More Aroma Oil, Faster: The Dry Hopster’s Holy Grail

OSU tests IH pellets vs Cones for aroma intensity and oil extraction rates

OK. OK. You want more aroma. Do you dry hop with whole cone hops, or pellets? And how long? You’ve got limited capacity. Do you dry hop for a week, or something less than that?

Questions. For answers, where do you turn? A textbook? A magazine? Your buddy? The BA message forum? Google? Or do you just wing it?

We tried all of the above, but decided the questions were serious enough to warrant serious study utilizing the scientific method and the best available technology.

In short, we called Peter Wolfe and Dr. Tom Shellhammer at Oregon State University. They spent a year researching the questions. It’s pretty interesting, even for a liberal arts guy like me. In fact, it’s fairly startling.

We won’t post the study here, as it has not yet been published. But, for details, give us a call, and we’ll give you a closer look at the data. For now, here’s a summary.

* A 10 member sensory panel evaluated the intensity of dry hop aroma from Cascade pellets and whole cones and concluded that the pellets provided more intense aroma.

* Beer samples dry hopped for one day had significantly more aroma than beer dry hopped for 7 days.

* Irrespective of form (pellet or whole cone), the concentrations of hydrocarbon terpenes (eg, myrcene, humulene and limonene) peaked between 3 and 6 hours in dry hopped beer and then declined, while the concentrations of terpene alcohols (e.g, linalool and geraniol) continued to increase throughout the 24 hour dry hop extraction.

A few caveats.

First, not all pellets are the same. The pellets used for this study were supplied by us, Indie Hops, and we’ve previously shown that our pellets are different in terms of the average particle size, the diameter and the “bakedness” (our grist is extruded at between 106F and 115F).

We’re gratified to learn that our pellets produced about twice the intensity of aroma than whole cones. That’s huge! The conclusion reinforces what common sense told us: nature designed the hop flower to keep the oils “in”, not let them out, while IH pellets were designed by guys who wanted to get the oil “out.” We deliberately designed our mill to chop up the cone in bigger, coarser particles so that we could open up without pulverizing the oil-exuding lupulin glands.

Second, the rapid extraction rates were likely influenced by the temperature of the solution (23.3C, which may not be representative of real world conditions), and the hops were continually stirred. Although there’s been ongoing anecdotes and discussion about methods for agitating or recirculating/re-entraining hop grist in the tanks, we don’t have a reasonably available tried and true technology for re-suspending hops during dry hopping.

The research suggests, however, that the machinery needed wouldn't be too terribly difficult, and it only need to engage for a few days.

Third, the sensory panel consisted of 10 trained beer geeks who measured the aroma intensity on a scale of 0-15 based on the smell, not taste. To quantify the aroma compounds extracted (e.g., linalool, myrcene, etc), as well as the extraction rates, OSU used all the usual hi-tech stuff.

The take home: if you don’t have a torpedo, prefer (IH) pellets over cones, don’t have limited tank capacity and like big oily aromas, you’re not measurably losing anything, other than lore points, by not using whole cones.

And if you really love big oil, keep noodling and tinkering with new ways to keep those pellets circulating. And if you really love big oil but aren’t big, if you can keep those pellet particles suspended, you might also be able to save money by shaving 3-4 days from the standard dry hop schedule.

In the meantime, we’ll keep asking the questions.

RGW
2/29/12

The name of the unpublished manuscript is: “Dry Hop Aroma Extraction and Sensory Evaluation Report on Phase II dry hopping experiments,” by Peter Wolfe and Thomas H. Shellhamer, Ph.D, Dept. of Food Science and Technology, OSU, Corvallis, Or. (1/2012).

Note: Check out these Guth Portable Agitators used for mixing, stirring and homogenization of liquids such as wine. Could the same technology be modified for use in agitating hops during dry hopping?

