Got a brew in the fermenter that’s pretty much finished. I’ve tried various dry hopping methods with mixed success. How do you do it?

Never actually tried this myself, but AFAIK you need to rack to a secondary fermenter and drop your hops in there for a week or so.

Might be worth keeping them in a sanitised muslin bag for ease of fishing out after.

If you’re using a pressure keg with a wide enough neck you could skip the priming sugars and drop them in there. In that case though I’d definitely use a muslin, you could have all manner of debris blocking the tap. Force carbonate afterwards.

Dry-hopping the secondary as Haze says. The thinking goes that racking it off the trub in the primary can help remove yeast bite and other bad flavours. Sit it in the secondary when fermentation has slowed down with some more hops is then a good way of hopping the ale further.

Like anything in brewing, you need to try it yourself to see if it works for you.

I believe that’s how they brew with honey too, saves the delicate flavours being driven off during the aggressive part of the fermentation.

Never actually tried that either, I’m in too much of a rush to drink it.

Cheers. I was going to bung them into the primary for a couple of says before moving to the pressure barrel. Might make them into a hop ‘tea’ first. Reckon?

If I was going for a good hit then I’d most likely dry hop.

In fact I may actually try it next time…

Let the professional through. . . . .

Many different ways to dry hop commercially . Either a T100 bung of compressed hop in each firkin . A serving spoon of T90 hops dropped into a firkin also works well.

T90s in a Cellar tank and after breaking down with boiled then cooled water works very well, but is apita to clean and needs a week / 10 days to really get juicy .

T90s in a fv work if your not re cropping . Just buzz a load in at the start of fermentation . You could try after 72 hrs for home brew as i think most ferment for longer than we do .

Leaf in muslin works but is highly innefficient ( they still smell amazing after removal ) Leaf in PET bottles is very good and quick . Just buzz em in the top for 3 – 4 days , serve through a tea strainer .

Never tried T90 in a PET . If I was transferrring from FV to Ct ( KEG ) with C02 dispense I would put t90sin the keg . Around 3gm per gallon as a rough , top of my head starting point .Leave for a week .- Enjoy.

Since you’re here STM, any tips on fruit beer?!

T90/T100 ?

Pellets I think John, I only use whole so not certain on that..

Type 90 milled and pressed into pellet hops that resemble rabbit sh1t
Type 100 100gm bung of compressed leaf hop specifically designed for lobbing into casks at rack.

Fruit Beer is tricky , good ones are very , very good.
Got some good results with Elderflower , especially if used with an American aroma hop . Citra , Summit, Galena or Cascade.
Raspberry also works really well . Tried strawberry and it was awful , but that might have been down to the conc. i used .
Made a brew with Orange Zest and Morello Cherry . Was OK but the orange was lost .

You need to watch out for wild yeast so fruit need to be boiled really.

We have around 20 different hops on the go at the mo , if anyone needs a few gms of something let me know , I can put some in a jiffy bag . All T90 tho.

Aye, what STM said, which brewery are you at sir?

Would most likely be Raspberry, I’m after just a hint rather than a full on whack.

So boil, strain, cool and add to primary after initial fermentation?

I have Citra in the freezer…

ah, I see, thanks STM.

I have to admit I only use leaf hops but that might be because that’s all I can get at my LHBS.

Also, my boiler is only 32 litres, up until the latest batch I’ve been brewing 19 litre batches with a volume before boil of 25 litres. Hop bill tends to be at most 30g at start of boil then some more at 10 mins and possibly some more at 80degC, so 100g pellets would most likely be too much for my batch size.

Latest batch was Graham Wheeler’s Old Speckled Hen recipe, which I’ve done before & enjoyed, so I thought I’d try a 23 litre batch. This needed 28 litres before boil & it was scarily close to the top of the pan. Didn’t boil over though, thankfully.

(I do BIAB btw – although technically I suppose it should be called MIAB)

I started chucking all sorts of random stuff together until I hit my numbers, I like the surprise I get from a new brew and they’re always very drinkable 🙂

Just supping a 6.7% Cascadian Dark I brewed a couple of months ago and heavily dry hopped with Centennial 🙂 Mmmmmmmm….

