Dry Hopping Best Practices for LODO Pale Ale
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:45 pm
I've been brewing nothing but Helles for the last couple months and decided to mix it up today with a LODO Pale Ale.
I've been debating about the best way to dry hop:
1) Dry hop in the fermentation keg. The challenge here would be balancing a few variables.
a) Needing to wait until Primary Fermentation is subsiding (to not blow away the aroma)
b) Needing enough contact time on the hops (~3days)
c) Wanting to leave enough extract to spund
Honestly, I'm not sure if this is possible with an ale fermentation since they move so quick. Maybe add the hops right after high krausen/top crop and transfer a couple days later? Or adding a little wort to the spunding keg may work.
2) Dry hop in the spunding keg. After enough contact time and FG is reached transfer off into a serving keg. The risks here of course are introducing O2 during the transfer. I would purge a keg with Nitro and use a jumper after blowing off a pint of whatevers settled.
3) Dry hop in the spunding keg and just leave the hops. This seemed to work well for me last time but I would periodically get some resiny pulls as the dry hops broke down and some sediment left my canister.
Anyone played around with this?
I've been debating about the best way to dry hop:
1) Dry hop in the fermentation keg. The challenge here would be balancing a few variables.
a) Needing to wait until Primary Fermentation is subsiding (to not blow away the aroma)
b) Needing enough contact time on the hops (~3days)
c) Wanting to leave enough extract to spund
Honestly, I'm not sure if this is possible with an ale fermentation since they move so quick. Maybe add the hops right after high krausen/top crop and transfer a couple days later? Or adding a little wort to the spunding keg may work.
2) Dry hop in the spunding keg. After enough contact time and FG is reached transfer off into a serving keg. The risks here of course are introducing O2 during the transfer. I would purge a keg with Nitro and use a jumper after blowing off a pint of whatevers settled.
3) Dry hop in the spunding keg and just leave the hops. This seemed to work well for me last time but I would periodically get some resiny pulls as the dry hops broke down and some sediment left my canister.
Anyone played around with this?