Rousing Dry Hops?

[jeff.stuffings]

I'm curious about brewers' opinions on rousing dry hops back up into suspension during dry hopping.

I've heard some respected brewers say that rousing improves hop aroma and other respected brewers say to avoid rousing in order to avoid green or plant-like flavors.

Opinions?

Thanks in advance.

[mmussen]

Personally i've never roused dry hops after they've settled but my favorite way of dry hopping (impossible at my current location) did a very good job of getting the hops in suspension initially - it usually took 48 hours before the beer would be clear again.

[bmxfrank]

In a word, YES. I have dish bottom fermenters and find this helps. After transfering into the 2ndary I rouse for the next 2-3 days consecutivly with CO2 via the bottom port, rest for a day or 2 before crashing the tank. These beers are almost always unfiltered to but there seems to be enough days of settling so tis not an issue. have fun.

[gdebisschop]

I've found that for us this increases vegetal notes in the finished product. I've also found that what works in one brewery doesn't always work in another, so you might just need to give it a go.

cheers
geoff

[chaser]

I've done this twice...the method was to put the racking arm into an upwards position and rouse three times, with 20 (or so) second bursts of CO2 at a time. We have since stopped doing this as we were afraid we would be scrubbing out that precious hop aroma (and breaking out proteins as well). The end result... I noticed no difference in aroma between this method and the standard one. However the filtration was a bit easier as it seemed to get the hops more in solution and i didn't have that feeling of a 'hop wall' crashing down on me toward the end of the filter. I usually see towards the end of the filter with a heavily dry-hopped beer that no matter how much i drop the yeast out of the bottom there is a layer of hops 'floating' on the top that will slowly slough down and clog up the filter. I didn't notice that with these batches and was able to filter cleanly all the way to the end. Didn't notice any vegetal flavors either. Another dry hop method I recently heard about was to mix the hops into a beer slurry and shoot it up the PRV arm with CO2 pressure. Never tried it but it could achieve similar results.

[BigWilley]

dryhopping

When dry hopping initially, I will hook up my carb stone to the racking port, bleed all the pressure off the tank, add hops through the PRV, bung, then start mildy running CO2 through the stone. This will mix the hops in good without scrubbing aroma. Maybe 30 mins or so. I have never roused after the initial dryhop.

[mattman688]

after dry hopping you can also recirculate the beer from the racking arm and push it back in through the cone....Make sure you put a T on the racking arm and a T on the cone so you can sani the lines and then purge out the lines with beer before opening the cone up... open up and crack the cone's valve(45 degrees), and turn on the pump for 10-15 minutes.

[mima77]

sorry people, i read this blog from Italy and my english isn't good enough for understand what you mean with "crash" or "crack" a tank...

[BigWilley]

Crash = rapidly lower the temperature. crack = opening a valve