Dry Hop Saturation Point

Craigerrr

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I have been reading a lot of Brulosophy recently, and came across an exBEERiment on dry hop saturation. I have it always been happy with the level of hop aroma in my IPA's, so this was really interesting. My most recent batch was dry hopped at 0.39 oz per gallon, the experiment ended up confirming that 1.09 oz per gallon seems optimum, any more is a waste of hops, and subsequently absorbed beer. I went directly to my freezer, weighed out some more hops, and did a second addition to a fermenting batch.

So, I don't have a question, but I am interested in whatever discussion this post may generate.

Cheers
 
I'm well within the saturation point every brew. But I can see how this is a handy gauge for hop heads to use as a limit to how much to dry hop.
 
Not sure about a defined saturation point, but there is definitely a point where diminishing return enters the equation according to the papers I've read.
 
Some of the papers I've heard discussed have definitely seen diminishing returns to some of the substances they've been tracking. They've also not seen drop off in some of the other substances. Some of the more harsh or tea like flavours keep increasing in the amounts they've tested.

You can also try and work around the drop off by multiple dry hopping. Though I'm perfectly happy with the flavours at a bit below the rates I see mentioned (6 g/litre is the one that I keep hearing, which I assume is the same as the imperial you mention).

The interesting one I'm hearing at the moment is the research into the sulphur compounds in hops, thiols. A couple of researchers (https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/145) were mentioning that amount of these compounds are so small they've been hard to research, but that the taste threshold is in the parts per billion, compared to the oils in the parts per thousand/million. These have a big effect on the tropical fruit taste of a beer and will wax and wane based on when the hops are harvested. So if you're going after that super juicy NEIPA...

Also the wine industry has been going after these compounds for a while and have been developing yeasts to encourage them. So there's people playing around with co-pitching with wine yeast to bring up these flavours So many possibilities and I barely have the time the focus on the standard stuff I want to do so I can't see myself playing around with much more than dry hopping rates.
 
I am keen to taste (actually smell) the difference made by adding a second dry addition to this batch. I added 4oz to 10 gallons (114grams to 38 litres) on Friday, per the recipe. These hops had dropped by Sunday night. After reading the Brulosophy suggesting that somewhere in the neighborhood of 1oz per gallon (roughly 8grams per litre) is optimal (meaning more is for not, but less is noticable) I chose to add more hops. Having brewed 10 gallons, and split it between two carboys, the scientific thing to do would have been to add the eXtra hops to only one fermenter... sadly, I am not that clever :(
 

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