Adding hops at the start of fermentation and hot fermentation temperatures?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Berry454

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2021
Messages
198
Reaction score
77
Just brewed up a festival American IPA kit and it said to add the hops on day 5 or 6.

I’m now brewing in my aquarium room which with over 2000 gallons of aquarium water the room never drops below 28 Celsius. Now that I’m fermenting in this room the average temperature of my fermenters is 26 Celsius.

I’ve found at this temperature my fermenters are finishing rapidly quick. Though I’ve brewed plenty of winexpert kits at this temperature both red and rose kits and I’ve not noticed any difference in the quality compared to fermenting at lower temperatures.

Anyways I’m babbling now, back to the festival American IPA kit that I have fermenting now. I’m 3 days in and the SG has rapidly dropped from 1.050 to 1.010 which essentially means the kit has finished fermenting. I knew at the temp of 26 it would finish very quickly so I added the hops at start of fermentation 100g sachet. I didn’t want to add the hops late as the instructions mentioned as I knew my fermentation would be quick and I didn’t want beer sitting in a fermenter for 5+ days after fermentation ended only to oxidise.

Though the kit said the yeast included was slow fermenting and that fermentation should take 10-14 days. Mine is basically finished in 3 days.

How should I expect the rapid fermentation to impact the finished beer? And how will adding the hops at the beginning of fermentation going to change the brew? I’m more interested in if any of you have added the hops this early or not.

I will probably be putting the fermenter in the fridge tomorrow ready for kegging on Thursday.
 
You are definitely brewing at the higher end of the temp scale, so expect a lot more eaters and phenols which might effect the end result taste.
As for adding the hops on day 1, this is a thing. Research it on here
 
This is pretty high to be fermenting at. Generally 18-20C is where I aim for, depending on the yeast.

The faster fermentation will mean the yeast might have created off flavours, that it does at higher temperatures. Either boozy/solventy flavours, or banana.

As for the hops, it's a technique in itself to dry hop during fermentation. It won't ruin the beer at all, it's just different to if you wait until fermentation is complete. Adding hops during active fermentation helps utilise any oxygen that the beer may be exposed to when hops are added.

Finally, the gravity stabilising doesn't necessarily mean the fermentation is complete. The yeast will still continue to work and clean up the beer, and so it's worth keeping it in there for a few days more after gravity stabilises. As long as you've got it airlocked well, it shouldn't oxydise. It seems you might be rushing this all a bit too much. I will generally leave fermentation to take place for up to two weeks before I think about dry hopping/kegging. However, you can't really harm the beer if you leave it in there longer.
 
This is pretty high to be fermenting at. Generally 18-20C is where I aim for, depending on the yeast.

The faster fermentation will mean the yeast might have created off flavours, that it does at higher temperatures. Either boozy/solventy flavours, or banana.

As for the hops, it's a technique in itself to dry hop during fermentation. It won't ruin the beer at all, it's just different to if you wait until fermentation is complete. Adding hops during active fermentation helps utilise any oxygen that the beer may be exposed to when hops are added.

Finally, the gravity stabilising doesn't necessarily mean the fermentation is complete. The yeast will still continue to work and clean up the beer, and so it's worth keeping it in there for a few days more after gravity stabilises. As long as you've got it airlocked well, it shouldn't oxydise. It seems you might be rushing this all a bit too much. I will generally leave fermentation to take place for up to two weeks before I think about dry hopping/kegging. However, you can't really harm the beer if you leave it in there longer.
Agree with all that apart from yeast metabolising the oxygen being introduced during the dry hopping. Once yeast moves into anaerobic respiration mode it has no further use for oxygen. The oxygen however will get scrubbed out during active fermentation by the co2.
 
I'm new to this and I've got an American IPA that has been bubbling for 4 days. Today it stopped it's bubbling and I haven't added the hops yet so I've slung then on top and I'm hoping for the best. Anyway...I put the lid back on and the airlock and it's starting to bubble again so my guess is there must've been an air leak at the stopper that holds the airlock. It says on the instructions to add hops on day 7 and I've added mine on day 4½. Will this ruin my beer? I hope not. Fingers and toes all crossed.
MYO kit American IPA.
 
I'm new to this and I've got an American IPA that has been bubbling for 4 days. Today it stopped it's bubbling and I haven't added the hops yet so I've slung then on top and I'm hoping for the best. Anyway...I put the lid back on and the airlock and it's starting to bubble again so my guess is there must've been an air leak at the stopper that holds the airlock. It says on the instructions to add hops on day 7 and I've added mine on day 4½. Will this ruin my beer? I hope not. Fingers and toes all crossed.
MYO kit American IPA.

Should be absolutely fine here. I now add the finishing hops straight at the start of fermentation with all my extract kits.

It results in less aroma from the beer but in my opinion imparts far more flavour from the hops which in the case of an IPA can’t be a bad thing.

Only time I’ve added my hops at the end is with a punk IPA clone kit partial grain as I wanted to match the aroma of the punk IPA and not just the flavour.

4/12 days in probably won’t even significantly change the aroma.
 
I'm new to this and I've got an American IPA that has been bubbling for 4 days. Today it stopped it's bubbling and I haven't added the hops yet so I've slung then on top and I'm hoping for the best. Anyway...I put the lid back on and the airlock and it's starting to bubble again so my guess is there must've been an air leak at the stopper that holds the airlock. It says on the instructions to add hops on day 7 and I've added mine on day 4½. Will this ruin my beer? I hope not. Fingers and toes all crossed.
MYO kit American IPA.
Adding the dry hops might have caused CO2 created by the fermentation to come out of suspension.
It won't ruin your beer.
 
That's
Should be absolutely fine here. I now add the finishing hops straight at the start of fermentation with all my extract kits.

It results in less aroma from the beer but in my opinion imparts far more flavour from the hops which in the case of an IPA can’t be a bad thing.

Only time I’ve added my hops at the end is with a punk IPA clone kit partial grain as I wanted to match the aroma of the punk IPA and not just the flavour.

4/12 days in probably won’t even significantly change the aroma.
good news
Thought I'd ruined my very first batch
 
Back
Top