Oh that singletrackmind. I love it when he talks dirty 😉

Haze .
A Raspberry Blonde Citra beer?
Dunno if you mash or kit but . If you mash try 75% Lager malt, 15% wheat and 10% carapils. Strike at 74’c, sparge 77’c. Lots of dextrins so will stop 1010′
Boil with 20gm /bl AA Citra . 90 mins / 6% reduction . Add a few gms of citra at -5 mins with copper finings and maybe 2oz of purreed Raspberry . Switch off boil, after maybe 15 mins settling add another few gms of Citra , and wait a few mins before transfer to FV .

If you can get hold of US05 yeast and ferment around 20’C , This could be awesome.

Yeah nice summer brew if I haven’t missed it.

74 is my usual strike and normally end up with around 64 after an hour. It’s an insulated stock pot, used to be direct fired but find I can control the temps better this way.

Unfortunately only set up for batch sparges so my efficiency isn’t great, though but not much of a problem on my scale…calculated losses!

I also have both the wheat malt and carapils in the house at the moment, US05 is plentiful in my LHBS.

Sounds like a plan, many thanks!

Up your strike temp if your down to 64′ after an hour. Strike at 76′ instead. No hotter tho as thats about the max really . Funny things with starch and tannins happen above this.
You could pre heat your MT with a kettle of boiling water , heat soak , then drain and mash in with burtonised liqour?
Nice home brewery on EBAY atm, £1k but looks fun.

John . You boil off too much wort Either reduce your boil times or the power input once boiling . 6-8% is perfect , any more wasteful. Although you might have to adjust your hopping as the utilization rates will drop .

I basically split the water between a direct fired mash tun and the boiler to share the heating up. When I’m close to strike temperature I drain into the boiler, drop the grain into the now warmed up tun and underlet my mash water, I get less clumping that way.

At 74 as it seems to settle around the 67-68 mark after doughing in.

It’ll stay roughly there for the first half hour or so which I’m lead to believe is when most of the action takes place?

All my water treatment is done with Campdens, CRS and DLS/Gypsum.

So, if you put hop pellets in the firkin, I can put them in the pressure barrel without any problems? They tend produce a nasty mush, but will that settle out in the barrel?

Haze . Iodine test for starch ? Probably best to leave it for at least 50 mins ( we mash for 60min) . Ensure the enzymes have really broken down the starch thoroughly . You should use roughly 1/4 of you liqour for mashing , and 3/4 for sparge . You could underlet – drain -underlet – drain -underlet – drain , if sparging not possible ( watering can with big Rose head any good? )

Adstick .- Yes , Definatly put some in a pressure keg . They will settle out with the yeast and trub over 24 / 48 hrs or so and should stay stuck to the bottom , unless you introduce sudden pressure drops. use a sterilsed spoon to transfer them over . If you are worried about cross infection then hydrate them with boiled/cooled water once its cooled to 65’c , then pour the mulch inot the keg. After 3 weeks your beer will be full of mowed grass flavours .

Never test for iodine, will look into it.

Tend to leave the mash for an hour, 2.5l per Kg of grain. Add half of what’s left over, stir & leave for 15 mins then drain again.

Repeat with full volume gets me about 60% mash efficiency. Pretty poor but not bad considering kit limitations and I’m not turning over loads. Just enough to save all those trips to the off licence!

singletrackmind – brilliant, thank you, I’ll try it.

cheers STM, I’ll look into that.

Although I do end up with the predicted OG, the volume is always a little (a litre or so) less than I expect, so I guess my efficiency’s not too good either; the volume before & after boil is as stated by BrewMate in BIAB mode so I never thought I was going that far wrong.

If I reduce the heat once it gets to boiling , obviously I won’t lose as much to evaporation, but surely I’ll end up with a lower OG? I frequently brew “session” beers at OG of 1038-1040 so I don’t want to go too low

John .
Yes you will end up with a very slightly lower OG . Maybe 1′ lower than you used to get post boil.
I guess its up to you and i will put my ‘commercial’ head on and think energy costs / time costs V gains . Do you take a pre boil gravity? Be an accurate way to work out % boil off .

I guess the problem is efficient mashing and sparging on a tiny scale . Stirring a charge of 500 – 600 kg and 1200L of liqour is not ideal So we hydrate by dropping the grain down a 4″ tube with and 28mm copper pipe inside that has hundreds of 2mm holes in it , and baffles below to ensure all te grain is wetted .

