So I am going to post something perhaps controversial but based on my brewing and serving methods it has not failed.
So I have given up on late hop additions to the boil. If I want hop aroma and flavor, which is just hop aroma anyway, I dry hop in the keg/cask. I FWH but in all honesty I really don’t see that much of a difference if at all. I do dry hop anywhere from 2-4 oz per five gal and have used cryoHops which are outstanding dryhops and the hop flavors and aromas are wonderful
Late addition hop flavor/aroma seem to get scrubbed out during fermentation and even at kegging i don’t pick up the
flavor and aromas.
I have been brewing this way for years! The hop aroma and flavor of dryhopping US hops are incredible!! And no I do not get “grassy”‘flavors and yes I keep them in my keg/cask the entire time!
So has anyone else tried this (no late hops only dryhops)?
And if so will you admit it?
Getting what you want out of hops is so completely relative to brewing process and personal tastes that there can’t possibly be only one right way to do it. What works for one will be too sharp/fruity/grassy/vegetal/bitter for someone else.
That said, I get good results from 0 minute/knockout additions. For beers that I don’t want to dry-hop but still want some hoppiness, I have learned to increase the amount going in at 0. That certainly has helped.
I have dry-hopped all different ways, as has everyone else, including in the keg at packaging. But I am now stuck on 48-72 hours max in the fermenter - post fermentation. No scrubbing of aromas and flavors, no transferring of hops to the keg. If there is a real concern of O2 breakdown (and I’m sure there is), I have not personally noticed any issues…though my small-batch beers are usually gone in a month, so maybe I’m just finishing the beer on the right side of the curve.
I keg hopped for many years, but finally decided it wasn’t giving me what I wanted. I went back to late additions and dry hopping, often with advanced hop products, and it was exactly what I wanted. Nothing controversial in your statement. Do what works for you.
When it comes to modern hoppy beers, I tend to leave out late boil additions in favor of hop stands and dry hoppping if needed. Those are beers where I want the hops in the driver’s seat and want to retain all the delicate characteristics of those hops in the beer.
For pretty much all other beers, late additions are still on the table. I don’t necessarily want hops taking over those beers. Late additions retain some of the flavor and aroma but are better integrated in the beer.
Older hoppy recipes were built around late additions plus post-boil additions, so to get those flavors right you may want to hold on to those late additions.
I have quite a few recipes that have a bittering addition and nothing else. It could be a gold lager, American Bock, American wheat, a sort of amber ale, a Munich Helles, a Mexican Dark lager and a bunch of others. For me, a beer like that seems to just come together better … there is bitterness up front and then a malty finish that is still dry … which requires the right water and all kinds of other variables but these are some of my favorite beers. Yesterday a keg of helles (of sorts) went down … it had one hop addition. I replaced that keg with a beer that had a bittering addition and one late addition of Hallertau Mittelfruh. Very big difference and you can clearly taste that late addition even though it was only a half ounce at flameout or maybe ONE minute. Both good … just different.
Pretty much all the contemporary takes on pale ales and IPAs in their many forms. Both west coast and hazy.
Hazy beers have been that way for a while. West coast versions of those styles have been moving in that bittering + post-boil only formula more slowly over the past ten or so years. Looking at the return of west coast IPA and pale ales in more recent times and they pretty much all seem to follow that formula.
I had been making west coast ipa’s for a long time. I also found hop additions at 15min or so got washed out by the bitterness also imparted by the hop alpha acids (high alpha/aroma varieties) leaving very bitter beers without the desired hop flavors. So I started the flavor hopping at 5 and zero minutes, remove heat, then cool to 180F or so, and add the flavor and aroma hops that I formerly added at zero minutes (about 6 oz). I think this stops a lot of the isomerization that would otherwise occur with the late addition hops and provides the desired flavor and aroma. I brewed first with no dry hops and liked the flavor. Later added 2 oz DH per 5G and love the results.