Increased activity after hop addition

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Stevieboy

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I've noticed that my fermentation seems to wake up and go active again after the addition of hops after (say) 4 to 5 days - anyone else noticed this before, and why would that happen, given there's no sugar in them ?
 
I've noticed that my fermentation seems to wake up and go active again after the addition of hops after (say) 4 to 5 days - anyone else noticed this before, and why would that happen, given there's no sugar in them ?

Swirling up of yeast, that sort of things. Happens a lot.
 
It might be just that the hops provide nucleation points for effervescence and all that's happening is that the fizz is coming off the beer more quickly than it would otherwise. With only 4-5 days fermentation it's probably still fermenting and saturating the liquid with CO2.
 
Hi Stevieboy

As @An Ankoù says, if what you are seeing is increased rate of CO2 being given off then it's probably just as a result of the addition increasing the rate of off-gassing ... but hops do (often) contain diastase enzymes*, which can get to work on otherwise unfermentable sugars in the wort/beer and convert them to fermentable ones, so if what you're seeing is an increase in rate of reduction in specific gravity (which people can continually plot nowadays thanks to their "devices" (e.g. tilt hydrometers)) then it may be that.

Cheers, PhilB

* this has been known about for some time, see Ron Pattinson's blog (link) for the text of an article about it first published in the Brewers Guardian in 1893
 
Even hop pellets do this. If it's almost immediate it must be nucleation. If it's not for hours, it could be diastase enzymes. Of course, it might be both!
 
I believe it is well documented that the addition of hops creates enzyme activity which results in further fermentation- referred to as hop creep.
 
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