Dry Hopping before EOF

[Brad]

Still pretty new to all this, only started 2 months ago and have been giving myself a crash course in all things beer, so please bear with me...

I've got 4 droids, and have started doing brews in tandem to fill 19L corny kegs. For the most part, repeated brews have been predictable, and my first tandem brew followed the script perfectly and finished on time together. 

My second tandem brew, however, one seems to have stalled. It's a Jolly Roger Pale Ale. After about 3 days of fermentation, the first droid ramped temperature 4 minutes after the second droid did, so I was expecting them to be pretty close to one another. I understand the impact yeast has on how quickly it ferments, but both sachets were the same batch. I didn't use a yeast starter but I did add a pinch of yeast minerals to the mix.

Droid 1 only took a day to prompt to add the hops, but the second one, the one that ramped first, is still leaving me hanging. One thing I "stuffed up" was partially adding the yeast in the second droid before adding the water. I got mixed up in my process, so added about 1/4 pack of yeast, then added water, then the rest of the yeast.

Since I was trying to keep things uniform, when the first droid asked for hops, I added them to both droids (this happened approx. 12 hours after the first droid prompted)

Well, droid 1 is currently cold crashing, and the second droid still hasn't prompted for dry hops to be added. 

Reading through the forums, I saw @Rob Courtney mentioned in their experience, adding dry hops before EOF has kept the droid in the fermentation status for a few extra days

I've also got a Pirate Life IPA clone (shems) in the other 2 droids at the moment, and added the dry hops on day 5 per the recipe (but I guess I should have just waited until fermenting was done?) which is now a tad over 10 days, and I'm thinking might be in a similar situation.

So I'm wondering what impact the hops have on the droids ability to detect EOF? Water used is RO filtered, re-mineralized and built back up with brewing salts/lactic acid to try and keep things as consistent as possible.

I've been reading about experimental brewers adding hops before EOF, and the different flavors it results in. Has anyone here experimented between the 2? If so, what sort of results did you see?

 

Edited February 13 by Brad

[Rob Courtney]

2 hours ago, Brad said:

Still pretty new to all this, only started 2 months ago and have been giving myself a crash course in all things beer, so please bear with me...

I've got 4 droids, and have started doing brews in tandem to fill 19L corny kegs. For the most part, repeated brews have been predictable, and my first tandem brew followed the script perfectly and finished on time together. 

My second tandem brew, however, one seems to have stalled. It's a Jolly Roger Pale Ale. After about 3 days of fermentation, the first droid ramped temperature 4 minutes after the second droid did, so I was expecting them to be pretty close to one another. I understand the impact yeast has on how quickly it ferments, but both sachets were the same batch. I didn't use a yeast starter but I did add a pinch of yeast minerals to the mix.

Droid 1 only took a day to prompt to add the hops, but the second one, the one that ramped first, is still leaving me hanging. One thing I "stuffed up" was partially adding the yeast in the second droid before adding the water. I got mixed up in my process, so added about 1/4 pack of yeast, then added water, then the rest of the yeast.

Since I was trying to keep things uniform, when the first droid asked for hops, I added them to both droids (this happened approx. 12 hours after the first droid prompted)

Well, droid 1 is currently cold crashing, and the second droid still hasn't prompted for dry hops to be added. 

Reading through the forums, I saw @Rob Courtney mentioned in their experience, adding dry hops before EOF has kept the droid in the fermentation status for a few extra days

 

 

Hi Brad,

Yes i have found that adding it early affected but others have seemed to without issue. Sometimes with brews, one yeast can be more active than the other, in the situation you described above, I would have waited until the second droid had have come to ready to hop before hopping both. Still, it probably won't make a big issue for you and I am sure the 2nd droid will turn to ready to hop tomorrow. In this situation I believe that when the 1sr droid gets to ready to keg, put it in storage until the other catches up.

 

2 hours ago, Brad said:

 

I've also got a Pirate Life IPA clone (shems) in the other 2 droids at the moment, and added the dry hops on day 5 per the recipe (but I guess I should have just waited until fermenting was done?) which is now a tad over 10 days, and I'm thinking might be in a similar situation.

So I'm wondering what impact the hops have on the droids ability to detect EOF? Water used is RO filtered, re-mineralized and built back up with brewing salts/lactic acid to try and keep things as consistent as possible.

I've been reading about experimental brewers adding hops before EOF, and the different flavors it results in. Has anyone here experimented between the 2? If so, what sort of results did you see?

 

I don't think you've done anything wrong here either, sometimes brews take a little longer. The hops being added isn't going to change the detection of EOF, the opening of the lid may.

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

15 hours ago, Brad said:

Still pretty new to all this, only started 2 months ago and have been giving myself a crash course in all things beer, so please bear with me...

I've got 4 droids, and have started doing brews in tandem to fill 19L corny kegs. For the most part, repeated brews have been predictable, and my first tandem brew followed the script perfectly and finished on time together. 

