earthy hop aroma than a tropical hop bomb.

But I can't picture it being a compliment to the chocolate flavour regardless.

wexfordman2

Every time I read this thread title, I need to look twice. Is it just me ?

hatrickpatrick

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Every time I read this thread title, I need to look twice. Is it just me ?

I think it's because I forgot the second "p" in "hopping"

wexfordman2

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I think it's because I forgot the second "p" in "hopping"

I was thinking you forgot mistyped the "u" as an "o" and forgot the "m"

BeerNut

wexfordman2 wrote: »

I was thinking you forgot mistyped the "u" as an "o" and forgot the "m"

That's a big reach.

wexfordman2

BeerNut wrote: »

That's a big reach.

Not with a sick mind like mine it's not.

hatrickpatrick

I have a sick enough mind and I'm totally lost

Either way thanks for the advice, I think I'll hold on to the hops and add them to a different batch!

wexfordman2

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I have a sick enough mind and I'm totally lost

Either way thanks for the advice, I think I'll hold on to the hops and add them to a different batch!

"Dry hoping"...."dry humping"

I'll get my coat, apologies for de railing the thread.

hatrickpatrick

wexfordman2 wrote: »

"Dry hoping"...."dry humping"

I'll get my coat, apologies for de railing the thread.

Ahhh, I get it now One of my friends once made a joke about the hop "teabag" while we were talking about brewing and another* said "Ah here lads, it's dry hopped - not dry cocked..." so that's the way my mind was going

I feel bad now for anyone who comes along with the same question and stumbles across this thread. Links to Boards on Google really should have some kind of "results may not be as expected" label

*me, I'm ashamed to admit

hrcbob

How did that kit work out for you Hatrickpatrick?

I have it there ready to run in a week or two in the hope its good to go by Christmas.

wexfordman2

Dry hoping a chocolate stout, yay or nay ?

Oooh nurse!!!

hatrickpatrick

hrcbob wrote: »

How did that kit work out for you Hatrickpatrick?

I have it there ready to run in a week or two in the hope its good to go by Christmas.

Sorry for the late reply, only saw this now! It was delicious :cool: I always do the syringe trick when pouring a bottled home brew stout, highly recommend it if you like a thicker head

I started drinking it only two weeks after cold crashing the bottles and even then it was epic, I imagine if you keep yours in cold storage until Christmas it’ll taste even better!

hrcbob

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Sorry for the late reply, only saw this now! It was delicious :cool: I always do the syringe trick when pouring a bottled home brew stout, highly recommend it if you like a thicker head

I started drinking it only two weeks after cold crashing the bottles and even then it was epic, I imagine if you keep yours in cold storage until Christmas it’ll taste even better!

I bottled it up last night.
It didn't get below 1020 fg even after 3 weeks.
I dry hopped it for 5 days but I'm not so sure about the teabag tech. The sovereign hops seemed a bit muted aroma wise so might not add up to much in the final product.
I was allowing it should be good to go with a bit of Christmas cake alright.

hatrickpatrick

hrcbob wrote: »

I bottled it up last night.
It didn't get below 1020 fg even after 3 weeks.
I dry hopped it for 5 days but I'm not so sure about the teabag tech. The sovereign hops seemed a bit muted aroma wise so might not add up to much in the final product.
I was allowing it should be good to go with a bit of Christmas cake alright.

The teabag tech is utterly nonsensical. Boiling aroma hops blasts the aroma out of them in the stream created, I always just cut the teabag open and drop the hops directly into the fermenter when I make a Bulldog kit - hops apparently have quite a bit of natural resistance to pathogens so they're very unlikely to be a source of contamination, no need to boil. What was your starting gravity for the kit?

hrcbob

They didn't smell of much to begin with but I haven't used much dry hopps.
My last was with homebrew west's craft range ipa. Man there was some serious bang off those hops !! Made a tasty beer too.

The Easter choc stout started off as per manual at 1060.
I primed with 100g of table sugar. It seems to be the magic number for my brews and ideal carb level.

hatrickpatrick

hrcbob wrote: »

They didn't smell of much to begin with but I haven't used much dry hopps.
My last was with homebrew west's craft range ipa. Man there was some serious bang off those hops !! Made a tasty beer too.

First off, have you tried the chocolate stout yet? How did it turn out?

Is the IPA kit you're describing the Craft Range Citra IPA? Citra hops are incredible. If you like hoppy beers, here's a probably unorthodox tip - citra hops have such a strong taste and aroma when you dry hop, that you can pretty much use the cheapest kits around and still make an incredible beer dry hopping with them. For example, my most recent beer which is currently cold conditioning is an IPA using the UKBrew 1.6kg IPA kit (around €11), a 1kg bag of dextrose (another €2) and 50g (half) of a 100g bag of Citra hops which cost around €7 for the whole bag. So basically, that's a total of €15.50 for 40 pints of what is honestly one of the nicest beers I've ever made, and that's entirely down to the citra hops. As everyone here knows, using a very light malt kit with only dextrose as the additional fermentable tends to create very bland tasting beers, but add 50g of citra hops and you suddenly have something which could have come straight from the premium craft section of your local Offo If you're ever trying to recoup your losses from a failed or infected brew, it's a good option!

