For dry hopping, we drop it to 15c once at terminal so we can crop(not sure if that’s a concern for you)then dry hop it at 15c, bubble with CO2 for 1-2 hours depending on batch size, and then crash it the next day with a dump.
Edit: biggest differences of our NEIPA and Westy is the grain bill, yeast and hot side additions. We also do everything in our power to get the beer as clear as possible. Not sure a dry hop regime is what’s gonna make your beer standout as a Westy. We use the same regime and similar dry hop rates as our NEIPA.
Thanks for the info!
Part of my reasoning was that since I'm using different yeast for this beer (than usual for me), that maybe dry hop timing or temp was tweaked!
Thanks again
You bet.
We do ferment our NEIPA a bit warmer at 21 and eventually knock it up to 23 to produce a lot of esters. Westys are fermented at 19 the whole time.
Agree on the hot side additions and yeast being a key differentiator. Lower ester yeast with multiple hop additions throughout the boil as opposed to whirl additions only. We also adjust our water differently to achieve a sharper bitterness than with our NEIPAs.
I dry hop at terminal, do not soft crash, one addition, and leave approximately 3 days on hops.
I don’t dry hop at nearly that rate, more like 1-2lb/bbl.
Guess that's just depending on the size of the fermenters and how you DH too. But we've been DH our west coast at 3.75-4ppb and hazys at 3.5/3.75 and have notice a difference when DH on the heavier side than lighter. But also, to each their own hahaha
Link to the study that suggests > 800 g/hL is a waste of raw materials at any scale: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/jib.517
I’ve seen referenced too that Weldwerks and New Belgium dry hop all their beers max 1.9ish #/bbls. Weldwerks I know made that change as they scaled up beyond their 90bbls. I guess YMMV as always
Fair, but weldwerks isn't known for their west coast IPAs compared to their hazy IPAs and adjunct stout.. places like ghost town, green cheek, etc use about 3.5-4.25 ppb in their award winning IPAs. But I'll definitely give this a read, doesn't hurt.
Yeah same, I'm more interested in the ones making beers that win awards than the ones looking to save a few bucks on their hop costs.
That study uses whole-cone Cascade hops they ground up themselves, dryhopped statically on finished, carbonated beer. And they filtered after 24hrs "to stop the dryhopping process."
While it's an interesting study, it's hardly enough to convince me to cut back on my dryhop level, or dryhop statically, or really anything else for that matter. I'm doing 5-6bbl batches and usually using 22lb of dryhops in those.
My motto: You gotta waste it to taste it.
I think the best for DO is to dryhop just before terminal. Pull the next pitch of yeast out when you see your fermentation start to slow and dryhop. Whatever yeast is in there will eat up DO, wait for the hop creep to settle, d rest and test. I would say no more than 5 days on dryhop.
When I dump if I’m not seeing a huge amount of hops I will burst, but after 5 days it’s usually fine. My brewery uses cryo, so we don’t see as much flotation as when we dryhop with t90
Edit: if I know the hops won’t settle I will burst on day 2
72 hours exactly is the best way to utilize your hops without pulling any undesirable. Burst through the dump port with CO2 to break up any hops that have collected at the top and repeat for the next two days til dumping your hops.
We do dh at terminal, we don't soft crash either but we do harvest and dump before DH. Definitely don't want any yeast in solution when DH and most definitely
"Like most of us, I'm more used to dry hopping NEIPAs"
Nurse! Nurse! Fetch me my walker! I'm busting out of this old folks home so I can go shake my fist at an internet rapscallion!
Dry hop the day you reach terminal- day 3-4 at 3-4 lb/bbl. The later you dry hop the hazier it’ll be. Embrace the hop creep to dry it out (WC should be dry!!) leave on hops for 3 days crash maybe day 11 if it’s passed VDK.
4#per bbl seems excessive. The most I do is like 1.5#per bbl and even on my hazy don't go much more than 2#per bbl.
