Dip Hopping Questions

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Dip Hopping is something I haven’t done as I’ve been focused on lagers of late. I think I understand the process, but want to get confirmation.

This
This was inspired by reading the Denny Kong recipe.
Dip hopping uses about 10% of the hot wort, around 170 to 180⁰F, and a dose of hops are steeped. How long do you steep in your process?

The rest of the chilled wort is added and the yeast are pitched. Do the hops remain in the combined wort for the duration of the fermentation?

Those are my questions. Look forward to the replys.

2

I pull the wort as it heats up. Dip hop through boil til wort goes into fermenter.

Just add dip hop wort to fermenter,  not the hops.

Is that the right process? Who knows. The whole process is vague.

3

Yes, reading about it left me with questions.

4

I haven’t seen a lot of people, commercial or home, do it and they all seem to have different processes.

5

“Dip Hopping” brings to my mind a picture of someone doing some kind of weird one-footed dance. I haven’t tried it.

6

I pictured a country boy with a plug of hops in his mouth

7

Close, but that’s “Hop Dipping” rather than dip hopping, and I do not recommend it

8

I’ve tried this a few times, and am impressed with the results. I have no idea how and why it works so well, and that of course bothers me a lot - but then you’re not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth :).

Hop creep has really been a great nuisance for me, and has more or less put me off dry hopping. So when I read about this for the first time, I thought I saw a way round that problem.

The first time I tried it, I pulled the wort at too low temperature, during the cooling after the boil. That didn’t take care of the unwanted enzymes. So now I take the wort after 20 minutes of boiling, filling it on top of the hops in a 2 litres (2 quarts) e-flask, cap it and just let it sit under a blanket till through cooling. The I put it in cold water, and it cools while I’m letting the trub precipitate in the kettle. I add the whole thing, hops and all. (I fill a bottle with wort  before filling the fermenter, and use it to rinse out the e-flask. Very useful.)

Last I did was a NEIPA, and it really has turned out well. I see no reason to dry hop in addition to the dip hop. (NEIPA is not my cup of tea, by the way, but The Light of My Life loves it, so … . )

Seems there are many ways to do this, though. I guess some methods will prove themselves better than others after a while, but for now I’m happy doing it like this.

9

Have you compared this process with hop stands at similar temperatures? As best I can tell, dip hopping is equivalent to performing a hop stand at 170F and then dumping the hops into the fermentation vessel.

10

No, and I probably won’t test it, because that would mean I’d have to take all the rest of the trub along for the ride, as well. Denny seems to get good results from dip hopping without fermenting with the hops, and that indicates there is a difference, too.

Dip hopping methods are quite varied, so anyway it will be difficult to test whether that hop stand is equivalent to all of them. I don’t think so. My way of doing it, for instance, uses boiling wort at the start, and I cap the flask. The time is also much longer.

I’ve found that hop stands often are disappointing, so I’m not using them much anymore.