Maximizing hop flavor

[erockrph]

@MattyAHA

I am by no means an expert and you probably know more then me, but my ipa’s greatly improved once i started really paying attention to Ph, before i really bothered with ph adjustment my hoppy beers lacked that bright hoppy character and were pretty dull, but for the last few ipa’s i brewed with ph being a focus, the hops are bright and pop out of the glass, could it be another reason? sure, but i will never brew a beer again with monitoring ph from mash,sparge all the way to the finished beer, probably totally unnecessary but it working out for me, also i noticed from my experience i get the most hop flavor from flame out, over hop stands @170 and dry hopping when fermentation is still active

What is your pH target, and are you adjusting in mash, kettle, or both?

[erockrph]

@BrewBama

@erockrph

This is something I have chased for all the years I’ve been homebrewing - an intense hop flavor in my beer. This started a few years before the “New England IPA” thing got big. There was some information that came out quite a few years back from some tasting panel experiments run by Ray Daniels that showed that maximum hop flavor was achieved by an 80 minute whirlpool at 180F, IIRC. I know Randy Mosher referred to this on a few podcasts and/or NHC talks probably 5 or 6 years ago.

This was a big breakthrough for me. I started focusing on extended hop stands at varying temperatures, for varying amounts of time, with varying quantities of hops, and with/without dry hops. I still haven’t hit on one single magic formula yet, but I have identified several trends based on my results.

1. More hops = more flavor. That seems obvious, but the first thing to try if you’re looking to increase the hop flavor in your beer is to double the amount of hops you’re using. There is a bit of a diminishing return as you use more and more hops, but I use 2-4 oz/gallon for my target hopping rate - usually around 2/3 at whirlpool and 1/3 as dry hops.

2. Dry hops add quite a bit of flavor, they aren’t just for aroma. A lot of flavor comes from the whirlpool hops, but I did several “whirlpool-only” batches and found them to be missing some of the brighter fresh citrus and pine notes compared to brews using both whirlpool and dry hops.

3. Warmer/longer whirlpools or hop stands get you more flavor. I’ve tried cooler temps and shorter times, but I get noticably more flavor from a 90 minute hop stand that is kept hot. I generally add the hops at flameout, after all boiling activity has stopped, and turn the heat back for a bit on when it dips close to 170F.

4. Not all varieties pack the same punch. You really want a lot of hops that are high in oil content. I use Citra in pretty much all of my IPA’s. Even if it’s not the dominant flavor I’m looking for, it really boosts the oil content.

5. More hops means more vegetal/grassy flavor. This is pretty much the bane of all heavily-hopped IPA’s. I have yet to find a way to completely separate the flavors I want in my beers from the ones that I don’t want. I’ve seen some trends, but nothing I’m willing to claim as conclusive.

• Cold storage seems to reduce grassiness faster than it reduces hop flavor. But who wants to lager an IPA for 3-6 months…
• Whole hops might lead to less grassiness than pellets. I’m not 100% convinced of this yet, but I’ve brewed a few beers that used a portion of the hops as leaf that had noticibly less grassiness than all-pellet beers. Unfortunately, many of my favorite hops (Vic Secret, Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy) aren’t generally available as whole cones.
• I’ve done some experimenting with Polyclar, but I haven’t noticed much of a change in the end results of my beers.

Yeast is something I haven’t played with too much. A lot of my experimentation was done before the NEIPA thing got big, and I used US-05 for almost all of my IPA’s. I know certain strains definitely seem to decrease hop flavor; so it’s not unreasonable to think that some can enhance it.

The experiment conducted by Rock Bottom I eluded to above supports your findings.

Dave Green summarized this study in his BYO article on the topic of hop stands:

“Another factor to consider is how to handle dry hopping your hop-forward beers if you employ an extended hop stand. Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery performed an extensive study on hop stands and dry hopping under the guidance of the Portland, Oregon brewmaster at the time Van Havig, (now of Gigantic Brewing Co., Portland, Oregon). The study was published by the Master Brewers Association of the Americas Technical Quarterly and considered beers that were hopped in four different ways, short hop stand (50 minutes) and no dry hops, long hop stand (80 minutes) and no dry hops, no hop stand and just dry hops and finally half the hops in hop stand (80 minutes) and half the hops for dry hopping. Beers produced using exclusively hop stands and the beers produced using exclusively dry hops will both result in well-developed hop characteristics, but there were some nuances. The long hop stand developed more hop flavor and aroma than the short hop stand indicating that essential oils were still soaking into the wort after 50 minutes. The exclusively dry hopped beer received its best marks in the aroma department, higher than the hop stand beers, but scored lower for its hop flavor. The beers where only half of the hops were added for the hop stand and half were added for aroma ended up scoring high in both departments. Havig’s study also showed that adding 1 lb./bbl (0.45 kg/bbl) Amarillo[emoji2400] dry hops produced the same amount of hop aroma as ½ lb./bbl (0.23 kg/bbl), indicating diminishing returns at higher dry hop rates.”

