Diacytal rest and dry hopping

[scotchpine]

With no secondary, do you guys always wait till after your diacytal rest is over to start dry hopping or is it ok to combine the two? I usually wait but just wondered, in the interest of time saving. I usually crash cool before transferring also.

[Kbar]

That is a good question. I am eager to see what people answer. I usually wait till my numbers are down to final or close to final gravities, then dump the trub (conical) and dry hop, if needed. Let the fermenter warm up slowly in a different location of the house (cellar is 59F during winter) for the rest. Keg 1-2 weeks after this process, which is 3-4 weeks total fermentation time for a stanbdard ale, <1.060

[mtyquinn]

If your final gravity is just about done and your doing a d-rest just to make sure it's finished and cleaned up, I don't see why you wouldn't dry hop at the warmer temp. That being said, I have not dry hopped any lagers as of yet.

[MikeB]

I think it would be fine to combine the two. You may get a different character from the hops because of the elevated temp and active yeast, but I suspect any difference will be pretty subtle. Seems like a good experiment for house pale ale if you do DA rests on those types of beers.

I remember hearing Tasty describe his method many years back where he added added hops near the end of fermentation in order to scrub out any oxygen that gets introduced upon adding the dry hops. Not sure if this is still how he does things...

[Afterlab]

Like Kbar mentioned, I initially dry hopped in primary when fermentation was within a few points of terminal gravity so that the CO2 blowoff would continuously move the hop matter throughout the beer. I used WLP007 Dry English and yeast had already dropped like a ton of bricks at room temp while still in primary. So in this instance my dry hopping was running during the diacetyl rest. However due to the fact I used an English strain, my dry hop aroma is practically nonexistent because the oils and hop matter likely attached to a lot of the yeast cell walls that were in suspension during the diacetyl rest. Next time when I dry hop with an English strain I will cold crash it in primary after the diacetyl rest and dry hop in secondary with less yeast. Since there will be very minimal C02 to rouse the hops I will just swirl the carboy more often to spread the flavor around.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I dry hopped with WLP001 after a full 48 hour diacetyl rest, transferred and dry hopped in secondary with the hops, cold crashed and bottled. This resulted in a much brighter dry hop flavor.

Whichever way I decide to dry hop, I am going to make sure to leave all of my yeast sediment in my primary and not cold crash it until I am absolutely sure all of the diacetyl, acetaldehyde and various other unwanted compounds are cleaned up first. While you can certainly conduct a diacetyl rest in secondary, you have a lot less yeast available to do it, which could result in more residual diacetyl and possibly a longer span of time you need to effectively clean up those compounds.

[scotchpine]

I guess I'm wondering if the yeast that is working at D-rest level at this higher temp will drive off the desired aromatics of the dry hops.

[Afterlab]

Correct. As long as your airlock is bubbling a little and there is CO2 being produced it will drive off some of the volatile dry hop aromatics. It certainly won't drive off a large amount but you can counteract any of that by adding more hops or adding your dry hops on the second day of your diacetyl rest.

[scotchpine]

Yeah, I think I'll do that and just wait till it's done. I'd rather have a strong hop aroma than have it finish a couple days sooner. Thanks for the validation.