Up and Comer Noah Regnery Reaches the Top and Beyond in Break-Out Year for Pizza Port

San Clemente, CA. Six years ago Noah Regnery was washing dishes at the Pizza Port in Solana Beach. Today, he’s brewing Gold Medal winning IPAs at the Pizza Port in San Clemente

Noah’s also the 2010 GABF Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year. But you wouldn’t know that sitting at the bar. No placards. No framed trophy shots. Not even a grease pencil shout-out on the dry-erase board. In fact, when I brought up the golden moment, the startled customers at the bar erupted in jubilation. They knew they were in the presence of greatness, but they didn’t know just how great.

“Really!?!” shouted Sherries, a dedicated local with a winning tan and smile to match, reaching out to an aw-shucksy Noah for a high five. “That’s awesome!”

Noah beamed. Two Golds in two of the toughest categories. He said he still gets shaky thinking about the awards show, showing me his trembling fingers. “A total shot in the dark,” the 27 year old brew hipster and prodigy said. “I had zero expectation. I mean, Man, I was going up against these legends…giants… like Matt Brynildson. His Union Jack just rocks. And Vinnie, with his Blind Pig. And Ballast Point… I’m like this kid who just stumbled in, dazed and confused, just happy to be there.”

“I mean, I liked my beer. Jeff [Bagby, his boss] liked it,” recalled Noah, talking about his “Pseudo” IPA, which was his invention, and his Doheny Double IPA, which he inherited at the San Clemente pub when he took the head brewer job there four years ago. “But sometimes I wondered whether I knew what I was doing. Winning the gold medals told me I must be doing something right.”

Noah credits Jeff Bagby for his rapid rise to success (in 2009 Noah won the Gold for his Oatmeal Stout). “Jeff’s an awesome mentor. He gives me the freedom to experiment and he’s always there to answer questions and offer support,” said Noah, who’s been the head brewer at the San Clemente pub the last three years. “I’m stoked to work here. Not to take anything away from the bigger brewers, but I like the intimacy in a small pub, where I get direct feedback from my customers” – a quote that met with thunderous applause from his adoring self-styled “peanut gallery.”

What’s next for the 27 year old Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year? “Right now I’m just focused on my customers,” forlornly noting that due to size limitations (a 15 bbl system) he hasn’t been able to quench the thirst of his faithful flock who’ve been patiently waiting for his Pseudo and Doheny Double IPAs the last few weeks.

Pizza Port San Clemente doesn’t bottle and doesn’t intend to in the foreseeable future, which doesn’t seem to bother Noah a bit. Noah uses about 5 pounds of hop pellets per barrel in his IPAs. In the past three years he’s seen his volume increase from 400 barrels in 2007 to 700 barrels in 2009. This year he anticipates 800 barrels and is about maxed out.

What’s Noah looking for in hops? Like most, he never thought much about how or whether the design of a pellet influences the flavor and aroma. Like most, when ordering, he never specified the size of a pellet, nor the grind. Like most, he assumed that pellets were pellets and his suppliers must know what they’re doing. I brought a few pellets from our 2009 Oregon Goldings supply and Noah trotted out the same variety from his supplier and we did the “plop plop fizz fizz test,” dropping an equal amount in cups of hot water and room temperature.

On contact, our hops floated and expanded before settling, while the others dropped to the bottom much faster, where the tiny hop particles quickly formed a silt bank. After watching the pellets behave in their respective cups, I asked our champion for his candid, unvarnished opinions.

“If you were charged with designing a pellet, for either the boil or dry hopping, how would you do it?”

“I’d do it like that,” Noah said without hesitation, pointing to the cup of Indie Hops’ blooming green tea. There was nothing “dazed or confused” about that answer.

“Next question. Take a whiff from each. What pellets would you prefer?”

“I want that,” Noah intoned, as in a trance, again pointing to the IH concoction.

Since the peanut gallery was engrossed in the testing, we passed around the hop teas for their sensory review. “Wow” was the consensus. “Yours have a pleasant, hoppy aroma. The other’s flat.”

Can a gold medal winning brew get better? We think so.

Congratulations to Noah and Pizza Port, which, when you factor in the Carlsbad pub brewery, racked up a jaw dropping 9 medals at the 2010 GABF. Noah’s real-deal “Pseudo” IPA will be tapped, if all goes well, in about two weeks (artistic creation doesn’t obey deadlines). Mark your calendar and get there early and stay late – I’ve got a feeling Noah’s fan club is about to break out.