Of course, as we’ve said here many times that experiment was conducted on commercial equipment which can lead to differences when scaled to home brew equipment. Though I find it interesting there are parallels between your findings and theirs.

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Its good to see some correlation there, especially between two drastically different systems. It shows more of a trend that you can build off of.

[BrewBama (Dwain)]

@dannyjed

Thank you for this information. This is similar to what I have found experimenting on my own. I have tried about everything and have settled on flameout and dry-hopping in the keg.

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@erockrph

Its good to see some correlation there, especially between two drastically different systems. It shows more of a trend that you can build off of.

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Here’s the paper for your reading pleasure:

Maximizing%20Hop%20Aroma%20and%20Flavor.pdf

[MattyAHA]

@erockrph

@MattyAHA

I am by no means an expert and you probably know more then me, but my ipa’s greatly improved once i started really paying attention to Ph, before i really bothered with ph adjustment my hoppy beers lacked that bright hoppy character and were pretty dull, but for the last few ipa’s i brewed with ph being a focus, the hops are bright and pop out of the glass, could it be another reason? sure, but i will never brew a beer again with monitoring ph from mash,sparge all the way to the finished beer, probably totally unnecessary but it working out for me, also i noticed from my experience i get the most hop flavor from flame out, over hop stands @170 and dry hopping when fermentation is still active

What is your pH target, and are you adjusting in mash, kettle, or both?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

i track/adjust ph all the way through the process, for ipa’s my target mash ph is 5.1-5.3, post boil around 5 and finished beer 4-4.5, if im in that range it seems to give me what i look for,

[erockrph]

@MattyAHA

@erockrph

@MattyAHA

I am by no means an expert and you probably know more then me, but my ipa’s greatly improved once i started really paying attention to Ph, before i really bothered with ph adjustment my hoppy beers lacked that bright hoppy character and were pretty dull, but for the last few ipa’s i brewed with ph being a focus, the hops are bright and pop out of the glass, could it be another reason? sure, but i will never brew a beer again with monitoring ph from mash,sparge all the way to the finished beer, probably totally unnecessary but it working out for me, also i noticed from my experience i get the most hop flavor from flame out, over hop stands @170 and dry hopping when fermentation is still active

What is your pH target, and are you adjusting in mash, kettle, or both?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

i track/adjust ph all the way through the process, for ipa’s my target mash ph is 5.1-5.3, post boil around 5 and finished beer 4-4.5, if im in that range it seems to give me what i look for,

Interesting. I typically target a mash pH of 5.4 for my IPA’s. I will have to play with this a bit in the future. Thanks for the info!

[goschman (Iliff Ave)]

@denny

I have been getting amazing hop flavor by dry hopping for 48 hours at 35F.  Using cryo for that makes it even better.  I have pretty much stopped doing hop stands and whirlpool hops.

Are you tossing pellets straight in? I want to try this but am worried there will still be tons of hops in suspension. I have been dry hopping warm for about 72F before cold crash to help with hop matter.

[denny]

@denny

I have been getting amazing hop flavor by dry hopping for 48 hours at 35F.  Using cryo for that makes it even better.  I have pretty much stopped doing hop stands and whirlpool hops.

Are you tossing pellets straight in? I want to try this but am worried there will still be tons of hops in suspension. I have been dry hopping warm for about 72F before cold crash to help with hop matter.

Yep, throw them in loose.  Because it’s at 35F they crash out with the rest of the trub.

[lsales (allenhuerta)]

@denny

I have been getting amazing hop flavor by dry hopping for 48 hours at 35F.  Using cryo for that makes it even better.  I have pretty much stopped doing hop stands and whirlpool hops.

I’m going to have to find one of your IPA recipes and give this a try. I like my whirlpool hops but if that works for me… hmm.

