IPA double dry hop & cold crash schedule

[James Millar]

Happy new year fellow brewers!

I'm wanting to dry hop my IPA (currently in the fermenter). Previous attempts have imparted a bit of aroma, but not nearly enough for my tastes - think Epic Armageddon. So I've done some research and have come up with a plan, and I invite any opinions.

Beer - US style IPA, OG 1069, hopped with US Cascade, US Columbus, US Centennial and US Summit, 22L batch, target 60 IBU, fermenting at 18° (temp controlled in fridge), Safale US-05 yeast. Adjuncts - gypsum, yeast nutrient, irish moss.

My plan:

1. Cold crash to 4° for 48 hours to settle yeast once FG target hit (1019 or less), using sterilised gauze over airlock hole while cooling then putting airlock back in once 4° reached (to adjust for volume changes caused by temp dropping in plastic fermenter)

2. Raise temperature (with heater) back to fermentation temperature, 18°

3. Dry hop #1 (hop sack with marbles) with 15g Cascade, 15g Summit, 15g Centennial, 15g Columbus for 5 days, then remove and squeeze

4. Dry hop #2 (hop sack with marbles) with 15g Cascade, 15g Summit, 15g Centennial, 15g Columbus for 5 days

5. Bottle

 

Assumptions (I welcome feedback):

- 48 hours is long enough to cold crash

- Crash will settle yeast particles (and other stuff) which will prevent said particles absorbing hop oils and diminishing aroma

- Twin dry hop schedules of 5 days will infuse maximum hop oils without imparting grassy/vegetal aromas

- Sterilising hands with gloves then squeezing hop bag will extract maximum hop oils and minimise beer loss, and won’t (shouldn’t…) cause infection issues, once I've starsanned the *** out of my brew fridge and everything within 20m of my fermenter...

- 18° is a good temperature to dry hop as low temperatures

Thoughts?

[Ralph]

Looks like a good plan although I have always just dry hopped once ferment has finished and not cold crashed. I figure that most of the yeast and stuff drops away, but clearing the yeast particles etc may help. Maybe if you added finings and then cold crashed if you wanted really clear? Adding finings after dry hopping may drag hop flavour out of the beer so possibly doing it beforehand would be a good thing? If you have finings in there I would think 48 hours would be heaps. Gelatine is easy to use, easy to find and cheap.

With your ferment at 18 deg. Do you plan on taking it up by a degree a day to about 21 or 22 deg near the end of the ferment to make sure that the yeast has finished off properly before you cold crash? I think there are 2 important things to big hoppy beer, the first is to have a reasonably dry beer (i.e. good attenuation) and to not have too many specialty malts in there.

Twin dry hop sounds about right. How many grams per litre do you plan on adding. I think I hear of up to 3g per litre in the super hoppy type ales for each dry hop...

5 days sounds fine. I have heard of all sorts of numbers between 3 days and a week from the commercial craft brewers.

Squeezing the bag I am not sure about. My thinking is that this could possibly put grassy flavours into the brew? I dont really know though and would be interested to hear anyone elses thinking on this.

18 deg sounds like a reasonable temperature to dry hop. Too cold and you will not extract as much.

[Crusader-Rob]

ralph, I have Squeezed... I didnt have any ill affect. two dry hops is what epic do. i did the epic clone, and it worked a treat. 

agree with ralph for the temp increase too, seems to keepothing running and prevents stall.

[Paul Fraser]

I recently did a double dry hop. Turned out awesome. I did my first dry hop just as fermentation slowed. Left for 4 days. Racked to another fermenter with another dry hop. Left for another 4 days. Started ferment at 18C and ramped up gradually to 21C for dry hopping. I then crash chilled for 2 days before bottling. I used 25g each of cascade and Pacifica for first dry hop and 25g each of cascade and motueka for 2nd dry hop.
Massive aroma but not too much. Was still a bit hazy but delicious.

[James Millar]

Thanks guys, quality advice there.

- I was trying to cold crash in favour of finings just to reduce by one the number of times I have to open the fermenter (recent infection issues in my fridge...). 

- I'll ramp from 18 up to 22 over a few days, and cold crash once SG has stopped dropping. It's at 1021 after 10 days in the fermenter at 18 degrees today.

- Double dry hop sounds like the way to go, if it's what Epic do! 60g hops each time works out just under 3g/L.

- I might dry hop at 20 degrees

- I could probably get around the need to squeeze if I raise the hop bag out of the wort and let it drain for a day, the only reason I suggested squeezing was to avoid the hops soaking up lots of liquid which I'd lose when I removed the hop bag the first time (irrelevant the second time as I'll leave it in there until I bottle).

[JR]

If it was me I would not worry about the cooling and warming before dry hopping.  I would do the first dry hop as fermentation slowed (while ramping the temp up to 21 to make sure its finsihed.) I dont worry about a bag, just chuck the pellets in.  After 3 or 4 days dry hop again by just adding more pellets and leave for another 4 days. 

Then crash cool to about 0 degrees.  This effectively ends the dry hopping period as very little happens between the hops and the beer in the almost frozen beer.  The hops also sink to the bottom with the yeast and anything else that was floating around (if they havent disturb the fermentor a little and they will drop.  Leave it for a few days till its good and clear (or a couple of weeks if you get busy, the beer and its contents are practically frozen and wont be changing much apart from clearing, even with the hops in there)

Then rack off to bottling bucket or keg.

It's probably worth listening to the Firestone Walker can you brew it show, part one for the interview with the brewer and the follow up union jack episode to see how they double dry hop.  

 

 

[sockmerchant]

There might be something to dry hopping while cold crashing. I'm not sure how much it does, but in the Epic pale ale clone i currently have going on, that's what Epic does. 

5 days of cascade

then cold crash with another 5 days of cascade

[Crusader-Rob]

on the BYO podcast, they mentioned that it creates different layers on the hop flavour or something along those lines, might be some truth to it, I'm just not sure how much exactly.

[G S]

Thought would be as good to continue with above rather than start a new thread. I've recently done a few double dry hopped ipa,s along the lines of above, 2 g per liter as ferm finishing, raise temp slightly, leave 4 days, and same againleave 4 days, before a cold crash and bottling. Yeast has been us05, and a variety of malt bases, some quite dry, some with a bit more spec malts.

They!ve tasted great after 2 weeks in the bottle, just what's was looking for, but after 4 to 5 weeks the hop aroma is really starting to go, and after 10 weeks my aroma full ipa has turned into a reasonably tasty bitter beer, but not the slap in the face cascade it was.

I,ve a wine making friend at work who says I should be trying other yeasts, the hop aroma oils need some esters to help Stabalise them, and us05 has too few esters.

I,ve tried glass swing top and pet bottles, both seem the same, and I'm hoping to receive half a pound of simco next week, so want to get the next one right!!

Any ideas anyone ?
the beers are starting off great, but just not holding onto the flavor. I know, drink them quicker...!

[Ralph]

Hop aroma oils need esters to stabilise them??

I always thought that the hop aroma was going to decline over time no matter what. I would be interested in any scientific evidence of what your wine making friend has suggested, or even what he is basing his assumption on. It seems that some yeasts hide the hops while others let them shine through more and as far as I know the yeasts that produce more esters seem to be the ones that compete or hide the hop flavours from personal experience.

Not of much help to you... the only way I know to get more hop flavour for longer is to put more hops in...

[G S]

Yeah, more hops and drink it quicker seem the easy answers!

The gist of the wine story was that its relatively easy to make a very aromatic wine, the skill was in getting the aromas to last. This was done by combining volatile and non volatiles, the yeast being important.

If anyone has other ideas am all ears.