Author: Brian Hall

Dry hopping is a very popular method used by brewers to maximize hop aroma and flavor that involves adding a charge of hops to the beer at some point in the fermentation process. While often tossed in loose, some brewers prefer to encase their hops in a filter, which has numerous benefits including reducing the risk of clogged valves and diptubes as well well as allowing for harvesting of cleaner yeast. A common tool for dry hop filtration is the simple fabric bag, though likely due to the increased availability of wider mouthed fermentation vessels, stainless steel mesh filters are growing rapidly in popularity.

Despite the aforementioned benefits of dry hop filtration, it has its share of naysayers voicing concern about constrained hops not coming into contact with the beer or hop oils sticking to the filter, which ultimately reduces hop character. Interestingly, results from a prior xBmt on filtering dry hops with a fabric bag suggested it had little to no perceptible impact, and while this may have confirmed the suspicions of many a dry hop bagger, others were left wondering if similar results would be observed if the filter was made of stainless steel.

Having encountered the clogged keg problem numerous times, I’ve taken to using stainless mesh filters when dry hopping any beer that will be transferred with pressure in a closed system, and I haven’t really noticed any differences in quality. Interested to learn more, I decided to put it to the test.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between beers that were either dry hopped with loose hops or hops contained in a stainless mesh filter.

| METHODS |

I’m a big fan of all things hoppy and figured a nice West Coast IPA would work well for this xBmt.

Flathead IPA

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 60 min 64.7 IBUs 6.2 SRM 1.070 1.013 7.6 % Actuals 1.07 1.012 7.7 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 13.375 lbs 87.7 Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 1.875 lbs 12.3 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Columbus (Tomahawk) 9 g 60 min Boil Pellet 14 Magnum 9 g 60 min Boil Pellet 12 Warrior 9 g 60 min Boil Pellet 15 Amarillo 9 g 30 min Boil Pellet 9.2 Centennial 9 g 30 min Boil Pellet 10 Simcoe 9 g 30 min Boil Pellet 13 Amarillo 9 g 5 min Aroma Pellet 9.2 Centennial 9 g 5 min Aroma Pellet 10 Simcoe 9 g 5 min Aroma Pellet 13 Amarillo 113 g 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 9.2 Simcoe 113 g 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 13 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature San Diego Super Yeast (WLP090) White Labs 80% 65°F - 68°F Notes Water Profile: Ca 117 | Mg 3 | Na 10 | SO4 84 | Cl 168 Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

I began my brew day by collecting RO water and adjusting it to my desired profile before heating it with my sous vide machine.

Next, I weighed out and milled the grain.

When the water was slightly warmer than target, I transferred it to my 55 gallon/208 liter mash tun and incorporated the grains to achieve my desired mash temperature.

The full volume mash was left alone for a 60 minute saccharification rest.

When the mash was complete, I began collection of the sweet wort.

With the wort homogenized and split between a couple kettles, I began heating up then moved on to weighing out the kettle hops.

The wort was boiled for 60 minutes with hops added hops per the recipe, after which I quickly chilled it with my immersion chiller.

A hydrometer measurement revealed the OG of the wort was right on target.

I racked equal volumes of wort to identical Brew Buckets.

Using remnant wort, I made a couple starters with WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast that got pitched the following morning.

Both batches were chugging along a few hours after pitching the yeast. After a couple days of activity, I added the rather large dry hop additions to each batch, one unrestrained while the other was split between 2 stainless mesh filters.

With signs of fermentation waning after 2 weeks, I took hydrometer measurements confirming both beers were sitting at the same 1.014 FG.

I then racked the beers to CO2 purged kegs.

The beers were allowed to condition and carbonate in my keezer for a week before they were ready to serve to participants.

| RESULTS |

A total of 25 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each participant was served 2 samples of the beer dry hopped in a stainless mesh filter and 1 sample of the beer dry hopped loosely in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. A total of 13 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, though only 5 did (p=0.95), indicating participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish an IPA where the dry hops were contained in a stainless mesh filter from one where the dry hop charge was added directly to the beer.

My Impressions: Despite sampling these beers multiple times side-by-side and knowing everything about the variable, I was unable to tell them apart at all in multiple triangle tests. They both were super hoppy, refreshing, and a nice change from the hazy IPAs I’d been drinking so much .

| DISCUSSION |

With the whole point of dry hopping being to increase hop aroma and flavor, brewers are wont to avoid anything that might impede this, even if doing so makes for a more complicated or messy process. Containing dry hops in a stainless mesh filter certainly has its pros, and seeing as tasters in this xBmt could not reliably tell apart a beer made using this method from one where the dry hops were added loose suggests it may not have the cons some presumed.

Given how huge the dry hop charge was for both beers, it’s possible a saturation point was reached, which could potentially explain these findings. However, considering the results from this xBmt corroborate those from the previous bagged dry hop xBmt, it may simply be that dry hop containment isn’t as much of an issue as some think.

One avenue I’m interested to explore in the future has to do with the amount of hops packed into the dry hop filter. In this xBmt, 2 stainless mesh filters were used to ensure there was ample room for the hop material to float around even after expansion due to absorption. It seems plausible that filling a filter to the brim could lead to less beer contacting those hops at the core of hop slug and thus reduced hop character.

I filter my dry hops simply because clogged keg disconnects are a pain in the ass. Even if hop aroma and flavor were noticeably less, I would happily increase my dry hop rates by whatever amount to not have to deal with that shit. I’ll definitely continue using stainless mesh filters for dry hop as well as fruit, spice, or any other additions that could lead to a clogged valve or diptube. Because clogging sucks. Fuck clogging.

If you have any thoughts about this xBmt, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

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