[lsales (allenhuerta)]

@MattyAHA

@erockrph

@MattyAHA

I am by no means an expert and you probably know more then me, but my ipa’s greatly improved once i started really paying attention to Ph, before i really bothered with ph adjustment my hoppy beers lacked that bright hoppy character and were pretty dull, but for the last few ipa’s i brewed with ph being a focus, the hops are bright and pop out of the glass, could it be another reason? sure, but i will never brew a beer again with monitoring ph from mash,sparge all the way to the finished beer, probably totally unnecessary but it working out for me, also i noticed from my experience i get the most hop flavor from flame out, over hop stands @170 and dry hopping when fermentation is still active

What is your pH target, and are you adjusting in mash, kettle, or both?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

i track/adjust ph all the way through the process, for ipa’s my target mash ph is 5.1-5.3, post boil around 5 and finished beer 4-4.5, if im in that range it seems to give me what i look for,

I can’t remember which podcast I was listening to but they were talking with the brewer at a Beachwood BBQ if I’m not mistaken and he made it seem like pH was a secret weapon. He didn’t say his target, though. With your description I wonder if you’re in the ballpark.

[MattyAHA]

Allen, idk but all i can say is more acidic mash has improved my hoppy beers

[denny]

@denny

I have been getting amazing hop flavor by dry hopping for 48 hours at 35F.  Using cryo for that makes it even better.  I have pretty much stopped doing hop stands and whirlpool hops.

I’m going to have to find one of your IPA recipes and give this a try. I like my whirlpool hops but if that works for me… hmm.

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FTR, this isn’t in any of my published recipes.  It’s something I’ve started doing recently with any IPA I make.

[skyler]

Ok, so I was already planning to do a riff on the Breakside IPA recipe posted at https://beerandbrewing.com/breakside-brewery-ipa-recipe/, swapping out the late/dry hops based on what I have and adjusting the grain bill for my system.

I expect to be putting 6 gallons into the fermenter and 5 ounces of dry hops (one ounce of which will be cryo). Is the process here to ferment to completion, then cold crash to 35F for a couple days, then add all 5 ounces, then keg 48-72 hours later? Could I split the difference and ferment the beer, add 2 ounces of dry hops for 5 days, then cold crash for 2 days, add 3 ounces of hops for 48-72 hours and then keg?

I have space in my lagering freezer, which is currently set to 34F, so this seems like something I can reasonably try in the near future.

[denny]

@skyler

Ok, so I was already planning to do a riff on the Breakside IPA recipe posted at https://beerandbrewing.com/breakside-brewery-ipa-recipe/, swapping out the late/dry hops based on what I have and adjusting the grain bill for my system.

I expect to be putting 6 gallons into the fermenter and 5 ounces of dry hops (one ounce of which will be cryo). Is the process here to ferment to completion, then cold crash to 35F for a couple days, then add all 5 ounces, then keg 48-72 hours later? Could I split the difference and ferment the beer, add 2 ounces of dry hops for 5 days, then cold crash for 2 days, add 3 ounces of hops for 48-72 hours and then keg?

I have space in my lagering freezer, which is currently set to 34F, so this seems like something I can reasonably try in the near future.

The part I bolded is what I do.  Sure you could do it your way, but why?  If you read the article, you don’t get anything more if you go for a longer period.

[skyler]

@denny

Sure you could do it your way, but why?  If you read the article, you don’t get anything more if you go for a longer period.

I guess I just thought that such a large dose of dry hops might absorb better in two doses and provide more rounded character at two temperatures, kinda like splitting a 6 oz whirlpool addition to two 3 oz additions at flameout/160F. But then I have nothing to base that off of. Have you done this cold and fast dry hop with big doses approaching 1 oz/gallon, or just the more standard .2-.4 oz/gallon?

[lsales (allenhuerta)]

I thought 1oz a gallon was the standard [emoji28]

[wbaar2 (Wilbur)]

@denny

I have been getting amazing hop flavor by dry hopping for 48 hours at 35F.  Using cryo for that makes it even better.  I have pretty much stopped doing hop stands and whirlpool hops.

Tried this for the last few brews and it’s been great. In the past I’ve tried earlier in fermentation to get biotansformation, but I think the aroma gets scrubbed out by the CO2 bubbling out.

[denny]

I thought 1oz a gallon was the standard [emoji28]

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I try to stay below the 8 gr./L “Shellhammer Limit”

[lsales (allenhuerta)]

I’ve been seeing all these hazy homebrew recipes recently. I will not brew one, personally but I’ve seen some high dry hopping amounts lol

[BrewBama (Dwain)]

@denny

I thought 1oz a gallon was the standard [emoji28]

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I try to stay below the 8 gr./L “Shellhammer Limit”

Shellhammer limit = 1.1 oz/gal or 2.1 lbs/bbl.

1 oz/ gal is close enough IMO.

[denny]

@BrewBama

@denny

I thought 1oz a gallon was the standard [emoji28]

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I try to stay below the 8 gr./L “Shellhammer Limit”

Shellhammer limit = 1.1 oz/gal or 2.1 lbs/bbl.

1 oz/ gal is close enough IMO.

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Yep!