Roger Worthington
10/4/10

Interview with Hop-Happy Hipster Kevin Buckley, Master Brewer for BackStreet Brewery

“The only educated man is a self-educated man.” Mark Twain

VISTA, CA. Kevin Buckley creates beers like a chef cooks up dazzlingly delicious entrees. He borrows the best traditions from the masters before him, but now and then, when the spirit moves, he adds a little something special of his own. In his words, it’s all about associating the brewer’s personality with his beers.

Kevin’s a likeable, knowledgeable, self-taught sort of hipster (yes, his head’s adorned with the usual pins, spikes and rings). But he’s not exactly an easy going surfer dude. He leans more towards the mindset of the perfectionist, with a readiness to make do with the ingredients and equipment in front of him.

At the tender age of 28, Kevin’s the master brewer of Back Street Brewery in Vista, California. His training was, like so many craft prodigies, far from typical. He didn’t learn the brewing arts at famed Siebel Academy, but he did toil a few years at a brewery in Iowa under two Siebel grads. “I just read their books and manuals on my own,” he said with the satisfied grin of an artisan jack-of-all-trades.

Kevin’s been brewing for Back Street since April. When he arrived in April, Back Street had about four in-house brewed beers on tap. Today, Back Street offers between 8 and 10 taps of it’s own hopped creations.

Vista is in North County, near Stone Brewing, Green Flash and Lost Abbey, all progenitors of big bold beers. Not surprisingly, when Kevin took the job after a stint at Alpine Beer Company, Kevin’s first order of business was to bring home an Imperial IPA, the signature bourbonesque brew of San Diego (by the way, Kevin is an avowed fan of bourbon).

Kevin, who grew up wanting to be a chef, loves hops the way a pastry chef loves sugar. He uses lots of hops – in fact, ton’s of them. He brews using a vintage, 1990-ish Bohemian 21 BBL kettle and a series of 15 bbl capacity fermentation tanks. For his Rydin’ Dirty Rye IPA, he uses about 3 pounds of hop pellets per barrel. For his Ali Rae Imperial IPA, he uses a whopping 5.5 pounds per barrel! My mouth waters at the thought. Ok, I admit it’s watering partially because both of those weighty concoctions showcase Indie Hops’ Cascade and Centennial pellets, and heavens they’re tasty!

Since his arrival at Backstreet only 6 months ago, Kevin has doubled the output from around 250 barrels per year to a pace that will generate about 550 barrels per year. He does it his way: no assistants, not much mentoring, and very little oversight. He doesn’t have a filter or hop back, so he improvises. He’s a quick study with a brain like a sponge, eyes like a hawk and ears like a cat. He’s confident, but far from cocky. He’s humble, but clearly unafraid to push the envelope.

I caught up with Kevin at Back Street the other day. He’s been buying a fair amount of our hops and I wanted his feedback.

RGW: Tell us about your experience with using Indie Hops pellets for dry hopping.

KB: I heard about your coarse design and wanted to check it out. When I opened the foil, I sensed right away a difference. Your hops were thicker and oilier. They looked greener and fresher. It was always a mystery to me why Type 90 pellets were so fine and tiny – they just tended to sink to the bottom and sit there. Yours didn’t quickly settle, they sort of bloomed, like you’d expect of a flower.

RGW: What about the aroma?

KB: Your Cascades have that quintessential floral, grapefruity aroma. When I brewed with your Cascade whole leaf hops, the brew house filled with that special aroma, the way a kitchen fills with that smell of homemade cookies in the oven.

RGW: How did you add the pellets to your tank? Did you use a bag or drop ‘em right in.

KB: I use a small muslin bag when I pull off casks. But for dry hopping, I just poured them from the top. Your pellets are slightly bigger than average, so I rigged up a White Labs’ Yeast jug, which has a 2 inch diameter pour spout which matches up with the portal on the roof of our tank. Just weighed out what I needed and poured ‘em right in.


RGW: Do you do anything to recirculate or re-entrain the hop mash after it has settled?