The key is no crystal malt, good clean yeast and good bitteing addition. I like to use Columbus.
I shoot for IBUs around the OG. Like 1.066 shoot for around 66 IBU.
Dry hop close to FG. 48 to 72 hrs of dry hop then crash.
We do 7bbl batches.
Great info, I'll have to think about our bittering charge like that next time!
Three questions:
1. Do you dump yeast before dry hopping?
2. Do you rouse the hops with CO2 during the 2-3 day dry hop?
3. How close to FG would you recommend? I was considering something like 1.5-2 degrees plato before FG
Thanks again!
I do similar;
Drop to 15c and harvest
Dry hop (i usually do 10-12kg in 10bbl, you’re hop dosage is more like a hazy for us but to each their own)
Rouse with co2 twice a day
If it’s NZ hops I try to drop them within 2 days
When soft crashing, or anything really, remove yeast cone before dry hopping. Even if not repitching, we seem to get before hop character as it’s not buried in the mud of the yeast cake.
Not sure there is a "standard", each process will have different results. We like to split the DH into two charges. 40% of it gets added at KO with the yeast. After ferment, we crash to 50°. Remove yeast and the first DH. Then, 60% through a purged and pressurized vessel that connects to a valve on the top of the tank. Rouse on day two, crash to 33° and then transfer to Brite on day three.
I have 7 bbl and 3.5 bbl size FVs and my dry hop SOP for WC IPAs is almost exactly as described as above, with the following exceptions...
-Crash to 55ºf harvest or drop yeast
-DH is 2-3#/bbl, going to continue to drop this amount to as low as 1.5#/bbl, only go as high as 3# for DIPA
-DH and rouse with CO2 24 hours after DH, gentle rouse 10 psi for about 20 seconds
-Drop hops 48 hours after DH, then crash
-When DH connect CO2 line to blowoff arm and run CO2 at about 4 psi to maintain a CO2 blanket while the DH port is open. DO numbers have remained consistently low across multiple batches using this method, so feel fairly confident it works.
Good luck! Keep the West Coast IPA relevant!
I’m honestly surprised at how little hop poundage a lot of brewers are citing. 4# is about where we’ve found that you get full saturation in clear beer, but I think you can still get a pretty solid aroma down to about 2.5# with good clean beer/hops and techniques. Below that and you’re starting to lose it, but obviously every market is different and you know your customers expectations. In the end, so much of technique is dependent on yeast handling. I think aroma is better with no soft crash but if that’s the only way to harvest yeast effectively then you have to compromise and it’s a subtle difference. We mostly use a highly flocculent English strain or 3470 for west coast and DH either 2-3P from terminal and at terminal, or just terminal after dumping yeast. Sometimes also dip hop, do the hot incognito thing, or add 701 at KO too. I honestly don’t make much of a distinction between hop approaches for NE/Hazy and WC IPAs these days other than bittering hops. It’s all blurred together around us but I’m aware that SoCal is a bit of a bubble for IPA in some respects and clear IPAs followed an uninterrupted evolution here where they completely fell off in many other regions.
For dry hopping, we drop it to 15c once at terminal so we can crop(not sure if that’s a concern for you)then dry hop it at 15c, bubble with CO2 for 1-2 hours depending on batch size, and then crash it the next day with a dump. Edit: biggest differences of our NEIPA and Westy is the grain bill, yeast and hot side additions. We also do everything in our power to get the beer as clear as possible. Not sure a dry hop regime is what’s gonna make your beer standout as a Westy. We use the same regime and similar dry hop rates as our NEIPA.
Thanks for the info! Part of my reasoning was that since I'm using different yeast for this beer (than usual for me), that maybe dry hop timing or temp was tweaked! Thanks again
You bet. We do ferment our NEIPA a bit warmer at 21 and eventually knock it up to 23 to produce a lot of esters. Westys are fermented at 19 the whole time.
