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.

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Question: Does Dry Hopping a Beer During High Krausen Produce a Organoleptic Difference. Note: If you’re like me, you had the confused puppy look with Organoleptic. Let me help ya, being, affecting, or relating to qualities (as taste, color, odor, and feel) of a substance (as a food or drug) that stimulate the sense organs. That helped me, hopefully that’ll help you also.

This one was an interesting experiment. The difference in the two carboys was the dry hopping schedule. As you can see in my notes. A trip interfered with dry hopping my second carboy, which I think threw it off a touch. But all in all the beers turned out reasonably well and it was not easy to distinguish between the two beers. I am afraid I wasn’t able to have the taste panel I really wanted to have, but you know that happens. I still have plenty of beer left, maybe I can update this post if I can get some other tasters on board.

Here is the tasting panel I held. Nine total testers, three of them picked the odd sample. One of the testers was determined to get it correct so she asked for another triangle test. Well unfortunately, she could not pick the odd sample on her second go around. After the opaque cups were tested, I gave each one a sample in a clear plastic cups. It was interesting to see how the difference in preference was when the samples were given in clear glasses.

Notes on yellow cup (odd sample):

• Slightly more hop forward
• Very Bitter, hop flavor astringent
• firm flavor

Notes on green cup:

• hint of hops, very similar to purple
• Strongest flavor of the three
• lighter, smells off

Notes on purple cup:

• hint of hops
• smooth, mild flavor

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