Does anyone else here do what I do and add the hops for dry hopping literally 24 hours or even a little less before transfer to the bottling bucket? It goes against most instruction manuals, but I've repeatedly found that hop aroma peaks at 24 hours and waiting any longer to bottle, you start smelling the hoppy gas coming out of your airlock and consequently have a far less intense aroma from the resulting beer. I've read that hop pellets are an incredible nucleation site for CO2, so a bit like dropping a few mentos into a bottle of diet coke, they cause the beer to start bubbling like crazy - and these bubbles take some of the aroma with them when they leave the airlock. So it seems that a short 1-2 day dry hop really is the sweet spot, if you want one of those beers which screams "mid 2010s craft beer" as soon as you open the bottle!

The Easter choc stout started off as per manual at 1060.
I primed with 100g of table sugar. It seems to be the magic number for my brews and ideal carb level.

I have a kilo of table sugar which I was hoping to use in place of dextrose for my next brew - do you find that when you prime with it, it imparts any sort of fruity flavour? Some have said that sucrose adds a slightly cidery flavour to beer, it's a little more complex for yeast to break down so may create more by products, but as far as I know cidery flavour in beer is primarily caused by acetylaldehyde which is eventually eaten by the yeast anyway. So that would suggest that using table sugar merely means the beer will take longer to mature and lose the 'green' flavour. What's your experience been like? Do you find that you have to leave your beers in the conditioning phase for a bit longer when you use table sugar?

BeerNut

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

What's your experience been like?

The amount of sugar involved in conditioning is so minuscule I can't imagine it would have any noticeable effect on the taste of the beer.

hatrickpatrick

BeerNut wrote: »

The amount of sugar involved in conditioning is so minuscule I can't imagine it would have any noticeable effect on the taste of the beer.

Suspected as much! Guess I'll just have to give it a shot and see what happens In the past though, any beer I've made which ended up with a cider aftertaste was completely fine with an extra few weeks in the fridge after conditioning.

hrcbob

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

First off, have you tried the chocolate stout yet? How did it turn out?

Is the IPA kit you're describing the Craft Range Citra IPA? Citra hops are incredible. If you like hoppy beers, here's a probably unorthodox tip - citra hops have such a strong taste and aroma when you dry hop, that you can pretty much use the cheapest kits around and still make an incredible beer dry hopping with them. For example, my most recent beer which is currently cold conditioning is an IPA using the UKBrew 1.6kg IPA kit (around €11), a 1kg bag of dextrose (another €2) and 50g (half) of a 100g bag of Citra hops which cost around €7 for the whole bag. So basically, that's a total of €15.50 for 40 pints of what is honestly one of the nicest beers I've ever made, and that's entirely down to the citra hops. As everyone here knows, using a very light malt kit with only dextrose as the additional fermentable tends to create very bland tasting beers, but add 50g of citra hops and you suddenly have something which could have come straight from the premium craft section of your local Offo If you're ever trying to recoup your losses from a failed or infected brew, it's a good option!

Does anyone else here do what I do and add the hops for dry hopping literally 24 hours or even a little less before transfer to the bottling bucket? It goes against most instruction manuals, but I've repeatedly found that hop aroma peaks at 24 hours and waiting any longer to bottle, you start smelling the hoppy gas coming out of your airlock and consequently have a far less intense aroma from the resulting beer. I've read that hop pellets are an incredible nucleation site for CO2, so a bit like dropping a few mentos into a bottle of diet coke, they cause the beer to start bubbling like crazy - and these bubbles take some of the aroma with them when they leave the airlock. So it seems that a short 1-2 day dry hop really is the sweet spot, if you want one of those beers which screams "mid 2010s craft beer" as soon as you open the bottle!



I have a kilo of table sugar which I was hoping to use in place of dextrose for my next brew - do you find that when you prime with it, it imparts any sort of fruity flavour? Some have said that sucrose adds a slightly cidery flavour to beer, it's a little more complex for yeast to break down so may create more by products, but as far as I know cidery flavour in beer is primarily caused by acetylaldehyde which is eventually eaten by the yeast anyway. So that would suggest that using table sugar merely means the beer will take longer to mature and lose the 'green' flavour. What's your experience been like? Do you find that you have to leave your beers in the conditioning phase for a bit longer when you use table sugar?

Have only had 2 of the chocolate stout yet. It needs time (I hope) to settle out some of the choc flavour. It tastes like that horrible cheap ass almost synthetic chocolate at the minute but fingers crossed it mellows.


