Jump to content

Infusion time for dry hops


Recommended Posts

Hi 

In the dry hop program the dry hops are added, 2 days at temperature and then 2 days in cold crush. Then it is kegged and bottled and left in secondary a min 4 weeks.

1. Is there any different in flavour if you leave the hops to infuse longer than the 4 days?

2. Does cold crushing really make a difference? It is supposed to help settle the hop debris.

What I have been doing on non dry hop programs, eg Highlands IPA, I dry hopped with 60g of Challenger , when fermentation had finished and it had reached kegging temperature. It will sit there for 2 days, then automatically drop to storage mode, I let it cold store for 2 days . Then manually thru the app change it back to kegging .

Any thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Depending on the amount of hops used more than 4 days should increase the flavour/aroma characteristics 

2. Cold crashing is important if you just drop the pellets in per the hop mode, however even if this is not the case cold crashing does work towards a cleaner, clearer brew. 
As I use a hop ball or bag I don’t personally cold crash, the beer quality for me is fine and any debris does settle to the bottom of the keg or bottle during the storage time and when chilled prior to consumption.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Robert Pretty said:

Hi 

In the dry hop program the dry hops are added, 2 days at temperature and then 2 days in cold crush. Then it is kegged and bottled and left in secondary a min 4 weeks.

1. Is there any different in flavour if you leave the hops to infuse longer than the 4 days?

2. Does cold crushing really make a difference? It is supposed to help settle the hop debris.

What I have been doing on non dry hop programs, eg Highlands IPA, I dry hopped with 60g of Challenger , when fermentation had finished and it had reached kegging temperature. It will sit there for 2 days, then automatically drop to storage mode, I let it cold store for 2 days . Then manually thru the app change it back to kegging .

Any thoughts?

As @Captain 3 Droids  says however I find I am more often than not using the cold crash as I mostly drop the hop pellets directly into the brew and it is required if you want to use the filter and remove the floaties successfully.

With the brews where only a small amount of hops are called for I will use a stainless steel hop ball and run the standard program and save a couple of days. It's certainly a convenient way to achieve a similar result.

If you're dry hopping a standard brew you can always copy the program parameters from the app and create a new custom program using those same parameters and turn on the dry hop 'switch'. This way you can turn any standard brew program into a dry hop program and have the benefit of the programmed hopping phase and automatic cold crash. It beats the guesswork at least and would work well for your modified Highlands IPA.

Finally, on the hopping greater than 4 days thing; at cold crash or storage temperature (4 degrees) there wouldn't be much flavour (read oil) infusion happening but at 18 degrees or so there probably is and there could be some additional bitterness or at worst "grassy" flavours being imparted if you leave the hops in for too long.

I don't know enough yet to be able to claim either way however as I've started adding 48 hours to all of my brews to eliminate heady Brewflo pours (and this does seem to work) I'll be in a better position to comment with some accuracy on this in the next few months. So far none of the brews I've tried this with have had any off hop flavours.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
  • Create New...