Another day. Another brew. I got a new personal record for brewing ; this week I brewed 1.023 Liters (±270 gallon) in total, spread over 2 batches. Wednesday I brewed an amber ale, 23 Liters at home. That is happily fermenting at this moment. And thursday I brewed together with ‘De Natte Gijt‘ at the ‘Weerter Stadsbrouwerij‘ a 1.000 Liters (±264 gallon) batch of Imperial Stout.

Amazing to work on a system with a volume like that! But, we did a great job even since it was a new experience for the both of us. And of course I made another time-lapse for my ‘A DAY AT THE BREWERY‘ series.

At the end of the day the wort had a great viscosity and a great aroma. I’m curious for the end product, but I will let you know on this blog or my Instagram!

Dry hopping
A brewer likes to talk about beer, possibilities and creative solutions to achieve a certain characteristic in the beer. While we where brewing we where sharing some thoughts about dry hopping and the usage of hops. And it made me think about dry-hopping my Amber ale at home that I brewed the day before. I have no experience on dry-hopping, but I did read a thing our two about the technique. Dry hopping is a hot topic in the brewing industry but I remember a quote that I once read.

“From a process efficiency standpoint, dry hopping is relatively foolish, but fools who want hops in their beer will do anything to get it.”

~ James “Otto” Ottolini

It is well known that pellet hops produces quicker results. The compounds and hop oils in pellets dissolve more quickly into beer then cones do. But there is still a discussion going on about the quality of aroma and flavor that results from dry hopping. Whole hops versus pellets. I know that a lot of breweries dry hop at a warmer temperature where the yeast is still active. Before they add the hops they remove the yeast slurry.

There is another well known technique for dry hopping and it’s called ‘The Slurry Method’ New Belgium Brewing uses this method; The brewers blend the needed amount of hops with 20°C de-aerated water, after an hour the slurry should be ready to transfer it into the beer. I have no idea about ratio water > hops. After the desired contact time of beer and hops the drain off the spent hops every 12 hours. Not sure if you can use this method on a homebrew scale but it’s worth a try!

At the end it’s all about the quality of hops that you use, how good the year was, the variety u use and even what type; whole leafs, type 45 or type 90 pellets. Very volatile.

But i’m curious what technique or method you use. How many grams of hops per liter or ounces per gallon? What contact time? Whole leaf or pellets? And what temperature do you prefer and why? With or without yeast? There are so many theories about it, but what gives the best result in your opinion?

A new experience and I learned a few things as well. Great day. Great job.
Have fun watching and let me know what you think. Cheers!

De Natte Gijt; http://www.brouwerijdenattegijt.nl/
Weerter Stadsbrouwerij (brewery owner); http://www.weerterstadsbrouwerij.nl/