Bittering and Dry Hopping Only

[mike77]

Has anyone ever done a hoppy IPA/APA with just bittering additions and dry hopping? If so how did it work out?

I'm thinking about trying this on my next brew as I'm convinced that I'm not getting bang for my buck out of the late additions.

I have been working on a recipe for my last few brews. It's a Pale Rye-PA using magnum for bittering and Nelson Sauvin for finishing. One brew I used 100g of Nelson Sauvin in a 25 liter brew with equal additions at 15mins, 10mins, 5mins and 0mins. I thought this would be plenty but actually found it lacking in the hop flavor department. The next brew I did the same thing but I dry hopped with an extra 50g and wow what a difference. But that's 150g of hops for flavour/aroma and about another 25 for bittering which seems like a lot.

So would I get a better result chucking in 100g dry hops and doing away with late additions saving 50g hops?

 

[RobWalker]

yes, but I would suggest a LITTLE for boil aroma or at least flavour (15-20 mins.) dry hop is a different taste to flavour and aroma hops, and I'd personally use both. if you want to increase the aroma you could first wort hop, just add your bittering hops when you sparge or when you start heating up the wort from mash temp. for the record, I use 100g dry hops for most IPAs at least. 20g/gallon is pretty normal for a big IPA, that's 100g not including boil hops!

I would dip out the 10 min addition, it's pretty pointless imo because it adds both aroma and flavour but not in large amounts. see this graph for when to add hops;

If you want to cut costs why don't you get a super high alpha IPA hop like Galaxy or Citra, use it for your bittering addition and then the remainder of the pack for dry hopping (around 90g.)

 

[Darcey]

Throw 50g of Nelson in at 4mins and 50g at 1mins.. you'll notice the difference.

D

 

[alanywiseman.]

if you want to increase the aroma you could first wort hop, just add your bittering hops when you sparge or when you start heating up the wort from mash temp.

From the graph you presented that would just add bittering. The aroma comes from additions in the last 15 mins

 

[RobWalker]

if you want to increase the aroma you could first wort hop, just add your bittering hops when you sparge or when you start heating up the wort from mash temp.

From the graph you presented that would just add bittering. The aroma comes from additions in the last 15 mins

FWH works by steeping the hops prior to boiling rather than purely extracting the hop oils at boiling point, but still extracts bitterness once the main boil is reached. It's a little like adding them at 0 mins, but boiling in...reverse...

 

[mike77]

Interesting graph Rob. If it is correct then 22min and 7.5 min additions look like the sweet spot for flavor and aroma. So I might try 33g at 22min, 33g at 7.5 min and 33g dry hopped on my next brew day. I may even do a double brew with just dry hop with 100g in another so I can get a side by side comparison experiment going on.

When I said bang for buck it's not really about the money, rather I'm just trying to get the most out of the ingredients I'm using. I've been using Magnum for bittering with good results and I have another few bags of different high AA hops (Pacific Jade and Apollo) on the way to experiment with.

I'm sure I read somewhere (possibly here) that Brew Dog just bitter and dry hop their Punk IPA. If so it seems to be working for them.

 

[mike77]

As for first worting I have tried a few times now. The article I read suggested taking 30% of your aroma hops and adding them at first wort and leaving the bittering alone. This really confuses the recipe if you are using a fairly high AA hop such as Nelson so I dropped the Magnum a bit to compensate and it was a good beer but still didn't have the big hit I was after. I just tried it again at the weekend with a brew that I used Tettnang for aroma. This time I left the bittering addition alone and moved some of the Tettnang to first wort, as it's low AA it shouldn't impact the IBU's too much.

 

[Dr Mike]

I've seen that graph posted a few times and am coming to the conclusion that it is just plain wrong, in particular the line for flavour. EG a recipe like Sara Carter's Bombay IPA (supposedly very close to Thornbridge Jaipur) has hop additions at 75mins, 45mins and then at Flameout. According to that graph it should have very little hop flavour and that couldn't be further from the truth. I for one firmly believe that late (ie flameout) hops do add significant hop flavour and not just aroma.

 

[Duxuk]

I have been hopping at 60 mins with a little bit at 15 mins and a big whack at flameout plus dry hopping. In my last 2 brews I've added much more at 20 minuyes instead of a little bit at 15. The difference seems massive from my early tastings of the fermenting wort. A really good hop flavour, as I had hoped. Time will tell.

 

[Darcey]

Not fully convinced by that graph myself. A good visual aid but not sure what science or testing is behind it.

D :thumb:

 

[SimonS]

Interestingly, reading the Durden Park book, simply bittering then dry hopping seems to be what they did many moons ago - and what I will be doing for my historical IPA in the next week or so. Although I think the dry hopping was as a preservative more than for aroma/ flavour.

But why not give it a go and tell us all how it turns out?

 

[alanywiseman.]

FWH works by steeping the hops prior to boiling rather than purely extracting the hop oils at boiling point, but still extracts bitterness once the main boil is reached. It's a little like adding them at 0 mins, but boiling in...reverse...

Thanks for the correction Rob :thumb: I am going to need to go and read up on it now :geek:

 

[Darcey]

I was under the impression that adding hops at 1st runnings can keep foam down in the build up to boil. This can conserve glycoprotiens, particularly when using top filling the copper. These help with head retention? Hops then that get boiled deliver iso alpha acids (bittering constituent). Pretty much all aroma is lost via evaporation, thats my understanding.

D

 

[RobWalker]

mine only goes as far as what I've written - it could be wrong, the graph could be wrong - but a lot of home brewing is heresay and phooey, and I believe the only thing that speaks for itself is experience and opinion :lol:

hope somebody can clear up the sciencey part. Maybe I could brew a beer using only FWH, and dry hop half of it...

 

[Dr Mike]

The oft repeated theory behind FWH is that you get better hop flavour, perhaps because some of the flavour compounds are in sone way 'fixed' into a less volatile form by some reaction whilst steeping in the wort before boiling so less flavour is lost. This sounds sort of plausible but could be BS.

Only way to know for sure would be to do comparison brews with same bittering hop amounts added first wort in one and at boiling point in the other.

 

[zgoda]

Never got satisfying result from FWH but perhaps I used wrong hops, Saaz, Lubelski, Fuggle and Challenger. Flavour had unpleasant spicy background.

 

[RobWalker]

I must say I'd be happy to use any of those hops in abundance, zgoda. I've found it pretty effective when dealing with blunt instruments like northern brewer and citra :thumb:

 

[JKaranka]

I say thumbs up to bittering and dry hopping. One of my local breweries only does bittering, steeping and dry hopping (no late additions) and their beers are well tasty.