Somebody's gotta post something new!!!!!

mike frohlich wrote:

It's all dependent on style, length of time you leave them in the fermenter, and what kind of alpha acids/hop oils each particular hop carries. Warrior is a great bittering hop, which I use in Feast Like a Sultan IPA, but would make a very poor dry hop. You need to look for varieties that are more aroma types.

I agree about Warrior being more suited to use as a bittering hop. It's just the first example that came to mind of a hop with a bunch of oils.

In comparison to Mike's technique, I'm dry-hopping after fermentation is complete and my yeast has mostly dropped out. There's research out in the pro brewing world that suggests a change in the timing of dry-hop additions will give you quite different results.

Dry-hop early, you might create flavor compounds achievable only in that specific case. Some brewers suggests there are flavor compounds created by the interaction of fermentation, its byproducts, and hop oils that are unachievable, or at least quite difficult to achieve, in any other brewing scenario.

Dry-hop just before the end of fermentation and some of the aroma might gas out with the CO2 and some of the oils will flocculate with the yeast but you'll have much less oxygen in the beer because, like the aroma compounds, it'll get scrubbed out of solution with the CO2. The easy solution is to just add more hops and you'll make up for those losses.

Dry-hop after the yeast have dropped and you'll get less loss of those flavor compounds but you've got a potential oxygen problem. This is the method I use. I can't speak to how much extra oxygen it lets in, though. I don't have any way to evaluate the dissolved oxygen levels in my bottles. Plus, I'm picking up way more oxygen bottling than what I'm introducing through dry-hopping. If I want to worry about flavor-stability, I'd first modify my bottling methods before looking at my dry-hopping technique.

It's all dependent on style, length of time you leave them in the fermenter, and what kind of alpha acids/hop oils each particular hop carries. Warrior is a great bittering hop, which I use in Feast Like a Sultan IPA, but would make a very poor dry hop. You need to look for varieties that are more aroma types.

I generally leave my beers on the dryhops for 5-7 days, depending on style, add them to the fermenter when fermentation is about .005 points away from terminal gravity, so that the oxygen in the hops is eaten up by the yeast. My ESB uses 3 oz of hops for 5 days for 10-11 gallons, vs the IPA which is 9oz of hops for 7 days for 9-10 gallons. A good practice would be to taste your beers daily and when you think its right, crash cool, and transfer to kegs.

As far as your freezer goes, there is usually a plug at the bottom of most that could be removed to clear any moisture out.

I don't think there's a whole lot of correlation between dryhopping rates and O.G.. I'd say, more likely, that it's style-dependent.

I did a bitter with one ounce each (two ounces total) of Cascade and Centennial dryhop. It had an O.G. of something like 1.040. I think it was a little too much dryhop to call it balanced though it was still good.

I did an IPA with 3 ounces (I don't remember what varieties they were), and it seemed like it wasn't near enough.

I think, more important than the actual weight of dryhop, is the amount of hop oils going in to the beer. I'd bet (though I can't testify to the validity of this thought process because I haven't tried). I'd think a higher-acid type hop like Warrior would impart more hop character than, if used at equal weights, something like Saaz.

If you're looking for a rule-of-thumb, I've heard:

0-2 ounces of medium-alpha acid hops as dryhop in five gallons for a hoppy amber or pale ale.
2-5 ounces of medium-alpha acid hops as dryhop in five gallons for an IPA .

Those are probably good places to start, though I'm not sure

I'm relatively new to dry hopping and looking for a formula (or at least a rule of thumb) for how many ounces to use based on the OG vs the Final gravity. By guess and by golly is great, but my liver is asking me to get a little closer the first time around.(HaH!)
On a more serious note, has anyone come up with a good solution to gathering the condensation from the bottom of a chest-freezer-style kegerator, short of hauling in the shop-vac? Iwas thinking some kind of tray that you could dump out would be great.