Brewing hoppy beers for longevity

[Cain Harland]

Ive had a couple of IPAs and PAs lately that have been great 2 - 5 weeks in the bottle and then lost both their hoppyness and sweetness pretty fast after that. My Yakima monster clone was probably even quicker, it was totally drinkable and really resiney after about 1 week, then peachy (Simcoe?) and delicious for about a week then orangy (Amarillo?) now a bit bland not terrible but not great either. The 1 week old which should have been shit was better than the 6 week old which should have been great.

Beer keeping for such a short time would be totally unacceptable for a commercial craft brewer and I know there are plenty of hoppy beers out there that last well for months, even unfiltered and bottle conditioned ones eg heady topper (not filtered or pasteurized) or sierra nevada. pale ale (bottle conditioned). So I thought I would ask does any one have tips for designing a hoppy beer that stays hoppy for a long time in the bottle. Also same question about the sweetness my beers seem to get very dry and over carbonated over time.

Obviously filtering, pasteurizing, force carbing and cold storage would help with these issues but there has to be something else.

[Crusader-Rob]

Really well put. I'm currently looking into CO2 purging and keeping beers away from Oxygen at all time after oxygenation. I keg condition most of my beers, and once carbonated, and I consder them at their peak. I put all of them in what I call my conditioning fridge.

Those links I posted above are exactly where I want to take my hoppy beers, purge kegs, rack to keg for dryhopping, then rack to another keg from there. All under co2 pressure, to prevent oxygen pickup.

In my mind co2 protection is probably the most important part in keeping that freshness for longer. I would suggest you'd get at least 50% extra shelf life if you co2 protect the beer, and more if you cold conditioing as well. If your a big fan of hoppy beer invest in kegging, people say its time saving etc. But the real advantage is beer spoilage, no overcarbing issues, no sediment in bottles, consistent cold conditioning. The increase in shelf life tends to pay for itself pretty quickly. 

Read the articles above, they're really good. and while you may not be able to afford or do all of the steps, any steps you can do with the minimal amount of effort I'd suggest doing.

[Peter Smith]

you could just drink it all at its peak and have a decent train of fermentors to replace it.....  I have a lot more friends dropping over now i have kegs.....   oxygen is only your friend at start of ferment after that its all down hill...   I am starting to play with no dry hop until beer has been kegged for 4 weeks cold AND carbed then dry hop for a week cold and drink. so far its had very good results

[Cain Harland]

On the kegging topic does any one have a source for cheap CO2 cylinders that looks to be the biggest cost in getting started. Once I had the bottle and a cheap old fridge, I could just put 1 tap to start with and have just 1 or 2 kegs and build the rest up over time.

[DMAC]

Cheapist is to find a co2 fire extinguisher and convert it. I got an extinguisher from a buddy an converted it with a total cost of about $120 for a valve, test and fill at survivetec in freeman's bay Auckland. There's a reasonable number of old 3.5kg co2 extinguishers around made by carbonic ice that make good candidates. Other good option is a second hand one off trade me. Sometimes go for about 150.

[Des Ross]

Only problem with fire extinguishers with a foot attached, is they have to be retested every 2 years..... Gets a little expensive. The rationale being that the weld has potential to sweat on the inside and corrode...I have one but don't use it for this reason and use 2 x 5kg cylinders which although a little moor expensive initially, require less frequent testing.

[Nathan]

Not all have feet on them......but thats a good thing to know when looking......both mine are 5 year tests which i think is great value.....

[Damon Colbert]

FireCorp in Penrose (Neilson St) can also help out with extinguisher conversions.  You'll need to obtain the correct valve (like this http://www.galprostylex.co.nz/shop/CYLINDER+VALVES/High+Pressure+Cy...) and they should be able to supply an old CO2 cylinder, test, fit the valve and fill it for a reasonable price.

[Ralph]

If you want long lasting hoppy then getting rid of the yeast in the bottle and the oxygen out of your process are the 2 big things.

I have now had experience of 2 different big IPA beers that the batch was split and some of the batch was bottle conditioned and some was keg carbonated. In both cases the keg carbed beers had much bigger hop aroma and flavour. The bottle conditioned ones had little aroma and quite good flavour but with some of the hop flavour smoothed out a bit. The keg conditioned beers stayed hoppy in the refrigerated keg for a couple of months without losing too much flavour and aroma. 

One batch I brewed specifically for an IPA comp. I sent both the keg conditioned and the bottle conditioned version to the competition. The keg conditioned came 2nd in the comp with a good high score (about 40 from memory) while the bottle conditioned same beer scored really badly with a 12 or so... reading the score sheets you would not believe that it was from the same batch of beer.

Having said all that there are some theories out there about hop flavours combining with other stuff when yeast is active leading to longer lasting flavour and aroma... but damned if I can figure out how to make the yeast and hop flavours work properly...

[Peter Smith]

I gave up. I will bottle stouts and bitters, porters etc even saison,  but I could not get bottle carbed beers to hold that hoppy hit on first sip, at best they became bitter pale ales around week 6-8...  taste ok week 3-4.

And kegging allows you to modify the carb level when needed,  cant remember how many batches came out too hi carb, quite a few tho....  less with 1272 then us05 I found it would reawaken in the bottle.

Brewshop has recon cornys with new lids $95... good deal considering a new lid.   

[DMAC]

And those cornys from brew shop have pull ring relief valves which help when purging with co2. On the down side they're a mixed bag of subtlely different coke kegs.