I was reading in the Hops book about dry hop extraction times, and how certain compounds are extracted very quickly, but then dissipate, while other take longer to develop. Has any tried to do a very short (3-6 hours) dry hopping? How’d it turn out?
I’ve been thinking about trying out a short dry hop in the bottling bucket, but I think you need some steady circulation to max out your extraction in such a short time frame and I don’t really have the means to do that. I have an ESB on deck, and I was on the fence on whether I wanted to dry hop. Maybe I’ll try this out instead.
I’ve got an accidental Berliner Weisse I think I’ll try it on. I’ve never gone less than 2 days dry hopping before.
+1. I agree - there has to be some steady circulation to pull that off. I’ve dry hopped alot of beers and usually feel I needed more dry hops or dry time. Hops are all about preference though.
I have kegged hopped in concert with speed carbing. So I added the hops in a hop bag to the keg, wracked the beer on top, put it under pressure and shook the bee-jee-zus out of it for 10 minutes or so. Other than the cloudy yeast mess on the first couple pours it was perfect. I don’t think the hop presence was ever any better than in the first day or two.
Oregon State did or is doing studies in dry hopping and they have found that shorter dry hop times are equally, if not more effective but all their research has involved constant circulation of the beer while the dry hop additions are added. IMO if you don’t have the ability to circulate constantly then it’s either more hops or a longer time or both. BTW the studies are on line and can be searched, sorry , don’t have the link handy…
I accidentally stumbled upon the opposite test. Just found a hidden carboy of a pale ale that was dry hopped in October. Don’t even know if it’d be worth bottling now or if it would just taste like a bag of lawn clippings.
I tried a 3 minute dry hop in some Miller Lite once. Tasted like Miller Lite with floaties.
I dry hopped a Barleywine for 3 months once because I didn’t know any better. It won medals. Now I dry hop my barleywines for at least 1 month of staggered additions. I like the resinous outcome. Seems to help fake the aging a bit. The end result always scores in the 40s.