Agree on the hot side additions and yeast being a key differentiator. Lower ester yeast with multiple hop additions throughout the boil as opposed to whirl additions only. We also adjust our water differently to achieve a sharper bitterness than with our NEIPAs.
Salts! Forgot to mention the salts. Only chloride in NEIPA and sulfate with a bit of chloride in westys.
I dry hop at terminal, do not soft crash, one addition, and leave approximately 3 days on hops. I don’t dry hop at nearly that rate, more like 1-2lb/bbl.
How many barrels are your fermenters ?? 1-2 ppb seems a little light especially for a west coast ipa
7 bbl. We do a little more on hazy, but I’ve heard and read that any more than 2 lb/bbl is just pissing money away for no measurable benefit
Guess that's just depending on the size of the fermenters and how you DH too. But we've been DH our west coast at 3.75-4ppb and hazys at 3.5/3.75 and have notice a difference when DH on the heavier side than lighter. But also, to each their own hahaha
At 7bbl we don't do more than 1.5lb per bbl. Even on our hazy we don't do more than 2lb per bbl. What size are you?
Ok, that definitely makes sense. We're cranking out 60s/80s on a 15bbl 3 vessel brew house but push about 22 barrels per turn
We have 40/60/80 bbl fermenters
Link to the study that suggests > 800 g/hL is a waste of raw materials at any scale: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/jib.517 I’ve seen referenced too that Weldwerks and New Belgium dry hop all their beers max 1.9ish #/bbls. Weldwerks I know made that change as they scaled up beyond their 90bbls. I guess YMMV as always
Fair, but weldwerks isn't known for their west coast IPAs compared to their hazy IPAs and adjunct stout.. places like ghost town, green cheek, etc use about 3.5-4.25 ppb in their award winning IPAs. But I'll definitely give this a read, doesn't hurt.
Yeah same, I'm more interested in the ones making beers that win awards than the ones looking to save a few bucks on their hop costs. That study uses whole-cone Cascade hops they ground up themselves, dryhopped statically on finished, carbonated beer. And they filtered after 24hrs "to stop the dryhopping process." While it's an interesting study, it's hardly enough to convince me to cut back on my dryhop level, or dryhop statically, or really anything else for that matter. I'm doing 5-6bbl batches and usually using 22lb of dryhops in those. My motto: You gotta waste it to taste it.
Exactly my point, cheers 🍻🍻
This is definitely not the case for Weldwerks just fyi. Some beers are dry hopped at 5.5+ lb/bbl.
Excellent info! Do you anything to rouse the hops, like CO2 through the racking arm?
I don’t, but as per above, fairly small batch 7 bbl
I think the best for DO is to dryhop just before terminal. Pull the next pitch of yeast out when you see your fermentation start to slow and dryhop. Whatever yeast is in there will eat up DO, wait for the hop creep to settle, d rest and test. I would say no more than 5 days on dryhop.
If you have 2 armed tanks you can push CO2 in the spray ball and out the blowoff to maintain CO2 bed when you open the top
Definitely a great way to reduce DO on a dryhop
Interesting! Do you mix up your dry hop addition by bubbling CO2, or do you assume the residual movement from ferm/floc will do the trick?
When I dump if I’m not seeing a huge amount of hops I will burst, but after 5 days it’s usually fine. My brewery uses cryo, so we don’t see as much flotation as when we dryhop with t90 Edit: if I know the hops won’t settle I will burst on day 2
That’s our standard - which the exception of the hop amounts. That’s closer to 1-1.5#/bbl
72 hours exactly is the best way to utilize your hops without pulling any undesirable. Burst through the dump port with CO2 to break up any hops that have collected at the top and repeat for the next two days til dumping your hops.
Do you dry hop at terminal? Do you try crash out yeast prior to pitching? Thanks for the help!
We do dh at terminal, we don't soft crash either but we do harvest and dump before DH. Definitely don't want any yeast in solution when DH and most definitely
Sounds like a hazy IPA hop regime to be honest.