KB: I usually ferment for about a week and dry hop for two. Every few days dry hopping I would rouse or blast CO2 for a few seconds through the bottom. I’m mindful that CO2 may impact the aromatics of the hop oils but I haven’t detected any off flavors. On balance, between a pump and the CO2 to rouse, it’s more efficient for me in terms of labor and sanitation to rouse the tanks every 2-3 days, so you get that contact with the hop plant surface area. Sort of like a tea bag: you want to let it steep but then punch it a few times to draw out as much oil and flavor as you can.

RGW: Any drainage issues?

KB: Nope. I just draw out the hop sediment and divert it to the drain into the public sewer. It’s not a problem, although the drain screen wasn’t exactly designed for a thick mash of hop sludge.


RGW: So what are you looking for from your hop suppliers?

KB: Two things: an open line of communication and dedication to quality. Look, I know we’re not a huge account. That’s why we need quality hops, so we can attract more customers. When I have a question, or an issue, I’d like for my supplier to listen. For example, at a different brewery, when I opened up the bags, I had to pre-sift the whole hops for sticks, stones, stems, wires and debris. In fact we thought about collecting all the junk in a bucket, weighing it, and asking for a refund!

Another example: with our Amarillos, we were getting a steady stream of seeds. The seeds were clogging up the screen filter in our heat exchanger. We need hops that are as seed-free as possible. They can clog, but the tannins can also deliver funky off-flavors.

In any case, the attitude from our supplier was dismissive. Yeah, I know, we’re not a huge brewer, but I don’t get it. If I brew a sucky beer, I lose business and they lose another customer purchasing their hops.

I’m not a big fan of the Starbucks, ‘standardized mediocrity’ model. Craft brewers need a supplier who will charge a fair price – not $21 a pound for Cascades! And don’t get me started about storage fees. We need a hop supplier who focuses on flavor, aroma and oil. I think it’s great that Indie Hops has come along to help fill this niche.

RGW: Well, thank you sir. What do you think Indie Hops could do better in terms of its pellet design?

KB: Well, every brew system is slightly different. The bigger the tank, the more challenging it is to simply drop pellets through the roof for dry hopping. We don’t have a hop back or filter, so I’m sure those might present challenges if you want to design an even bigger diameter pellet. Overall, I like the idea of preserving as much of the lupulin as you can. It’s sort of like what the doctors tell you about vitamins: it’s better to get your Vitamin C from real fruits and veggies than relying on a pulverized pill.

RGW: What do you like most about brewing?

KB: The feedback. Nothing sweeter than the smile on a satisfied customer. That smile doesn’t come from magic. A lot goes into making a beer special: quality ingredients, perspiration, inspiration and a bit of luck. It’s great to get paid for doing what I enjoy. I love being a part of the craft beer movement, a competitive but incredibly cooperative industry. I suppose like any brewer I want to earn the respect of my fellow brewers and one day, like Vinnie, or Jim Koch, or Sam Calgione or Ken Grossman, maybe Kevin Buckley will have his line of signature beers.

At about that time – around noonish -- an elderly couple ambled in and took a seat on the bar. The wife robustly ordered an IPA, offering: “We were just up in Mammoth at the Bluesapoolooza. We tried your beer up there, loved it and decided to track you down.” This is how the revolution is won, one satisfied customer at a time.

Roger Worthington
8/19/10

Indie Hops’ Open House: A Celebration to Usher in the 2010 Harvest

HUBBARD, OR. In the heart of Oregon’s hop country, Indie Hops unveiled its clean, green pellet mill to over 100 craft brewers, hop farmers, OSU and WSU ag scientists and even a few of our competitors last Friday. After plying our guests with BBQ and beers, we cranked up the space age mill and it didn’t blow.

It did, however, to the delight of all, convert a bale of Cascade hops into big, fat, oily Type 90 pellets. As one brewer commented, “They kept crowing about their pellet die temp being under 110F and they delivered. We gunned their pellets at 106F.”

Special guest Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Or), himself an avid home brewer, delivered a rousing speech to the faithful in which he lauded craft brewing as “a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy.” Rep. DeFazio made no bones about it: he’s proud to help nurture a growing industry that generates thousands of jobs at a time when the largest brewer in the US is foreign-owned (InBev/Bud).

