Multiple-Stage Dry Hopping

gordsellar

I have a couple of hoppy beers, one with Citra/Sorachi Ace and another with Pacific Gem, and I'm really curious about how to maximize their hoppiness. (I don't make a lot of hoppy beer, but when I do, I want a TON of aroma and perceived flavor.)

I recently noticed references to some brews being double or triple dry-hopped -- as in, adding dry hops, removing them after infusion, and adding more dry hops, then removing those, and adding a third dry hop infusion prior to racking to a keg. (Or else using keg hops for the third infusion.)

I was wondering whether anyone here has experimented with that, or has read anything about the process. In most of the discussions I've seen, people seem to dismiss the practice, but I'm wondering whether it can contribute more hop characteristics to put 3 ounces into a brew separately than it would to put three ounces of a hop all at once (even, say, immersed in a hop sack weighted down inside a keg or carboy, where the hops get maximum surface exposure to the beer)... or whether the effect of yeast on hop oil characteristics might result in a more complex hop profile as the dry hops are added at three different stages in the late-fermentation process. (When yeast are tapering off in activity, falling asleep, and then basically in hibernation.)

Anyway, just curious if anyone's tried this or has any info.

ghohn

There's a great podcast where Vinnie Chilurzo talks about this in-depth. I'll try to dig up the link in a bit.

The cliffnotes:
Drop hop after ferment and a cold crash. They drop the yeast from the conical after cold crash. He limits his contact time to roughly 5 days at room temperature and then after that, hops are then removed for the next blast.

Hoang, here in Daejeon, did it and made a delish pale ale. Strangely the aroma wasn't as much as one would expect from multiple hoppings but the flavor was unmistakable. It always comes back to aroma doesn't it? :)

gordsellar

Thanks, I'd heard about the clearing and so on, though I'd run across something interesting that suggested active yeast could also act on hop oils to interesting effect. That said, I only waited until the krausen had fallen before adding Citra leaf hops. (It's relatively clear now, under the layer of flowers.)

Cold crashing isn't possible with my carboy (well, unless I fill the tub up with cold water, ice, and throw some salt in, I suppose), but I figure I can move it to a keg and cold crash before adding a second dry hop round; it's already pretty dry, and after all I will be transferring it to a second carboy (flushed with CO2) to clear a little more before I rack it to a keg.

That phenomenon with Hoang's beer sounds interesting: I wonder what the hop schedule was? Perhaps lots of late hops? I was happy with my own 15-minute-additions-only beer last summer, but remember most people being disappointed with the aroma they got from the technique. I wonder whether it's just about which type of hops work best in which method, or whether there's something else involved -- like, the remnants of hop oils that go through an entire boil somehow making the beer more receptive to (or more of a stable medium for?) raw hop oils from a late, flameout, or dry hop addition.

Probably nonsense, but I'm curious about the chemistry of it all...

Oats

One method might be to use one of those tea bags they sell here and tie some fishing line around it to fish it out when you are ready to get the second dose on, I did that once. Just sanitize your bag and your line and no problems. Now that I am on to kegging I think I need to bag all my dryhops, they don't get stuck in the yeast and trub like before, and I am tired of drinking them.

gordsellar

Yeah, I was thinking about using fishing line. I have some stainless-steel soup ball thingies -- the ones they sell for putting spices into soup and then fishing them out -- but I used thread as line in the past to fish them out, and it always snapped. I like dry-hopping in the keg, and have never had much trouble with chunks in the keg until the line snapped, but I would like to try dry-hopping in the carboy just to see what difference it makes.

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