My second tandem brew, however, one seems to have stalled. It's a Jolly Roger Pale Ale. After about 3 days of fermentation, the first droid ramped temperature 4 minutes after the second droid did, so I was expecting them to be pretty close to one another. I understand the impact yeast has on how quickly it ferments, but both sachets were the same batch. I didn't use a yeast starter but I did add a pinch of yeast minerals to the mix.

Droid 1 only took a day to prompt to add the hops, but the second one, the one that ramped first, is still leaving me hanging. One thing I "stuffed up" was partially adding the yeast in the second droid before adding the water. I got mixed up in my process, so added about 1/4 pack of yeast, then added water, then the rest of the yeast.

Since I was trying to keep things uniform, when the first droid asked for hops, I added them to both droids (this happened approx. 12 hours after the first droid prompted)

Well, droid 1 is currently cold crashing, and the second droid still hasn't prompted for dry hops to be added. 

Reading through the forums, I saw @Rob Courtney mentioned in their experience, adding dry hops before EOF has kept the droid in the fermentation status for a few extra days

I've also got a Pirate Life IPA clone (shems) in the other 2 droids at the moment, and added the dry hops on day 5 per the recipe (but I guess I should have just waited until fermenting was done?) which is now a tad over 10 days, and I'm thinking might be in a similar situation.

So I'm wondering what impact the hops have on the droids ability to detect EOF? Water used is RO filtered, re-mineralized and built back up with brewing salts/lactic acid to try and keep things as consistent as possible.

I've been reading about experimental brewers adding hops before EOF, and the different flavors it results in. Has anyone here experimented between the 2? If so, what sort of results did you see?

 

Hi Brad, welcome to the forum and the world of home brewing.

In terms of your questions:

• Adding yeast before the water really shouldn't make a difference as the dry yeast will just start hydrating and reviving
• In the situation where the two Droids didn't prompt to add dry hops, next time don't add into hops into the one that doesn't prompt as it means fermentation is at a different stage compared to the other and you want them to ferment out, time independent, as it's the process rather than a strict schedule

If you find this happens again, just let each Droid do it's thing as there are variables that can make the same brew take longer in one compared to the other.
The main thing is that when one finishes earlier than the other, just put it into storage mode at around 3°C and then when the other finishes and cold crashes, you can keg them together.
If you really want to get the first Droid back to work, there is no issue at all in filling your 19l corny with the beer from the first and then add the finished beer from the second when it finishes. The one thing I would try to avoid is force carbonating before adding the second as you could get a lot of foam/head in the keg as you're adding the second batch of beer but this is helped by a corny keg having the dip tube at the bottom of the keg.

To answer another question, when adding hops to an active fermentation or fermentation that is nearly or fully complete, hops do have some fermentable material in them and can rouse the yeast and start extra activity, hence why the Droid dry hop is done at 17°C to keep that extra fermentation at a minimum.

Finally, in terms of experimenting with hops, as I love big hoppy beers, Hazys and NEIPAs as well as West Coast IPAs, I've done quite a bit of research on hops and have been doing a lot of experimentation with hops.

I've tried various methods of dry hopping:

• At day zero - when adding the yeast to the wort (seeking biotransformation but being a little lazy and just chucking in with everything else)
• At day 2 or 3 for high krausen (seeking biotransformation starting at high krausen)
• When the Droid prompts (standard dry hop)
• Post fermentation using customized Storage and Kegging Temp settings
• Keg hopping
• Mash hopping (all grain brewing)
• Whirlpool hopping (all grain brewing)

So depending on style and the desired finished hop flavour and intensity, you can hop at any of these times or in fact, pretty much all of them.

Previously, the most amount of hopping I've done for a beer was mash hopping, used a whirlpool or hop stand and then a double dry hop during fermentation.

I'm just about to try a triple dry hopped beer as I go for a Triple Hazy IPA for the first time. This will be an All Grain brew using my Nano-X brewery to create a wort that will hopefully have an Original Gravity of 1.090 and finish around 1.010 or so. There will also use the equivalent of approximately 300g of hops.  To help this I will be mostly using cryo hops (and some pallet hops) and incognito hop extract.

As this will be another all grain brew, the Incognito will go into the whirlpool with some T90 hop pellets, then I will use cryo hops at day zero using a bag. After about 3 or 4 days, fermentation activity dependent, I'll remove the bag and then wait until about day 7 or so when the Droid alerts me to dry hop and then I'll ad more hops using a bag.

After the two days at 17°C, I'll extend for another day making it 3 days in total and then I'll take those hops out and then drop the temperature to around 12°C and once the beer hits 12°C I will then move the beer to another vessel taking the beer of the trub (the mess of yeast and hops at the bottom of your fermenter) and in that second vessel I will have more cryo hops sitting free. I'll keep that vessel at 12°C for 2 days and then cold crash at 2°C for another 2 days before I keg into a 9.5l corny keg.

The idea is that by moving the beer of the trub for that last dry hop, I end up with a cleaner, fresher flavour of hop without worry of any extra fermentation.

I've used this method the past 3 brews I've done with excellent results.

Remember to keep asking questions, especially when you run into anything that has you wondering what to do as there is a great community here with some very experienced and knowledgeable members.

Cheers and happy brewing!