I don’t mean that I drank 20 pints a day, or invited my friends over and they enthusiastically “helped” me drink it all.
This was the first batch where I dry hopped at the end of primary fermentation. 8 ounces per carboy went in on day 4 with ~5 points left to ferment. Most of the IBUs came from a whirlpool charge, with only a tiny bittering addition. 10 days later I kegged, using my standard routine of pushing out sanitizer (iodiphor) with CO2. Pushing out of the fermenter was also done completely under CO2 pressure. It tasted great warm and flat from the keg… wonderful hop flavors.
On day 3, with just a hint of carbonation, it was amazing. The full flavor came out. Hop oil biotransformations were REAL! I couldn’t get enough of it. Every last drop was delicious (and I think I had more than a couple glasses of it). The next day I hurt (too much of a good thing), but a day later was Friday and I couldn’t wait to get home and drink some more. Well… they were gone. All of the amazing flavors. It was a standard, decent IPA at this point, but nothing like it was before. This was a split batch with a friend, and he confirmed that his keg had also lost the majority of it’s fresh hop flavor and aroma.
I can only conclude that force carbonation was the culprit. Not even the transfer, but the carbonation process itself. We know that whatever CO2 we get as homebrewers is not 100% pure. The beer was incredible until it started to absorb CO2, and then it fell off a cliff. Again, it’s still a good IPA, and if I never tasted it before carbonation completed I wouldn’t have known its potential. But all of the fresh hop flavors have completely transformed to a more bitter, dull, and harsh flavor.
This is probably what I was used to in the past, even from some commercial breweries, so I never questioned it. But at this point I don’t think I’ll force carb any of my beers ever again. I’m looking into doing some tests on a split batch with force carbing with ascorbic acid and sulfites vs spunding with keg hops. I’d rather not bother with hops in the keg but if it’s the best solution, it will be worth it.
That’s interesting. I guess I’m not sure what the sulfites and ascorbic acid is supposed to accomplish that you don’t get by pushing sanitizer out with CO2. Would you mind explaining your thought process behind that?
Also, is it possible that the temperature change may be behind it? Did you crash before dry hopping and kegging? Any chance the hop oils bound to some particles that dropped out?
The idea is that the CO2 we buy as food/beverage grade is only 99% pure (or so… would have to look up the specifics). Even if a fraction of that 1% is air, that is a significant dissolved oxygen to add when you’re carbing to 2.5 volumes.
On day 3, the beer was already cold. It’s possible that a large amount of oils/yeast bound to hops dropped to the bottom by then and were consumed. However:
Even the very last pint was amazing that night.
2 days later, it seems likely that more would have dropped to the bottom and would have been pulled by the diptube in the first pint.
I’m also not sure that what I’m getting is food grade, or that the filling of the bottle hasn’t created some increased O2 content. Of course, I always ask if it’s beverage grade, and they say yes wherever I buy it, but…
1. I intend to try a very light sulfite /ascorbic mixture to help with this. The dose that is just imperceptible is the amount I want to find.
I keg hop, and I spunded the last IPA I made. So obviously the CO2 tank only served to push out the beer. Had the longest lasting hop character of any beer I’ve ever made. Downside was the extra yeast in the keg. You really need to twist the keg and pump out the yeast a couple times to get a fairly clear pour.
Keg hopping just rocks. The aromas are trapped and stick around longer by comparison IMO.
Assuming that the best CO2 you can get is 30 ppm, this is 30 mg/L. If your beer happens to be around 1 volume of CO2 (a swag) before carbing to 2.5, you’d be adding 1.5 volumes, so that would end up being 45 ppm in your final beer I’d think.
I know that theoretically this could be significant, but the effect was stark when experienced. Has anyone tried measuring the DO content of deoxygenated water that was then carbonated? Might be interesting to see and could be accomplished with a soda bottle and carboy cap. It’s possible that much of the CO2 sold from welding shops as beverage grade is anything but.
"With forced carbonation you get more total O2 than with spunded carbonation. Say you have 0.8 volumes of residual CO2 at kegging. If you want to carb to 2.5 volumes, you need to add 1.7 volumes (or 1.7 * 5 = 8.5 gal) of CO2 to the beer. If you force carb, that 1.7 volumes comes from the tank. If you spund, that 1.7 volumes (8.5 gal) is generated by yeast eating residual sugar (0 DO.) Then it’s going to take 5 * (14.7 psi + 11 psi) / 14.7 psi = 8.74 gal to serve the keg (11 psi @ 37.5˚F gives 2.5 volumes.) So spunding and serving will expose the beer to 8.74 gal of CO2, and force carbing and serving will expose the beer to 17.24 gal of CO2, almost twice as much. The O2 exposure will also be almost twice as much.
