Hippy

Of course we are interested! When you add hop sacks do you boil them first or soak them in sanitizer? do you add extra hops to compensate for low contact area? Fill me in? I am looking for ideas!

Hi Bob.
I usually soak the sock in starsan and weigh it down with a spare stainless fitting lying around.I generally preferr to use the large tea balls picture in this threadhttp://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=1111.
I usually work on between 20 and 30 grams of hop pellets to a 19L corny depending how fresh the hops are.

Thanks Hippy,

I will add that to my list of try this!

The more you try the more there is to taste Bob

I made a bitter and dry hopped in the keg using a small voille bag and the dental floss idea to still get a good seal on the lid. I used a couple of marbles for weight. I sanitized the bag and marbles first. I used 30gram of pilgrim in the bitter and the hop flavor was bursting! It was more like an american bitter but I loved it!

It was the first keg dry hop I'd done and I'm doing it again! Waaaaay fresh!

Squared,

So you left the hops in the bag for the whole time the keg was on tap? Was there no vegetative taste? I may have to try this! I love the fresh hop flavor!

Why not Bob,aren't most cask ales dry hopped in the cask?

I've used the same technique as Squared (sack with dental floss and a few marbles) to add some new life (hop-wise) to a rather bland pale ale I had kegged. It's also a great substitute for dry hopping as the flavor does not fade as quickly over time. It's the next best thing to using a Randall!

---Todd

Randall:
Want to build your own?

Bob,

I did leave it alone for at least 2 weeks, maybe 2.5, then I eventually removed it based on flavor/aroma (released pressure, pulled the bag out quickly then sealed and purged the air well.

I was also worried about vegge flavors so I opted to remove the bag, however, I did not have any off flavors this time and the voille did a great job of keeping the floaties out of the beer (I really don't care but my friends family might have)


Beer didn't last long after that

Well I guess I will be trying this soon. I have always worried about clogging the pickup tube or valve with a stray hop. It happened once and I was not happy because it was in the back of the refrigerator and I had to take all four kegs out. The keg was almost empty on top of that but enough to save. I will find the right beer to try this with! Thanks!

I'll just write a couple of stuff on hop reuse based on my limited experience.
Last yeah I brewed almost all my batches(10+) with used hops.

I have reused hops that were boiled for 30min or less for bittering
I have reused hops that were boiled for 10min or less for flavor
I have reused hops that were used for dry hopping for aroma(0' addition)

I mainly did it because I couldn't afford the hops and of course it wasn't a proper
experiment. The results were decent but I can't say for sure because I didn't have
the same batch with fresh hops for comparison. Maybe here in the forum we could arrange
an experiment and conclude more safely if the reuse is worth it. What do you say?

Hi Kostass

Thanks for your input, your results certainly look interesting.
I think it would be great if an experiment was carried out.
Whether it was done for cost reasons or pure science who knows, .

Like i said previously, i see hop oils in my "spent" dry hops, that would normally go to waste. Or do they?

If there are any takers to the experiment is it worth moving this to a new post about "hop re-use"?

I saved 30 grams of Cascade that I used as a 0 min addition. I will use them for my next buttering.

I forgot to mention that I only used hop flowers for reuse, but I guess if you make a bag from the classic material we
make the biab bags you won't have a problem...

mally wrote: If there are any takers to the experiment is it worth moving this to a new post about "hop re-use"?

Well I'm totally into an experiment like that.
We could brew the same beer, do one mash and divide the wort into two. Maybe dump the one half
temporarily in a plastic bucket. Then we could boil half the wort with reused hops and the other
half with fresh. We could do the same beer or different ones. I would try maybe the Call Me! blonde
ale from BCS that has only bittering hops and simple grain bill for testing the bittering qualities
of reused hops...

