Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

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ingo
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Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by ingo » Fri May 15, 2020 12:05 pm

Dry hopping. Recently I read a blog by Allegash brewing where they explained dry vs. wet hopping. Using older dried hops vs. fresh wet hops.

It got me confused as I'm under the impression that the meaning of dry hopping is completely different. Dry hopping is adding hops, regardless of their state, to young beer after the peek of the main fermentation to dry out the beer. The result is now a days better known as hop creep. Enzymes of hops break down starches end the beer ferments on. I even recall reading that hops where used to be added to casks for this purpose, but I can not find a reference to it any more.

The other reason to add hops late in the process if off coarse flavour.

Insight is welcome,

Ingo

McMullan

Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by McMullan » Fri May 15, 2020 1:58 pm

The phrase 'wet hopping' seems to be the problem here. I think it's a made-up phrase that has no meaning to most brewers. Since most brewers don't use wet hops, as they don't store well, I guess those who do like to talk about it. It's a selling point, I guess. 'We're wet hopping our beers' probably wakes up beer nerds on social media :lol: 'We use wet hops' is more understandable and less exciting. And they could be added at any stage. For example, We dry hopped with wet hops :?

McMullan

Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by McMullan » Fri May 15, 2020 2:15 pm

The only thing I could find containing the phrase 'wet hopping' that might be worth reading is this:

https://www.usahops.org/img/blog_pdf/78.pdf

But if we adopted the phrase we'd have to accept that all of us have been 'dry hopping' from the first wort on. I propose we just ignore American English altogether. It's got us this far :wink:

killer
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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by killer » Fri May 15, 2020 2:44 pm

Wet hopping is just a fashionable term. It’s to sell the idea of the ultimate freshest hops/ IPA possible. It’s also sometimes called green hopping – I think there is even a festival in Kent for this.

Dry hopping has expanded to way beyond what it once was both in how it’s done and the quantites – I’ve tasted beers hopped to 42 g/L. For a while, dry hopping was “mostly” what you suggest – adding dried leaf or pellet hops to beer that has been fermented out. Hop drift became a more common thing for those breweries who dry-hopped heavily in the primary fermenter leaving the yeast in contact with large quantities of vegetal hop material. A combination of enzymes from the hops to generate simple sugars and the yeast meant extra refermentation and sometimes bottle bombs. As many breweries packages direct from this fermenter both yeast and hops made it into a bottle, can, or keg. Better practice in the brewery can eliminate this problem – crashing the yeast, purging it and then hopping, or transfer to a secondary tank, or even filtering. I've spoken to a number of brewers who have suggested that you really need quite a bit of hop material and yeast to see it. Interestingly, other techniques have also evolved to avoid it – using enzymes (think BRUT IPAs) or Double dry hopping (DDH). Double dry hopping can involve hopping early during fermentation to help get the wort to its most fermentable early on rather than just before packaging (so there’s no extra refermentation later). I know breweries that hop after 24, 48 or 72 hours of fermentation. Some also suggest that this can result in “Biotransformations” – yeast activity on hop components to produce other interesting aromatic components that you might not ordinarily get, or in different proportions. Much of this is backed up by scientific literature. The New IPA by Scott Janish is about Modern Highly hopped beers and is worth a read – at least to point you in the direction of the literature so you can make you own mind up

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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by Tarmac » Fri May 15, 2020 11:47 pm

McMullan wrote:
Fri May 15, 2020 1:58 pm
The phrase 'wet hopping' seems to be the problem here. I think it's a made-up phrase that has no meaning to most brewers. Since most brewers don't use wet hops, as they don't store well, I guess those who do like to talk about it. It's a selling point, I guess. 'We're wet hopping our beers' probably wakes up beer nerds on social media :lol: 'We use wet hops' is more understandable and less exciting. And they could be added at any stage. For example, We dry hopped with wet hops :?
Think you knocked the nail on the head.

The hops I use, used to be wet, then got dry, then got wet. Technically I use wet, dry, wet hops in my beers.

Much prefer dry hopping as it makes wet beer taste great.

Each to their own.

ingo
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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by ingo » Sat May 16, 2020 7:31 am

The wet hops, fresh hops or indeed green hops are not the problem. In my first brew ever in the late seventies I used fresh hops as that was what I could get, from mom's garden :)

It's more about the dry part. I thought dry in dry hopping comes from drying out a beer by adding hops near the end of fermentation or in the cask and not from the fact that dried hops are used. Making use of what we now know (well since the 1920's) is their enzyme content. The effect has been observed much earlier.
Hops have been dried for ages, so calling the process step dry hopping because the use of dried hop is strange as over 95% of used hops are dried. Brewing green hopped beer is only possible during a short period in a year.

EDIT: from "For the Love of Hops"
The practice of adding hops to casks in England originated before the beginning of the nineteenth century, although the term dry hopping was not introduced until sometime later. In 1796 E. Hughes wrote, “Put some hops in your ale and small beer casks a few days before you want to tap them for use; even those hops that have already been used in brewing will be found serviceable in fining your beer and will not cause it to be too bitter, but will prevent your small beer from becoming sour. Notwithstanding their being used in brewing, they will be found by experience to be very serviceable for the purpose mentioned.” -- Stan Hieronymus
Ingo

McMullan

Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by McMullan » Sat May 16, 2020 11:00 am

I suspect it has more to do with hopping late on the cold side - relatively dry beer vs sweet wort, if you see what I mean. Kind of why Mild is a pleasant-to-drink green ale rather than the often assumed (erroneously) low gravity pint. In terms of the Brewer's final touch - dry hopping - I doubt, in most cases, it was sufficient to dry out the ale. More a case of adding some fresh aroma days before consumption at pubs and inns.

ingo
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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by ingo » Sat May 16, 2020 11:45 am

McMullan wrote:
Sat May 16, 2020 11:00 am
relatively dry beer vs sweet wort, if you see what I mean.
I see.

Ingo

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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by ingo » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:29 pm


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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by Cobnut » Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:10 am

Fascinating.

I'm assuming in the extracts quoted by Ron, the hops used would have been leaf hops. Which sets me to wondering whether you'd get the same behaviour with T90s?
Fermenting: nowt
Conditioning: English IPA/Bretted English IPA
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ingo
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Re: Dry hopping, terminology confusion.

Post by ingo » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:16 am

Cobnut wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:10 am
Which sets me to wondering whether you'd get the same behaviour with T90s?
Yes. Hop is dried carefully and the dryer they (and also malts) are the less the influence of temperature is on enzymes/proteins. 60°C would not denaturate the enzymes.
Simple test, cold wort & yeast with added pellets ferments out deeper than the same wort & yeast without hops.

Ingo

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