Cryo Hops vs T-90 Pellet Hops

Now if you were like me I never knew what the term T-90 pellet hops stood for. After a quick Google, I found it is the way the hop was processed and pelletized. If you want more details about this, you came to the wrong place.

Now, I’ve wanted to pull the trigger on the cryo hops. I’ve had them in my shopping cart multiple times and just never could go ahead and take the plunge. When I saw this experiment come down the pipe, I quickly jumped on it. This way I can try both versions and see if the cryo hops are worth my while. I will say this, I only have 1 hop spider. To make things as similar as they both can be, I didn’t use the hop spider. The clean up on the T-90 hops took almost 4 times the effort because of all of the vegetal matter that was left behind. Will this alone be worth it? Well the hop spider makes this much easier for me, so this isn’t too much of a big deal.

I’m beating myself up because I didn’t take pictures of my dual chilling setup. I split the wort into two pots. I must say that I was quite proud of what I did. Luckily I have two immersion chillers, two pumps, therefore I was able to rig a way to whirlpool the extra pot so I could treat each beer the same.

I ended up doing two tasting sessions with each participant taking a triangle test. One session had 13 participants, the other had 14. I was super surprised at the results. I only had 4 total tasters out of the 27 correctly guess the correct cup. This was very interesting, during the first session I thought it was it was a no brainer. The second session which was 9 days later, I don’t think I could tell the difference.

After I told the participants what the odd cup out was, a good majority said it was down to the odd cup out and the one they actually selected. Another interesting not is that I setup a jockey box at an event (where I had the 2nd session) and a couple of them tried the beers before hand without my knowledge and asked me if those beers were different. I gave some non committal answer to them and proceeded went on my way onto something else. When I gave the triangle test, they could not distinguish the odd beer out.

I really thought the cryo hops would give the beer a brighter and more hop flavor/aroma, but I believe the beers are very similar. Not much difference. Even with me knowing the variable, I don’t think I could pick out the odd sample.

This was a very cool experiment and I am glad I participated in it. Will I buy cryo hops from now on when doing my hoppier style beers? Probably not unless I find them on sale. It’s an awesome idea and yay technology, but in my opinion, I don’t see a huge benefit to it.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
12 gal 60 min 72.7 IBUs 7.0 SRM 1.050 1.011 5.1 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 18 B 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 50 5 - 10 2.3 - 3 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Malt (2 Row) US 20 lbs 86.96
Munich Malt - 10L 2 lbs 8.7
Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) 1 lbs 4.35

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Hallertau Magnum 1.8 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 11.8
Citra 1 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 13.8
Citra - LupuLN2 1 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 25.2
Mosaic (HBC 369) 1 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 14.9
Mosaic - LupuLN2 1 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 23.2
Cascade 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 7.8
Cascade - LupuLN2 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 12.8

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 17.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 17.00 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Phosphoric Acid 10% 1.00 tsp 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 152.1°F 75 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

Moved half of the wort into the Anvil Kettle. Chilled both worts to ~160 degress. Turned off wort chillers and recirculated for 20 minutes, then started chilling again. Both worts were around 120-130 when I started chilling again. Then it took approximately 30 minutes to chill to 68 degrees. Each carboy was pitched with US-05.

Triple Hopped Hazy Double IPA

I just brewed this triple hopped, hazy Double IPA, y’all! I’m just taking a silly jab there. I really don’t know what to call this beer. It’s hazy, it’s hoppy, it’s got a slight warming to it. Hey it’s beer! Brewed this beer with Henry and Brian. Henry found a recipe he liked and he tweaked it to his liking (mainly because we couldn’t find Galaxy hops that weren’t stupid expensive). Am I happy with it? It’s drinkable, and has become more drinkable everyday I pull some off the tap. When I first kegged it and pulled a sample a few days after kegging and dry hopping, but before it was carbonated, I was really concerned. I did some research on dry hopping in the keg and of course the Internet is right, am I right? You know since this post is on the Internet everything I write is true </sarcasm>. Ok, I’m done there, but anyways, I found that some people would get vegetal and grassy characters from dry hopping in the keg. By the way this is what I was perceiving I was not pleased at all. I pulled the keg out for about a week to hopefully extract some of those wonderful lupulin oils into the beer. Those qualities have seemed to have faded into the distance (whew!).

A few tasting notes on the beer. I think we have the malt profile down with this recipe. I want to put something other than 6 oz of Columbus into the whirlpool though. It is super earthy and dank, not the quality I was looking for in this beer. I wanted more fruit flavors in it. If I am to re-brew this I may use the same hop profile I used in the Wit Gone Indie recipe. Or another option is that I did buy a pound of Azaaca recently. It’s pretty bitter, as BeerSmith tells me it’s 110 IBUs. Woah! It’s not offensively bitter though and there isn’t too much malt sweetness to balance it out. The aroma of the beer is fantastic though. But how would you learn if you didn’t brew something you thought you couldn’t improve upon. Lesson learned. But this is not a bad lesson.

And another reason I’m having a bad relationship with this beer is oh my, what a brew day we had! Read my notes below on the massacre of a brew day it was. Not all brew days go well, do they? This one, well I was ready to break up once we were done.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
11 gal 60 min 110.0 IBUs 6.4 SRM 1.090 1.023 9.0 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Double IPA 22 A 1.065 - 1.085 1.008 - 1.018 60 - 120 6 - 14 2.4 - 2.9 7.5 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner Malt (Rahr) 26 lbs 68.42
Oats, Flaked 4 lbs 10.53
Wheat, Flaked 4 lbs 10.53
Caramel Malt - 20L (Briess) 2 lbs 5.26
Carapils (Briess) 2 lbs 5.26

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Columbus (Tomahawk) 2 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 17.8
Columbus (Tomahawk) 2 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 17.8
Columbus (Tomahawk) 6 oz 30 min Aroma Pellet 17.8
Nelson Sauvin 8 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 12
Citra 4 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 14.1
Mosaic (HBC 369) 4 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 12.3
Columbus (Tomahawk) 2 oz 0 min Dry Hop Pellet 14

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 17.75 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 11.13 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 7.81 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Baking Soda 3.33 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
London Ale III (1318) Wyeast Labs 73% 64°F - 74°F
SafAle English Ale (S-04) DCL/Fermentis 73% 59°F - 75.2°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 152.1°F 75 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

What an eventful brew day. Mashed in and there was absolutely no flow coming out of the mash tun. I back flush it with water. I got some flow, and then all of the sudden the flow stops. I try to get going again, let the wort settle down, no dice. We move the mash into one of the old igloo cooler mash tuns. Well, it doesn’t fit in the 10 gallon mash tun. AND! No flow out of that mash tun either!! UGH! I take apart the keggle converted mash tun to find that there is a HUGE amount of grain in the dip tube. UGH!! I see that the false bottom is bent pretty badly. I took a hammer to that thing and attempted to flatten it out. We then move the mash back into the keggle mash tun. BOOM WE HAVE FLOW! Then it comes to a dragging halt. WTF! Ok, Well, I throw my hands up. We’re at roughly 1.065, WAY off the 1.080 we should have been. I start draining the mash tun, then I put in all of the DME I had on hand which is roughly 21 ounces. After the pump seems to have finally pooped out, we scooped out all of the grain for Troy to use to make crackers with. I notice there is STILL a bunch of wort left in the bottom. I use a paint strainer bag in a 5 gallon bucket and we dump all of the wort and left over grain into it. Boom, we got roughly 2 more gallons of wort ouf of the mash that I wouldn’t have thought I got because the pump quit flowing.

Beer finished at 18 brix with 11 gallons of total wort