Like the subject says. I’ve got a 10.0% abv Saison that I intend to lay down for a while…I’m about a week out from bottling. Dry hop with an ounce of EKG, yes or no?
Whats a while?
I dont think an ounce, presumably in 5 gallons, would do a whole lot for aroma even fresh. But some subtle complexity on the nose, sure.
In the end I dont think it would necessarily hurt the beer, but after a year I suspect at best it would be unnoticeable. At worst it might bring a little extra O2 to the party which might show up as oxidation.
If you were using a hop that would be more noticeable and in higher amounts then I would say go for it, but with EKG at 1 oz only, it will hardly be noticeable by the time the beer has mellowed enough to drink. I vote save it for something else.
An oz would just be lost in a big aged beer. I wouldn’t bother, Phil. BTW, how low did the saison finish?
I don’t put beers up anymore except beers like that. Why not over-hop initially in the boil so that the ibu’s are where you want them after a year or so not at 2 weeks? You’ll lose perhaps 50% of your bu’s over the course of 12 months.
If you want the dry hop character AND the aged character why not bulk age and then dry hop in a year before packaging? best of both worlds
Bit of a story there. Seeing as this was my first attempt to brew using plato, my conversions to SG were off. Actual OG was 1.076, corrected FG is 1.006. (18.6 P and 6.7 P, respectively.)
That FG reading has been stable for a week, so I’m going to bottle it next weekend. Ended up really good, doesn’t taste like it’s a 10%ish abv beer at all. Really wine like. Not as bitter as I was aiming for, it’s balanced to a little bitter. I aimed high for my target bitterness, more bitter than is typical for a saison, and I’m glad I did. Between overshooting my gravity and the effects that has on hop utilization I ended way lower than my ~5.4 bitterness/OG ratio.
But in spite of all of that, the beer turned out really well. Very dry and wine like, with a good maltiness. I don’t think I’ll use pale ale malt for a saison this way again, it doesn’t fit as well as pilsner IMO. Certainly isn’t bad, however.
Now that I’m confident the beer has finished fermenting, based on how it tastes I don’t think I’ll age it overly long. I’ll probably start tapping into it in the July/August timeframe. I don’t think it would benefit from extended aging like I was hoping.
That was the goal, though I missed my intended target. (In more ways than one…)
So if I’ll be drinking it in 3 months, then what for the dry hopping? Up it to 2.5 ounces? I don’t want this beer overly hoppy, just a bit hoppy.
Sounds like it’ll be nice!
I sometimes wonder with these highly attenuating phenolic yeasts if they might interact with high dry hopping over time in really interesting ways like with brett. When I do my saisons this year at least one batch is getting a good 150 grams of dry hopping just to see what they do over time.
I’m definitely leaning towards dosing this one with hops, the question is, how much?
Whelp, it’s done now. 3.5 oz. of EKG, will bottle sometime this weekend.
There you go…go big or go home…
Why not?
I mean, has dry hopping ever made a beer worse?
Damn the style guidelines, full steam ahead!
Why not split the batch, and compare them?
Doesn’t dry-hopping improve the stability of the beer? I’ve always thought so.
There’s no such thing as a 10% Saison 
But seriously, I see no reason not to drop hop this strong blonde ale. Orval dry hops, and people drink it after 1,2, 5 years, etc. It’s at least going to smell heavenly in the fermentor.
Good on ya! The 3.5 oz will definitely make more of an impact.
Good choice!
If it turns out good I may give my next saison a similar treatment.
Also, I’m going to need more EKG.