Dry Hopping – my first time and a follow up

Sup. So I think I made a pretty kick ass IPA, it is in the secondary fermenter as of thie orginal date of this post/podcast, and I have just dry hopped for the first time.

I took a smell from the fermenter. I smelt pineapple, fruit, tropical goodness.

In hindsight, it was the best smelling IPA I made.

I hope it tastes good.  I missed my OG and FG by a bit, so I know I either have a yeast, mash or milling issue.

*Update* The beer was pretty damn good, and long gone. Even my non IPA drinking fiance liked it. It was an original recipe that turned out clutch. There were not any off flavors and the hop aroma dominated the beer in a good way. I will always dry hop my IPA’s and PA’s from here on out.

Next time I will focus on milling my grains a little finer, holding my mash a bit longer and using hotter sparge water.

*Update*I fixed my grain mill and it crushes wonderfully now. I also hold a longer mash time (1-1.5 hours) and as for sparging hotter…I do this every time now. Bottom line is I almost always hit my original gravity now.

This post will help you understand what dry hopping is and I will discuss what I did my first time actually doing dry hopping.

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The original podcast is at the bottom.

What is dry hopping?

Dry hopping, in a nutshell, is adding hops towards the end of beer fermentation, after fermentation, or both.

The dry hop addition helps with the aroma of the beer. So don’t pitch onion-cheese smelling hops  (old hops) here…unless you like that style (you can use those old hops for sour beers).

You want to add fresh hops. Whole cone or pellet hops are the most popular way to dry hop. I’m sure there are people who use lupulin powder or hop extract, but I haven’t yet.

When to dry hop?

There are a lot of debates on when to dry hop. My opinion is whatever works the best for you then do that. Of course, commercial breweries need consistency and practice to truly know the best method to not waste tons of beer.

I did speak to one popular local brewery who said they use pellet hops, all day.

Keep in mind I speak from a homebrewer’s perspective.

I have read that the best time to dry hop is 3-5 days after fermentation starts, which would make it towards the end of your fermentation, yet with some fermentation left.

My understanding is you want to let the chemistry of fermentation, that is still producing Co2, to take care of the hops.

A second dry hop is common practice a few days after your first dry hop; after fermentation is just about done.

There are likely more scientific reasons and probably drunken philosophical reasons behind as to exactly why. I won’t go there.

How long to dry hop?

This shit is debatable also; how long to dry hop. I just go with what works and makes sense. The general rule of thumb is 5-7 days for each dry hop addition. Some do more, some do less.

I do 5-7 days.

You obviously want to keep the hops in long enough to extract the scent from them.

You don’t want to leave them in too long as they can start to extract nastier smells and tastes like grass and shit like that.

How to dry hop

There are different methods to dry hopping. Some peeps just toss the hops in to the primary or secondary.

As for me, I like to use a sanitized muslin bag with the hops. It equates to less mess.

You have the option to tie the muslin bag with fishing line or a string and let it hang in there and you can pull the bag right out after your committed dry hop time.

Of course you will have to get the bag through the hole (if it’s a small hole).

I actually highly recommend using a string and pulling them out in order to avoid oxygenating your fermented beer (which oxygen is the enemy to fresh be...