Fascinating thread but to a total non experienced brewer who would like to give it a go ( yes have done a kit or two donkeys years ago with not great results )
are there any online tutorials that would fill in the knowledge as I for one would like to give proper brewing a go .

trout – some good info on here: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/ and Graham Wheeler’s Book is a worthy read.

If you’re in or able to get to the Aldershot area, I can recommend the mashing course at the home brew shop – taught me the basics and the confidence boost to get stuck in.

Brewing your own beer is very rewarding! 😀

DON’T put raspberry’s into beer, they make the best VODKA!!! fill a bottle with fresh raspberrys nearly to the top (leave room for the booze) a spoon or two of sugar and and top up with vodka, strain off after 6 weeks or so, it goes a bit weird if you leave it to long, i guarantee the nicest thing you have ever tasted

Yes you will end up with a very slightly lower OG . Maybe 1′ lower than you used to get post boil.
I guess its up to you and i will put my ‘commercial’ head on and think energy costs / time costs V gains . Do you take a pre boil gravity? Be an accurate way to work out % boil off .

I’ll give that a try on the next batch, cheers 🙂
I can’t make my mind up on 60mins v 90mins boil though, what do you recommend?
GW says 90 minutes, Black Sheep say 60 minutes.

Trout – try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfi86yzhPvw

it’s a simpler job (and cheaper to get the start-up gear too) than the traditional method & I’ve done 10 BIAB brews now, very happy with the results. Obviously not a suitable method for commercial scale brewing, can you imagine the size & weight of the bag? 😯

There are over 100 recipes in Graham Wheeler’s book (no lager recipes though…) and there are loads more on line. Jim’s Beer Kit has a fine forum with one sub-forum dedicated to recipes; you can also get some user’s own recipes at http://www.brewmate.net

It’s fairly easy…

Just jump up and down on one leg….

And hurry inside when it rains….

🙂

cheers Mattstreet and John
defo want to have a go after watching the vids might be a battle with mrs T for the kitchen but do get away with anodising so a bit of brewing should be ok

also stumbled on to this website http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html

Trout, try explaining it in terms of cost savings,

( but gloss over the possible new expensive kit habit)

Thread resurrection! In case anyone want’s to know how it turned out.

So, I didn’t have any pellets after all. Instead I rehydrated about 25g of cascade and put them in a bag in the pressure barrel. The malt was mostly pale ale with about 20% Munich. Hops in the boil were Target then Cascade.

3.5%, golden, dry and bitter, with a nice hoppiness. Similar to a light british bitter. Tasty, but still without that strong spicy smell that you get with US pale ales or (my favorite) Dark Star Hophead.

I should have used pellets shouldn’t I…

If you want to get the full on hop aroma,I’d recommend adding a good whack of hops at about -5mins,then I chill the wort and add another good whack of hops at 80deg C,and steep for 20-30 mins,a bit like this one I did a couple of months ago,the steeping seems to release more aroma than straight dry hopping,you could do it with a kit fairly easily too.

NZPA

Original Gravity (OG): 1.062 (°P): 15.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.016 (°P): 4.1
Alcohol (ABV): 6.09 %
Colour (SRM): 3.9 (EBC): 7.7
Bitterness (IBU): 49.1 (Average)

86.96% Pale Malt
8.7% Vienna
4.35% Wheat Malt

1.4 g/L Nelson Sauvin (12.3% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.4 g/L Nelson Sauvin (12.3% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1.4 g/L Nelson Sauvin (12.3% Alpha) @ 80 degC for 30 mins

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 20°C with s-05

Ended up about 6.5%and really hoppy.
Ian

Yes .
But you know that . Dark Star HH is abit special in that it remains ‘clean’ , bitter , but not claggy or tasting like overboiled weeds.
Target would give you the bittering , its a great hop. If you still have some beer in a keg and just a few gms of leaf hop transfer some into a PET. Shove the hops in the top , and top up and invert. Do 2 or 3 if you can and leave tem for 48 hrs each.

This should give you te missing aromas you are after .

If its still not there then maybe up the BU in the boil . Beer always softens over the first week / 10 days ex FV and you might be loosing bitterness this way.

Bramling Cross are a nice spicey hop . Got some T90’s if you want a few ounces , addy in profile.