I've just sampled a keg hopped (first time) Exmoor Gold and . I take it the you guys give the keg a bit of a shake, the first sample was a bit of a shock and tasted crap. The second after shaking the keg was better but still tasted very fresh !! I'm hoping that the taste mellows as the beer warms up to serving temps.

I thought 20g of Syrian Golding pellets would be nice !



Yeasty

Mmmmm.......Styrian Goldings

Finished reading the IPA (by Mitch Steel) book. I’m going to have to start dry hopping apparently. Just like thughes told me when I first started.

I like to drink my IPAs fresh. If I dry hop, am I going to have to leave it to age for a few weeks before drinking?

From the sounds of what Bob says, I won’t be able to drink the beer fresh any more

BobBrews wrote: ...So what did I discover? The beer that had the hops added to the boil at the 15,10,5,0 minutes mark was drinkable right out of the fermenter. The second beer with all dry hops was vary harsh out of the fermenter. A very large difference. So much so that I was worried that I had stuffed up the experiment! After two weeks mellowing I tried them again and the difference was less extreme and I knew that I didn't stuff up the experiment. Whew!

This beer needs a month (at least) to sit before drinking. The time is up and the verdict is in! The dry hopped beer that was so harsh out of the fermenter was the better tasting of the two! The late hopped beer was very good but the hop character was negligible. The dry hopped beer still retains the hop flavor at the end. I like the dry hopped beer better but both are great beers.

I was thinking of throwing Cascade plugs and/or Styrian Goldings pugs (if I can get them) into the fermentor half way through my 10 day single stage ferment.

Any comments would be appreciated.

....I just found something on here http://www.byo.com/malt/item/568-dry-ho ... reat-aroma
Perhaps contained leaf hops in the keg is the answer to my concerns.

If you use pellets, you’ll notice that the hop aroma and flavor in the beer can be overpowering at first. Because the lupulin glands are burst, all the oil goes into the beer at once. Just be patient and it will mellow out. On the other hand since the beer is usually cold, the hop oils are released very slowly from whole hops when they’re in the keg. This acts like a time release effect and keeps the aroma level reasonably constant over time.

Just doing a dry hopping evaluation.

That’s a Stainless Steel tea ball/infuser with cascade pellets in a glass of beer.

I go to look at it and have a swig every 15 minutes (I have to keep topping it up from the keg).

This is a VERY interesting experiment.

The beer is tasting better and better, but beer has a habit of doing that anyway.

Update. Quite a bit of green sludge precipitated out to the bottom of the glass from the pellets. The beer became cloudy. After a bit it stopped improving and started to develop a taste that would need some aquiring. Interesting journey. I suppose you could just throw the pellets into the beer without the tea ball...maybe.

I wish I could get e better variety of "leaf hops" in Canada. Mostly all pellets here.

Is there such a thing as dry hopping with dried hop flowers, in the glass or pitcher? If not, I wonder, why not?

Would something like this work as a "dry hopping beer pitcher" using dried hop flowers?????

I think I'll try it next time I have a beer. I have one of those in the kitchen cupboard somewhere.

take a look at the basic brewing podcast here.
May 12 2012 - French pressing.

Mally, Thanks very much for finding that for me. I might become a French Presser, at least for a while. I think it would be a great way for a beginner like me to quickly learn about the flavours of different hops and get to know what I like without having to brew a 5-10 gallon batch each time.

French Press can be useful in dry hoping without leaving hop residue in the wort. Modify this to suite your needs. No need to use vodka or a freezer!

http://www.stempski.com/hop_vodka.php

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?p ... radio-2012

March 1, 2012 - Hop Infused Vodka
Home brewer Bob Stempski shares his technique for infusing vodka with hops to explore different varieties and add some punch to homebrew and commercial beers.


iTunes | http://ec.libsyn.com/p/c/e/d/ced10842b7 ... id=4326025

nicko,

Dry hopping can bring a real kick in the nose for some lackluster beers. Another gun in your brewing arsenal. It's just a tool to use while building a beer.