Dry hopping is a great way to enhance the hoppy aroma of your home brewed beer. Real hopheads will tell you that in addition to boil and late hop additions, adding dry hops is a preferred technique for preserving a burst of delicate hop aroma for IPAs and other hoppy beers.
Hops are normally added during the boil to extract alpha acids that provide the bitter flavor needed to offset sweet barley malt in beer. Brewers also use late hop additions in the last 5-10 minutes of the boil to enhance aroma, but even this technique loses some aromatic oils that evaporate rapidly in the boil.
Dry Hopping
Dry hopping involves adding hops to the fermenter or keg after fermentation. Dry hops add no bitterness to the beer, but the technique does add fragile aromatic oils that are normally lost in the boiling process. Dry hops are allowed to soak in the finished beer for anywhere from several days to several weeks. The result is a burst of hoppy aroma.
Commercial craft brewers use dry hopping to enhance their beer including Anchor Liberty, Samuel Adams Pale Ale and Sierra Nevada celebration. Many drinkers prefer the distinctly floral hop aroma that dry hopping adds. On the con side, some drinkers perceive a “grassy” or “oily” flavor from dry hopping. The technique is appropriate for brewing beer styles with high hop rates such as IPAs, Pale Ales, some Stouts and California Common (Steam) beer.
Dry Hop Selection
The first question that arises when dry hopping is which hops to use? Aromatic hops with low alpha rates (6% or less) are considered preferable because these hops have a higher percentage of fragile aromatic hop oils needed for dry hopping. All of the noble hops as well as most of the low alpha aromatic varieties are appropriate.
Examples include: Saaz, Tettnanger, Hallertauer, Goldings, Fuggles, Cascade and Williamette. You should select a hops that matches the origin and beer style – an English Goldings hops might be appropriate for an English Ale or India Pale Ale for instance.
The next question is what form of hops to use: pellets, plugs or whole hops? Plug or pellet hops are generally preferred, especially for those using a glass carboy with a narrow neck. Getting whole hops in and out of the fermenter can be difficult. Pellet hops can cause some foaming when adding because, much like diet coke and mentos, the pellets have a large surface area that promotes nucleation of the CO2 left from fermentation.
Some purists prefer plug hops as they fear that the extra processing and compression of pellet hops may have an effect on the delicate hop oils and aroma. Personally I have noticed no significant difference between plug and pellet hops when dry hopping.
The amount of hops to use is largely a matter of preference. Between 1 and 2 oz (28-55g) per 5 gallons (19 L) is considered a moderate amount. Less can certainly be used if you are shooting for a mild floral aromatic, and true hopheads use as much as 4 oz of hops for 5 gallons for a burst of aroma.
Dry Hopping Methods
When should one add hops to the beer, and for how long? Some brewers add dry hops during primary fermentation, but most agree this can result in loss of precious hop aromas due to the steady stream of CO2 bubbling out of the fermenter.
The appropriate time to add dry hops is after primary fermentation has completed. Adding dry hops to the secondary maximizes the exposure without risking volatile aromas. A third option is to add dry hops directly to the keg, but this can result in some “grassy” flavors from overexposure as the hops may remain in the keg for months.
Some brewers use a mesh bag to make it easier to contain the hops and make them easier to separate from the beer later. Others merely separate the beer from hops carefully when siphoning later. Pellets tend to sink after a while, while whole hops and plugs tend to float. Obviously a bag is required for kegging your hops to keep the hops from plugging the keg.
The duration of dry hopping also varies widely. An exposure of several days is the minimum needed to extract aromatic oils. Most brewers dry hop for around 3 days. Those that add hops to a keg may leave the hops in contact with the beer for months. Some fear overexposure will add a “grassy” flavor, but I’ve never had a significant problem with this. However, current thinking is that you should avoid extended dry hop periods.
In these hop starved times, dry hopping has become a bit of a luxury, but an extra ounce or two added to the secondary can add a great burst of flavor for IPAs and other hoppy styles. Thanks again for visiting the BeerSmith Home Brewing Blog. Have a great brewing week.
Four to eight ounces of pellets is what I normally use to achieve significant post-fermentation hop aroma.
At eight ounces, you will lose up to a gallon of beer due to hop absorption. This is a reasonable trade-off as one will notice an immense and lingering blast of aromatics.
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What about just adding an ounce of hops near the end of the fermentation in primary carboy? I really like Chinook but its alpha is 11%: is that crazy?
Not at all – a lot of brewers are experimenting with high alpha hops for finishing as they have their own unique aromas and flavors. There is nothing wrong with using high alpha hops as long as you like the flavor/aroma they add.
Great article! In regards to sanitation, how do you sterilize the hop bag? The one I have is like a cheese cloth kind of thing. I’m using one step for cleaning, should I just soak it in that or should I boil it or just not do anything at all? Nice to see you still support these old articles. Cheers
I usually put it in a bit of sterilizing solution before use.
