Pellet Hops versus Leaf Hops

[jimbothenav]

Been AG brewing for a couple of years and am producing reliable beers but I am at the stage of experimenting a little with new hops and other changes to ingredients.

Have been trying pellet hops, primarily at the dry hoping stage, and am disappointed:

Attempt 1: dry hoped in the fermenter – not much improvement in hop flavour and a cloudy beer that never really cleared.

Attempt 2: dry hoped in the conditioning barrel - again, not much improvement in hop flavour and a cloudy beer that never really cleared.

Attempt 3: Used up pellet hops in the boil phase – blocked up my boiler filter; had to tip the boiler up and pour it through a fine sieve!

I normally brew with WL002 English Pale Ale Yeast and get a pretty clear beer straight out of the fermenter.

Do pellet hops have a place in home brewing? I will be returning to only using leaf hops but am I missing something?

[scotsloon]

I have given up on dry hopping as I've had a failed brew because of it. I now make hop teas which I have found to be very successful, here's what I do now.

A while back I had a contaminated brew after dry hopping a batch of my home brew. I eventually put it down to the bag not being properly sanitized. I had boiled it before use but possibly not for long enough. This experience coincided with my introduction to hop pellets, I noticed that they were effectively hop dust compressed into a pellet. So I took this thought to the next stage and tried blitzing the flower hops myself, I find hops, possibly due to the high oil content to be very sticky once they have been pitched and a bugger to get off your hands and everything else they touch when cleaning up.

My approach is to take an amount of hops, my last attempt was to use 40g of Galaxy hops in a Youngs Harvest Bitter kit, Ive also done a couple of brews with 50g of Citra hop tea. I blitzed the hops using a stick blender and put the dust into my pre-sanitized 1L stainless steel double skinned cafetiere, I then poured boiling water over them and left them for 30 mins to infuse. After pushing down the filter I poured the tea into my brew leaving the hop residue in the cafetiere. I have done this on 3 occasions and always when I transfer the brew from the initial FV bucket (after the Krausen has settled) into my airlock FV.

Each batch has turned out really well and has gone down well with my tasters (Wife, Son, Daughter in Law, Daughter and her Boyfriend)

I use a hop spider (easy to make) and blitz all my hops from bittering (using the hop spider during the boil phase) through to aroma via a hop tea. I find it reduces the amount of hops I need to use.

[Hanglow]

They keep much better, take up less space in the freezer, are about 10% more effective for bittering

But yeah they can be a pain in the arse in the boil if you don't have the right filter. My last beer I dry hopped (Jims ESB) still has not cleared but I put that down to the yeast I used and quite a low mineral wort. You will tend to get a haze if you dry hop heavily.

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

Well I've just dry hopped my single hopped Nelson ale. I found 80g of pellets in the freezer so dry hopped with the lot of em. Hazy beer ahead by the sound of things.

[Bazz]

I've dry hopped quite successfully with pellets a couple of times, i just use those tea ball infusers and dangle them in the fv on a bit of string, not had a beer that i dry hopped this way stay hazy at all.

[adamzworld]

Would this method also work with hop pellets, or would it only world with whole dried hops? The appeal of hop pellets is having the option of freezing whatever I don't use after each brew, but I've never tried dry hopping before so I'm curious to know if making a hop tea using ground up pellets would work?

[a-slayer]

I have given up dry hopping, the way for real hoppy flavours is to drink the beer sooner.
I am drinking my latest brew which was bottled under a week ago, the Nottingham yeast clears in days and carbonation only needs to be light. Flavour from the late aroma hops have had no time to fade and shine through. In my opinion normal quaffing beers in the 4 to 4.5% range do not need long maturation periods and are best drunk sooner rather than later.

[adamzworld]

Would this method also work with hop pellets, or would it only world with whole dried hops? The appeal of hop pellets is having the option of freezing whatever I don't use after each brew, but I've never tried dry hopping before so I'm curious to know if making a hop tea using ground up pellets would work?

This was supposed to be referring to the method that Scotsloon describes above.

[jimbothenav]

I still have another packet of pellet hops to use up so I will have yet another try at dry hopping.
Will try the suggestion of using one of those mesh tea leaf infuser sphere gizmos, dangled into the FV.
May also try Scotloon's idea of making a hop tea in a coffee cafetiere and adding that to the barrel at the conditioning phase.

Many thanks to all for the great feedback

[critch]

if you can crash chill then dry hopping with pellets is not a problem. I rarely go above 3g/l, excellent results so far ill put them in (SLOWLY!!!) when the ferment is dying back but still got a bit to go(usually around 5-8 points off fg) let it get down to a point or two above fg then crash chill. most of the dry hops work is done within the first 24 hrs according to the latest research

[adamzworld]

I still have another packet of pellet hops to use up so I will have yet another try at dry hopping.
Will try the suggestion of using one of those mesh tea leaf infuser sphere gizmos, dangled into the FV.
May also try Scotloon's idea of making a hop tea in a coffee cafetiere and adding that to the barrel at the conditioning phase.

Many thanks to all for the great feedback

If you end up using the method that Scotsloon describes above, but use pellets rather than dry hops, then I'd be interested to see how it turns out as I'd like to try something similar with a kit beer.


Cheers,


Adam

[soupdragon]

if you can crash chill then dry hopping with pellets is not a problem. I rarely go above 3g/l, excellent results so far ill put them in (SLOWLY!!!) when the ferment is dying back but still got a bit to go(usually around 5-8 points off fg) let it get down to a point or two above fg then crash chill. most of the dry hops work is done within the first 24 hrs according to the latest research

Hi Critch

Not long got my serving fridge going. It's the only place I can keep my beer cool. Would 12c be cool enough to force pellets to drop in a corny do you think?
I've read some reports that suggest 2-3 days is optimum for dry hopping. Do you have a link to the info on 24 hours research?

Cheers. Tom

[McMullan]

Hop leaf is better, IMO. Easy to store for the home brewer. Unadulterated and complete. And you get to recognise the morphology associated with the different varieties, which adds a little confidence in what you're using...

[Rhodesy]

I prefer pellet hops these days. I tend to pitch warm and then bring down to 2/3C where they all nicely drop to the bottom of the FV. Some of them can cause haziness but not always and eventually drop out in most cases. I prefer them to store as they take up less room in the freezer. All my in my opinion of course.

I also enjoyed reading about different techniques below

http://www.port66.co.uk/dry-hopping/

[critch]

if you can crash chill then dry hopping with pellets is not a problem. I rarely go above 3g/l, excellent results so far ill put them in (SLOWLY!!!) when the ferment is dying back but still got a bit to go(usually around 5-8 points off fg) let it get down to a point or two above fg then crash chill. most of the dry hops work is done within the first 24 hrs according to the latest research

Hi Critch

Not long got my serving fridge going. It's the only place I can keep my beer cool. Would 12c be cool enough to force pellets to drop in a corny do you think?
I've read some reports that suggest 2-3 days is optimum for dry hopping. Do you have a link to the info on 24 hours research?

Cheers. Tom

the research was off the Siebel institute website https://www.siebelinstitute.com/ don't ask me where though it was last year when I read it through a mates coursework. it was something like 90% pick up by 24 hrs

I get my beer down to a minimum of 5.c for 3-4 days, colder the better for drop out,, ive read that its better at -2 for a day than +2 for a week. although id take that particular gem with a pinch of salt, im not sure +12 would do much