I have dry hopped a few beers in the past with mixed results. So far I have had good results by using the freshest hops I can find and adding the hops with a day or too left in the diacetyl rest so the yeast can take up any oxygen when added. (I am just dropping pellet hops right in the fermenter.) Then after the diacetyl rest is complete I lower the temp back the 3 of 4 deg to primary the temp. A week or so after the hop addition, I cold crash down to 33 f and keg a couple of days later. Can anyone see a problem with this method? Any other methods that could help with imparting a better dry hopped aroma and or flavor in beers?
I am paranoid about oxygen pickup, I dumped 10 gal of IIPA that I had cold conditioned for a couple of days and then got rid of the yeast. (Dumped of the bottom of a conical) I warmed it back up to 65 and dry hopped. It was great for about the first 17 or 20 days and starting tasting more like hoppy wet cardboard every day! (Cardboard and hops just don’t mix. :'()
No as a matter of fact it’s kind of a blind spot for me. I had a couple BJCP judges and pro brewers check it out and they agreed that it was oxidation. At first it was a little tuff to tell but a week or so later it was in your face! I probably picked it up somewhere else in my process. This was the only beer that I crashed, drop yeast then warmed back up to dry hop. Thought that might have been where I picked up the oxidation?
So if I understand correctly, you’re fermenting in a conical? What is your secondary, glass carboy? I’ve had great success dry hopping in the primary and sometimes the secondary, as I usually don’t secondary, because, like you I am worried about oxygen. However, everytime you open the lid of the fermenter you are letting oxygen in. I’ve never had any problems with oxidation, even after opening the lid several times, dry hopping, gravity check, etc…
Are you dry hopping a lager? Since you mentioned a diacetyl rest. Can’t you gently pressurize the conical, in essence purging the oxygen out of it. If you’re dry hopping in the secondary, you could do like a few brewers I know do. they keep a small co2 tank just for purging their vessels. Dump your hops in, then put the gas in the vessel for a few seconds. Since c02 is somewhat heavier than the atmosphere you should get a nice blanket, protecting you from harmful oxygen.
EDIT: I’m just posing this question from my own experience, not saying this is what’s happening to your beer. Anyways, I have two 6 gallon Better Bottles and their dry trap ferm. locks. I noticed when I cold crash in these things, they get all misshapen in the fridge after a couple days. That dry trap keeps it so air tight nothing can get in, however, when I remove it to rack, air rushes into the fermenter. I’m only guessing that since the pressure inside the fermenter changes with temperature, that’s why it literally sucked air back into the fermenter! Anyone else experience this? Could cold crashing be adding oxygen to beer, because of the pressure change?
I don’t see how you were able to trace it to the dry hops. Oxidized flavors take a while to develop so it could equally well be a coincidence. If oxidation was really a problem with dry hopping, you wouldn’t find so many home and commercial brewers doing it.
I didn’t necessarily trace it back to dry hopping. But I had never chilled down to thirty something, drop yeast and then warmed back up to mid sixties to dry hop before this? I am sure I made some other mistake without realizing it :-
I am brewing Tasty’s Janet’s Brown to serve at NHC and was close to the end of diacetyl rest and wanted to see if anybody had some other ideas for dry hopping. Anyway I added the dry hops today and have about 2 or 3% apparent attenuation to go. If it’s any good it will be one of my beers at club night/hospitably booth.