Dry Hopping Kits

[mervynskidmore]

Hi lads and lassies. I'm just wondering what people are experiencing when dry hopping kits. I'm on my 3rd kit which was dry hopped. It's the craft range citra pale ale. I brewed it exactly by the instructions and there was a great hop smell from the fermenter when I was finished bottling the beer. I've had a couple now after 3 weeks in the bottle and I'm getting hardly any hop aroma at all. It's a shame really as the beer tastes pretty good already. This has happened with all 3 of my attempts at dry hopping. Is this the general consensus or am i messing something up? Could my chlorinated tap water be doing the dry hops any damage? Should i just buy 200 grams of hops and dry hop the bollocks out of my next kit? Does anyone have any idea how much hops they use in commercial IPAs?

[LordEoin]

That's weird. The craft range pale ale i brewed to instructions had a shed load of hop aroma.
I actually had to leave it age for a while to calm down for my tastes.
Find someone with a bit of judging experience and give them a bottle to taste/smell and see what they think. Maybe your nose is broken 

Take a look through the recipes on the beesmith page to get a feel for other people's dryhop levels:
http://beersmithrecipes.com/searchrecipe?term=American+IPA

[mervynskidmore]

Cheers, will check that out. It is weird alright, the beer tastes good but it's just lacking that zesty citrusy smell I love. I think next time I'm gonna get a cheap Coopers Australian Pale Ale kit and dry hop it with 200g of Cascade or Centennial just to see what happens. I was thinking when I got the Craft Range kit that 65g wouldn't be enough.

[gearoid]

I also brewed a Craft Citra Pale Ale and mine turned our seriously citrus and hoppy.
Tastes just like something from California.

[mervynskidmore]

No idea what happened mine so. Would the tap water have done it? Chlorine kill off something in the hops? I'm seriously getting no citrusy aroma at all.

[oconn]

is there any chance you are dry hopping to early while there is still active fermetation and the aroma is being pushed out? i dont have clorinated tap water but my bro in law in santry does and i cant even drink tea or coffee made from his tap water so maybe that could be the cause. maybe a campden tablet in the water  / try bottled water ?

[mervynskidmore]

I definitely waited for fermentation to have completed. I'm convinced it's the water now, will only use bottled in the future.

[oconn]

worth a try. a 200g dry hop would burn you nose id say.

[Qs]

What sort of bottles are you using and what temperature are you bottle conditioning them at? Oxygen and heat would be the first things I'd look for if I was losing aroma.

[mervynskidmore]

Using the coopers ox bar bottles. They're supposed to be pretty good. Conditioning at room temperature for 2 weeks and then store them in a cooler place. After doing a bit of reading I reckon it's definitely the tap water, won't be using it again in a brew.

[irish_goat]

You can dechlorinate the water by leaving it overnight. 200g of dry hop is a crazy amount and imo, a waste of expensive hops. I normally use about 60g of American hops and get fantastic dry hop aroma. I'd maybe try the bottled water and if that works, going forward I'd leave the fermenter full of your regular tap water overnight before you brew.

[pob]

You can dechlorinate the water by leaving it overnight.

True for Chorines, however a lot of the water is treated with Chloromines by local authorities.

These really need a Campden Tablet to clear; the standard 10" carbon water filters don't get enough exposure to clear them in one pass, you'd need two filters in series, and leaving overnight won't works and pre-boiling is a pita, so the lowly Campden tablet is your man.

[irish_goat]

You can dechlorinate the water by leaving it overnight.

True for Chorines, however a lot of the water is treated with Chloromines by local authorities.

From what I can read online, NI Water don't add chloromines, but, it also seems that chloromine can form between chlorine and ammonia in the treatment process. I might give NI Water a ring tomorrow and ask to be sure.