re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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Then i just wondered what the advantage of it was? Not having to take a larger sample as you do a hydrometer? Sure. But in the end, that wasn't worth it if it wasn't accurate.

I'm sure i just need to read up on it more, but often i forget i even have a refractometer.

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Maybe a lowly hopped pale ale?

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what do you think of sorachi ace? I've read it's a strong lemon flavor. I'm thinking of making the next recipe of lemon wheat with it, instead of unsweetened lemon powder.

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The first conclusion is that above 8 g/L the extraction of hop oils and the aroma contributions from those oils are nearly saturated. To use Shellhammer’s language dry hopping with more than 8 g/L (1.1 oz/gal or 2.1 lbs/bbl) is an inefficient use of raw materials [3]. As a chemistry professor this strikes me as reasonable conclusion. As Tom noted during his talk, the most aromatic components of hop oil have the lowest solubility in water, which limits the amount you can extract. His second finding was more surprising. The oils responsible for citrus aromas saturate earlier, closer to 4 g/L, than the oils responsible for herbal/tea aromas and the compounds that impart bitterness (humulinones and polyphenols).

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Adding more hops by static dry-hopping does not simply lead to increased aroma intensity but also changes aroma quality in the finished beer. Dry-hopping rates >8 g/L lead to hop aromas that were more herbal/tea in quality than citrus. To maintain a more balanced hop aroma quality this study suggests using a static dry-hopping rate between 4 and 8 g/L.

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I’ve read that Russian River uses approximately 1 lb of dry hops per barrel in Pliny the Elder. While that seemed like a ridiculous amount in the early part of this century, nowadays it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. Shellhammer’s research would seem to indicate this is still in a range that is useful. Personally, the largest charge of dry hops I’ve used is 4 ounces in a 5 gallon batch, but my buddy Chris Mercerhill once dry hopped with a pound of hops just to see how it would turn out. That experiment, dubbed “The Pounder” also confirmed the notion more is not always better.

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The final, and arguably most interesting, segment of the talk explored the phenomenon of hop creep. Never heard of hop creep, don’t feel bad, you would have had plenty of company in the audience at the Ohio Craft Brewer’s Conference. It refers to the process whereby additional fermentation is triggered by dry hopping.

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The important take home point is that additional fermentation only occurs when you add both yeast AND hops. What in God’s green earth could explain this behavior? It turns out there are enzymes in hops that can break down the unfermentable long-chain sugars to simple sugars, much like the enzymes in barley that carry out the same function during the mashing stage.

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My Impressions: My experience mirrored that of the panelists who were correct on the triangle test in that I could easily and reliably distinguish the beers by aroma alone. I found the 180 gram batch to have an extremely juicy hop aroma, while the 60 gram batch, still very aromatic, didn’t have the same saturation level. On a few occasions, when someone else was serving me a pint, I was easily able to tell which beer I was being handed, even without a comparative sample. Interestingly, after over a month in the keg, the aroma of the 60 gram batch had greatly diminished while the 180 gram batch maintained substantial hop punch.

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4oz in a 5 gal batch? How much do you use for biotrans?

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