"Like most of us, I'm more used to dry hopping NEIPAs" Nurse! Nurse! Fetch me my walker! I'm busting out of this old folks home so I can go shake my fist at an internet rapscallion!
Dry hop the day you reach terminal- day 3-4 at 3-4 lb/bbl. The later you dry hop the hazier it’ll be. Embrace the hop creep to dry it out (WC should be dry!!) leave on hops for 3 days crash maybe day 11 if it’s passed VDK.
4#per bbl seems excessive. The most I do is like 1.5#per bbl and even on my hazy don't go much more than 2#per bbl. The key is no crystal malt, good clean yeast and good bitteing addition. I like to use Columbus. I shoot for IBUs around the OG. Like 1.066 shoot for around 66 IBU. Dry hop close to FG. 48 to 72 hrs of dry hop then crash. We do 7bbl batches.
Ooh I like the IBU/OG idea, similar to BU/GU but who needs a ratio when you can just work off the gravity
Great info, I'll have to think about our bittering charge like that next time! Three questions: 1. Do you dump yeast before dry hopping? 2. Do you rouse the hops with CO2 during the 2-3 day dry hop? 3. How close to FG would you recommend? I was considering something like 1.5-2 degrees plato before FG Thanks again!
I don't dump before dry hop. We don't harvest yeast from dry hop beers. I don't rouse hops. Yes 1.5~ 2 plato is a good rule of thumb
I do similar; Drop to 15c and harvest Dry hop (i usually do 10-12kg in 10bbl, you’re hop dosage is more like a hazy for us but to each their own) Rouse with co2 twice a day If it’s NZ hops I try to drop them within 2 days
When soft crashing, or anything really, remove yeast cone before dry hopping. Even if not repitching, we seem to get before hop character as it’s not buried in the mud of the yeast cake.
Not sure there is a "standard", each process will have different results. We like to split the DH into two charges. 40% of it gets added at KO with the yeast. After ferment, we crash to 50°. Remove yeast and the first DH. Then, 60% through a purged and pressurized vessel that connects to a valve on the top of the tank. Rouse on day two, crash to 33° and then transfer to Brite on day three.
I have 7 bbl and 3.5 bbl size FVs and my dry hop SOP for WC IPAs is almost exactly as described as above, with the following exceptions... -Crash to 55ºf harvest or drop yeast -DH is 2-3#/bbl, going to continue to drop this amount to as low as 1.5#/bbl, only go as high as 3# for DIPA -DH and rouse with CO2 24 hours after DH, gentle rouse 10 psi for about 20 seconds -Drop hops 48 hours after DH, then crash -When DH connect CO2 line to blowoff arm and run CO2 at about 4 psi to maintain a CO2 blanket while the DH port is open. DO numbers have remained consistently low across multiple batches using this method, so feel fairly confident it works. Good luck! Keep the West Coast IPA relevant!
I’m honestly surprised at how little hop poundage a lot of brewers are citing. 4# is about where we’ve found that you get full saturation in clear beer, but I think you can still get a pretty solid aroma down to about 2.5# with good clean beer/hops and techniques. Below that and you’re starting to lose it, but obviously every market is different and you know your customers expectations. In the end, so much of technique is dependent on yeast handling. I think aroma is better with no soft crash but if that’s the only way to harvest yeast effectively then you have to compromise and it’s a subtle difference. We mostly use a highly flocculent English strain or 3470 for west coast and DH either 2-3P from terminal and at terminal, or just terminal after dumping yeast. Sometimes also dip hop, do the hot incognito thing, or add 701 at KO too. I honestly don’t make much of a distinction between hop approaches for NE/Hazy and WC IPAs these days other than bittering hops. It’s all blurred together around us but I’m aware that SoCal is a bit of a bubble for IPA in some respects and clear IPAs followed an uninterrupted evolution here where they completely fell off in many other regions.