The craft range ipa is the one here https://www.homebrewwest.ie/the-craft-range-craft-ipa-beer-kit-365-kg---discounted-basic-packaging-until-new-boxes-arrive-3698-p.asp
I made a bit of a mess of the dry hopping of it by putting them in too early and the fg took longer than I had expected to achieve but its still dam tasty. It doesn't actually say what hops are in the kit, just labeled ipa sadly. I haven't enough experience to tell what they were from smell or taste.

The chocolate stout only got 3 days on the hops and that's where I will aim for with the next batch.

That uk brew ipa is pretty ok but bland in standard form.


In relation to priming sugars, All my beers seem to need atleast a month to get decent.
The only exception was the craft ipa which had priming sugar with it so that may explain why it was ready to drink quicker.

hrcbob

So I got a chance to sample another couple of these the weekend,,

Sadly I seem to have made 40 pints of damp cardboard flavoured pish.

:mad::mad:
No idea where it went wrong as I'm pretty anal about things when it comes to bottling time. Only thing coming to mind is the dry hopping process.
Not sure about the "hop tea" that these guys suggest making.
Ill prob just chuck in the bag next time by itself.
There goes the Christmas piss up out the window.

hatrickpatrick

hrcbob wrote: »

So I got a chance to sample another couple of these the weekend,,

Sadly I seem to have made 40 pints of damp cardboard flavoured pish.

:mad::mad:
No idea where it went wrong as I'm pretty anal about things when it comes to bottling time. Only thing coming to mind is the dry hopping process.
Not sure about the "hop tea" that these guys suggest making.
Ill prob just chuck in the bag next time by itself.
There goes the Christmas piss up out the window.

That's a real shame. I made it again for this Christmas without dry hopping, currently cold crashing the bottles after carbonation so I'll report back on how it tastes in a few weeks. I really did like it last year though, and it didn't turn out anything like you're describing

The hop tea concept is complete bollocks, I have no idea why Bulldog have suggested doing this but the more I've read up on dry hopping and how hops impart their taste and aroma, the more insane it feels to boil them beforehand. A word of advice though: Hops are very good at resisting and killing off any bacteria which attempts to f*ck with them, obviously paper and cloth are not. Therefore, I strongly advise you to cut the 'teabag' open and drop the hops into your fermenter directly, as opposed to dropping the bag itself in. It does result in more cleanup between brews (that ring of encrusted trub you get just above the beer line becomes ten times harder to get rid of once hop sediment is involved) but I've been doing this with every Bulldog brew I've done and I have yet to suffer a single infection on any of those brews.

You probably still have just enough time to make something nice for Christmas if you get started straight away, but I personally wouldn't recommend making anything too dark as it takes longer to clear. I'm sure there's a way to make an IPA feel somewhat seasonal though

hrcbob

Im not sure where it went wrong but that nasty chemical chocolate flavour has been there from day one so maybe its been a problem in initial fermenting or possibly even the kit.
Christmas had been well thought about this year.

I have a bulldog raja reward ipa just about ready for bottling
just chucked in the hop teabag this time. no boiling it first.

Also have a batch of coopers irish stout aging nicely a the min.
Made that with a half kg of dark spraymalt and a full 545g tin of treacle.
That's good stuff already. Poor enough head retention thou sadly and im far too lazy to go messing with syringes etc.

Carawaystick

hrcbob wrote: »

So I got a chance to sample another couple of these the weekend,,

Sadly I seem to have made 40 pints of damp cardboard flavoured pish.

:mad::mad:
No idea where it went wrong as I'm pretty anal about things when it comes to bottling time. Only thing coming to mind is the dry hopping process.
Not sure about the "hop tea" that these guys suggest making.
Ill prob just chuck in the bag next time by itself.
There goes the Christmas piss up out the window.

Late to the thread, but damp cardboard, is a sign of oxygenation after fermentation, you might have let your beer splash getting it from the fermenter to the bottles; my first few brews had a bit of this. you need to try not let the beer splash at all going into the bottles, or
I siphon from the fermenter to a bottling bucket with the priming sugar syrup in it, to prevent splash,
and use a bottling wand then.

You can always hear splattering at the very start with any of my 3 wands (all spring loaded) when bottling. Always seems be bubbles in the wand too, though I’ve noticed I can lessen this a bit if I cut it off more slowly when stopping.

Are there better brands of bottling wand to get?

hrcbob

I’m always super careful when it comes to air in my beers. My fermenter has a tap that I use for transfer to my bottling bucket. I use a length of food grade pipe to transfer and have about 200ml of water with my priming sugar in the bottling bucket to start so the pipe sits into that as it flows off. Zero splashing and any air in the pipe is only bubbling into the priming sugar so shouldn’t have a huge effect.
Always use a bottling stick too and always get the air out before I start as it just annoys me otherwise.
I just think something went wrong with the fermentation or maybe even my sanitizer.
I could just be that it’s a beer I don’t like.
Made their Rajahs reward ipa since and I’m not mad about that either. It turned out amber and as a full malt kit it wasn’t anything I added.
Just one of those things.