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  • Recirculating Dry Hop

    Hi All,

    I'm looking to get some outside opinion on our dry hopping method, any constructive criticisms or related experience would be greatly appreciated.

    Currently our dry hopping method involves dumping most of the yeast from the bottom of conical with a couple degrees plato left in fermentation. We then add pellet hops through the top port and hook up a pump to recirculate between the racking arm and bottom valve. Once terminal gravity is hit we push the lines clear with CO2 and cold crash the tank.

    While this has proven to have pretty good results for us we are thinking the method could be improved by only turning the pump on for 30-45 mins per day. Thought process here is that we may be beating around the beer and hops much more than really necessary. Also would like to start dumping the hops from the cone the day after cold crash since we currently let the beer sit on the hops until filtered.

    Can anybody speak for or against these method changes?

  • #2
    If you're putting your dry hop pellets in with a couple of degrees Plato left until terminal, your beer is likely getting enough convection to break apart the pellets to release their aroma. Pumping probably isn't doing much to help your beer, and could be damaging it.

    We used to dry hop using the method you mentioned, except with no pumping. We went away from it after a few too many beer geysers, and several batches that hit the "dry hop window" over the weekend, when no one experienced was around. Now we crash our dryhopped beers to 50F for a few days, remove the yeast slurry from the bottom and degas the tank, and add the pellets with a CO2 blanket coming from the CIP arm. The following day, we recirc with a pump, pulling from the racking arm and pushing back into the bottom for an hour or two. We then crash the beer to 31F, and centrifuge it 5-6 days later. We've found this method keeps the flavor and aroma more consistent batch to batch.

    One concern I have for your method is that you're tying up a pump for several days. Your concern for pulling hops off of the beer is a good one, but I've found that any amount of recirculating beer in the tank that's going to have much effect is going to keep hop matter in suspension. However, I've never had good luck pulling hops off the bottom of a tank. Even tanks that weren't recirculated have the beer punch through the hop bed, so you end up throwing away good beer while trying to get rid of the hops. I'd recommend seeing if you like the flavor if you leave the hops in the tank, or reducing your contact time before filtration. Good luck!

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    • #3
      DH method

      We have tried the recirc method but have started using C02 through the racking arm. We run it at 8 psi for 20-25 minutes after the final DH goes in.( We dry hop in stages). It breaks up the pellets and they quickly get absorbed. Any time I can avoid pumping beer Im going to do that. The result is great aroma that seems to last a lot longer then previous. Also we DH warm. After primary we crash to 55 and harvest. After the harvest we turn it back up to 68F and add the first DH. If you do not close the tank during dry hop you can avoid the geyser scenario. We have experienced that as well after I tried capping the tank then went back and DH it. Not pretty. My thought was if the tank was open would we loose all that aroma were trying to capture? The answer is no> we have tried it capped and not capped. little to no difference. The only method we haven't tried is making a slurry and DH under pressure, But Im happy with our process and results so not looking to try that quite yet.
      Cheers!

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Whitewall View Post
        DH method

        We have tried the recirc method but have started using C02 through the racking arm. We run it at 8 psi for 20-25 minutes after the final DH goes in.( We dry hop in stages). It breaks up the pellets and they quickly get absorbed. Any time I can avoid pumping beer Im going to do that. The result is great aroma that seems to last a lot longer then previous. Also we DH warm. After primary we crash to 55 and harvest. After the harvest we turn it back up to 68F and add the first DH. If you do not close the tank during dry hop you can avoid the geyser scenario. We have experienced that as well after I tried capping the tank then went back and DH it. Not pretty. My thought was if the tank was open would we loose all that aroma were trying to capture? The answer is no> we have tried it capped and not capped. little to no difference. The only method we haven't tried is making a slurry and DH under pressure, But Im happy with our process and results so not looking to try that quite yet.
        Cheers!
        do you cold crash right after or do you wait a day or two after last dry hop?

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