Thanks, I’ll do that
Hey, great site. Very informative! Just wanted to follow-up on gongult’s post from August 18th (re: dry-hopping with 8 oz. of pellets can absorb as much as 1 gallon of beer). Can anybody comment on the idea of steeping hops separately in regular water and then adding this to the beer later? What if you made a highly concentrated aqueous solution containing the hop aromatics and, let’s say, added this into the priming solution in the bottling bucket, then racked your beer into that mixed solution, and then bottled? You wouldn’t do this with boiling water, of course, but maybe lukewarm water for a few hours.
I’m pretty new to homebrewing so maybe this is impractical if kegging or brewing on large scale, but on the surface I can see a couple possible advantages with 5 gallon batches. First, you wouldn’t lose a gallon of beer…just water. Second, you could filter away the hops before combining with the beer, so there are no extra clogging or clarity issues. The only downside I can think of now is that you dilute your beer a bit, but if you keep the water volume low this might be negligible.
A second sort of related question is: does anyone have information on the boiling points for the aromatic compounds we’re all trying to preserve?
That was exactly what I was looking for. THANKS! I have another specific question. I have a tea tube infuser (like a whole leaf tea steeper found here: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13553_1-10449621-32.html). My thought is to fill this with whole (or semi whole) hops while drinking beer out of a glass. I read that three days would be the shortest exposure time would be around 3 days. If I were to fill this with hops and add it to my freshly poured beer, would it make a difference? Would you suggest pellets or plugs instead of whole hops? VERY interested! Even a little info would be great. If you know some of the chemical processes/reasons why this method would or would not work, I would appreciate reading about it. Thanks for your time and knowledge. Happy Holidays.
I’m a beginning homebrewer and have tried dry-hopping for first time on my current batch, a Lagunitas IPA Clone. I used an ounce of Cascade pellets and an ounce of Centennial leaf (homegrown). I put both in a stelilized mesh bag and forced it through the top of the carboy I use for secondary fermentation. I pushed the bag down into the beer with the end of a spoon, but the bag and contents are floating on the top, and much of hte leaf hops are appear to be floating above the surface. Is gently rocking the carboy periodically advisable, or likely to cause problems with the beer. Thanks.
Brad, what hop style would you recommend if I want a very high piney aroma and piney/citrus notes in my American-style IPA. I’m trying to clone a local brew and just can’t seem to match there flavor. All Extract. Thanks.
Hi,
That flavor usually comes from piny flavored hops such as: Chinook, Centennial, Cascade. Overall I think Chinook has the strongest pine flavor.
If you really want over the top pine flavor you can use spruce extract – but use it sparingly as it can be very strong in beer.
Cheers!
Brad Smith
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Hello Brad, I have dry hopped around 10 batches with cascade pellets and all have come out very good. Usually the airlock quits bubbling a couple day’s after dry hopping, but the current batch has bubbled for 8 days now. Just checked gravity and it is unchanged. The only difference between this batch and others is higher alcohol % & 1 more oz. of hops. My question is what is the normal amount of time before you should stop seeing airlock bubble?
Thanks
Steve
Not sure why it would still be bubbling. Sometimes you will see bubbling immediately after dry hopping as the hops release some of the CO2 from the beer. However I don’t think the dry hopping would cause it to bubble for 8 days.
Hi Brad,
I have a coffee stout (OG 1.078) in secondary and I would like to augment the flavor profile a bit by dry hopping. Can you recommend a hop variety that may be a good fit?
Thanks,
Julian
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hi i just brewed my first homebrew, an american Pale Ale, had it in Primary for 7 days and just transfered it to secondary, dry hopping with citra, the recipe i am using calls for 21 days in secondary. The original recipe does not call for dry hopping. Is 21 days too long to dry hop for? Thank you so Much!
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Hi Brad, I was thinking of experimenting with a stove top coffee perc to extract hop charcter to make a hop coffee then adding that to the secondary fermenter, any comment on whether this would work to extract flavour/aroma. Would you expect this approach to have much of an impact on bitterness . Appreciate your thoughts
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New to home brewing. So excuse me if I sound like a dummie. Is my beer in trouble if I dry hopped right after I chilled the wort? Is there anything we should do now? It’s been fermenting for 3 days now.
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Spencer…you should carbonate and drink your beer next :-)… in all seriousness and as you probably already know because you wrote this comment quite some time ago, your beer is not in trouble. You may lose some of your aroma and flavor due to the volatility of the compounds in the hop oils combined with off gasing during fermentation. Not a serious issue to get worked up over 🙂
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sterilize the hop bag before dry hopping by microwaving it for 90 seconds… do NOT microwave the hops, just the bag.
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Hi, I am not A primary and secondary brewer. (I can hear the gasps from here). I put my brew mix and brewing sugar into my barrel and leave it until the S.G is down and the beer is clear. Then I put the brew directly into bottles. When should I introduce the ‘dry hops’?
Michael
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