Hopback Vs Dry Hopping

[D4nny74]

What the title says, whats everyones thoughts ? are hop rockets worth the price ?

Cheers

Danny

[Rookie]

What the title says, whats everyones thoughts ? are hop rockets worth the price ?

Cheers

Danny

I've never used a hopback so I can't comment specifically on that, but my question would be are you getting the results you want with dry hopping?

[D4nny74]

Yes but just wondering whats the difference is taste /smell , have people bought one and regretted it ?

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I've had a beer that used about 80g of mosaic in a hop rocket. It stunk of hops when o drank it. It made me want to get one so I did. To date I've not used it but am going to this week in my next brew. With about 20g of mosaic Citra and chinook in. See what happens.


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[Coffeeuk]

I bought one, used it once and never used it again. It's gathering dust in the brew shed. Main problems are the fact I have to buy leaf hops to use in it. If your making a small batch, it wastes about a litre of wort. And is another piece of kit to clean.

On the plus side, you can circulate hot wort through it to sterilise the hops. Your not left with hops in the fermenter. The hop aromas are more prominent, but in my opinion don't seem to last as long, for example I did a EKG pale which smelt lovely a week after bottling, a month later the aroma was completely gone.

To be honest, it's a nice looking shiny piece of kit, but it doesn't add anything that dry hopping already adds.

[D4nny74]

Would you it's the same as dry hopping same aroma and taste ?Let me know if your ever considering selling it Coffeeuk

[Goulders]

Your question initially was about hop back vs dry hopping. The 2 are very different. A hopback is used post boil to steep hops before going to the fermenter, at least on a larger brewery scale. I find late hopping (ie at flameout) is similar to the effects that a hopback would give at homebrew level.

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

That's my hop rocket getting an outing the other day. See what the beer turns out like soon. But smells rather good in the FV.


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[D4nny74]

looking good

[Fastline]

I have read you can use your mash tun as a hopback, pile your hops in there and pump your wort over it

Anyone here tried that

[Padalac]

^ Sounds risky to me..

[james1988]

^ Sounds risky to me..

Out of interest, why does it sound risky to you?

James

[Jocky]

^ Sounds risky to me..

Out of interest, why does it sound risky to you?

James

I'd call it suicidal. If you do it pre ferment then you've got a great chance of infecting your wort. If you do it at the end of fermentation you've got a great chance of oxidising your wort.

Grain is crawling with lactobacillus bacteria, and there's probably a few other things along for the ride too in your average brew. It's fine because you massacre them all with a good boil after the mash, and the mash itself is held not far below pasteurisation temperatures anyway. But any tiny crevice is going to harbour some of that bacteria left over from the mash, and your fragile unfermented wort is perfect for it to multiply in.

In 40 brews I'm yet to have an infection take over a brew, so I'm pretty confident about my cleaning and sanitising regime. Despite having an all stainless steel mash tun (don't even think about doing this with a plastic one - bacteria will hide in minor scratches) I'd not be confident in cleaning well enough around things like the thermowell or bottom drain.

If I was going to repurpose my MT as a hop rocket I'd take everything off of it and boil the lot.

[james1988]

Fair answer but if the wort is at near boiling point having just been through the boiler then wouldn't the risk become significantly lower? Without dragging this wildly off topic, I currently sanitise everything I'm going to use during the brew when setting up. It occurs to me that when you add the liquor to the grain (and vice versa) that sanitising the mash tun is almost redundant as you rightly point out that the grain will be crawling with bacteria so in effect you have undone your cleaning regime.

I too have yet to have an infected brew (I'm about 30 odd AG brews in) and am going to continue sanitising as I normally would but it is something to think about.

James

[orlando]

Fair answer but if the wort is at near boiling point having just been through the boiler then wouldn't the risk become significantly lower? Without dragging this wildly off topic, I currently sanitise everything I'm going to use during the brew when setting up. It occurs to me that when you add the liquor to the grain (and vice versa) that sanitising the mash tun is almost redundant as you rightly point out that the grain will be crawling with bacteria so in effect you have undone your cleaning regime.

I too have yet to have an infected brew (I'm about 30 odd AG brews in) and am going to continue sanitising as I normally would but it is something to think about.

James

Anything hot side just needs to be clean, everything cold side as sanitised as you can make it.