As the beer is consumed, more O2 is added to the headspace, increasing the partial pressure, and allowing more dissolution. "
After reading this in Handbook of Brewing I was planning on trying a 60:40 blend of ascorbic acid and potassium metabisulfite. Sodium erythorbate seems to be a direct substitute for AA used for cost.
The other option is to add priming soultion, wait an hour or so for yeast to wake up, and transfer as I did to the keg. The benefit here is that I like to keep all the dry hop crap out of the keg. I might try both ways to compare the results.
I have a similar mixture in mind. As for the amount of it, less is more at first for me. As for keg hopping, FWIW I don’t throw them in loose. The 5 gallon paint strainer bags contain particles well and give the hops room to circulate and dissolve.
First, I would love to see your recipe of this best IPA ever.
Second, I’ve had the same experience and wondered what was going on. This is an interesting Avenue to investigate.
I really want to continue kegging but at low pressure my corny kegs don’t seal so I can’t do a secondary fermentation or keg condition of my beers. Now I’m wondering if all new kegs are in order.
This is interesting. I’ve had a similar experience on a recent Mexican lager. Into the keg, the aromas and flavors were so intense that it was jarring. It was almost like spreading creamed corn and Saaz on toast. After a couple of days on gas, those flavors mellowed right out into one of my favorite lagers I’ve ever brewed. While the end result was desirable in my beer, I can see how it would be a problem in an IPA.
I posted the chart above on the other thread not realizing it is probably misleading, mostly to show the differences between the different grades of gas. I think that is probably the reason the person made it. I took it to show the max of impurities allowed, not necessarily the actual constituents. I’m not sure why they have max on some, but not on all, and I can totally see that it could be confusing. Here is a chart for beverage grade co2 from foodsafetymagazine.com that seems to line up with how I was reading it.
Back to the op, I feel your pain. My pale ale/IPA kegs have been going south quickly, especially my last one. It lost a lot in a week. It sucks when you pull a pint and it is not the same beer you first tapped. I used to bottle prime my kegs and was considering spunding. Could be unrelated. Could be we dont drink as fast as we used to.
Flavor loss is the first stage of oxidation. When beer is spunded and care is used on the cold side you can easily have the best ipa ever stay that way for 6+ months and beyond. Everyone seems to just accept that pale ales and ipa’s are only fresh for a short time, it doesn’t have to be that way!
I don’t feel sorry for ya at all ;D Last IPA I made was “ruined” (OK beer) since I decided to try a small sugar dose to mitigate O2 at DH and it kicked the ferment up again, dried the beer out, and hop magic went out the airlock. 2 days woulda been nice! I normally get 2 weeks. I personally think force carb is “on the list of suspects” but lower than other things. I will say that my flavor stability is solid if I don’t dry hop. The brewbrite locks everything thing in for me. Once you add more polyphenols and O2 during the dry hop it’s a whole different game.
Dry hopping was during primary for this one on day 4, and it was two weeks later from that day that is was at its best. So the kegging is very suspect.
The grain bill was pretty standard for an IPA with some raw wheat added, but that part is definitely not necessary. OG 1.068. The hop schedule for a 11.5 gallon post boil volume was:
0.50 oz. Columbus Pellet 12.90 10.6 60 min
1.50 oz. Columbus Pellet 12.90 11.6 10 min
2.00 oz. Columbus Pellet 12.90 0.0 0 min
5.00 oz. Equanot Pellet 15.30 0.0 0 min
The kettle pH was adjusted to 5.2 room temp with phosphoric acid. Cl-So4 ratio was around 1:1 with both being around 100.
0 Minute hops were in the whirlpool for 30 minutes after chilling to 180.
Dry hops on day 4 in the primary for what ended up being only 9 gallons into the fermenter (thanks to hop screen problems on a new system). Kegged after 2 weeks total.
6.00 oz. Citra Pellet 13.30 0.0 Dry Hop
6.00 oz. Equanot Pellet 15.30 0.0 Dry Hop
3.00 oz. Columbus Pellet 12.90 0.0 Dry Hop