It’s well known that Oregonians tend to support their own. Almost 40% of the beer brewed in Oregon is consumed within the state – a testament to brand loyalty as well as customer sophistication. And small in-state breweries own about 11% of the market share in Oregon, the highest in the US.

As Jim noted in his opening remarks to the faithful, "Oregon has it all. We’ve got the soil, water and climate. We’ve got some of the best brewers, the best hop farmers, and the smartest hop scientists in the world. And now Oregon has its own hop processor and we pledge to rise to the same standard of excellence that you have set."

Of course, even the best aroma hops terroir has it’s hiccups. This season was a wet one in the Willamette Valley. The rainy Spring finally did surrender to the sunny skies of Summer, but only recently. (By the way, aroma hops thrive in cooler weather). Insect pressure has been light. Mildew was a potential threat but it stayed manageable. Aphids never posed a serious threat and, thanks to cooler temperatures, the spider mites were kept at bay. The cooler summer has allowed our beloved cones to achieve their iconic plumpness.

The scuttlebutt among the Oregon farmers is that, thanks to the surge in sunshine, we should have a decent – but not banner --harvest, although for certain cultivars it might be delayed about a week. The following is a snapshot of the anticipated harvest for select varieties:

US Tettanger -- August 16-18th
Centennials -- August 18-20th
Willamettes -- August 23ish
Sterling -- September 3-6.
Cascade -- September 6-8th.
Mt. Hood -- 1st week September

As the venerable Val Peacock, Ph.D, recently advised in The New Brewer (July/Aug 2010), brewers are advised to visit the farms from which they purchase their hops. We agree – and we’ll add to that sage advice our own admonition that you ought to get to know your pellet millers and walk their shop. At Indie Hops, we’d be happy to arrange for you to visit the Goschie and Coleman hopyards.

Check for yourself the quality of the hops, the cleanliness of the farms and machinery, the timing of the harvest, the status of any mildew or pest problems, and the operation of the drying rooms. After a tour of the hopyards, we’d be pleased to escort you over to our nearby plant and perhaps run a few bales for you. We’ll provide the earplugs, but even though we tend to get carried away with our pellet design and quality, we’ll ask in advance that you not insert them until we flip the switch.

Thanks to everybody for joining us in the celebration of Oregon’s first pellet mill. We’re very pleased to join the craft beer revolution and we appreciate your support and feedback. Special thanks to Bridgeport, Lucky Labrador and Full Sail for bringing the beer.

Roger Worthington
8/9/10

Less is More – Larry Sidor, Deschutes Brewery’s Head Hopster

Larry Sidor is a whole hop guy. It’s basically non-negotiable. Having worked for a Yakima hop merchant and an industrial brewer back in the day, Larry has seen first-hand the ravages that processing inflicts upon the noble flower. The Master Brewer for Deschutes who has brought us Abyss, Dissident, Red Chair IPA and Green Lakes Organic Ale (my personal favorite) is a big fan of fresh, wholesome ingredients.

“As a rule, the less we tamper with it, the more I’ll probably like it,” he says.

So you can imagine my trepidation as I walked inside the Deschutes Brewery in Bend with my cooler of hop pellets to meet up with our hop purist. As I told one brewer earlier about my hop ambitions, my goal is to one day create a hop pellet that earns the blessing of Larry Sidor, the High Hop Priestess. I was of course prepared for a polite but firm woodshedding.

What I got instead was a captivating tutorial by a man who not only knows his craft but is eager to learn more. Although Larry is a stickler for whole cones, occasionally, when a beer screams out for pellets (and he's a few bales short), he will listen. Larry had on hand four pelletted varieties from four different suppliers: three from Yakima and one from Germany.

The first noticeable difference was the diameter. Yakima numbers 1 and 2 were 4 mm diameter, Yakima #3 was 6 mm, and the French variety was also 6 mm. Our pellets were 6 mm, and in general they were longer.

The second detectable difference was the Yakima varieties were harder and more baked. A few showed tell-tale signs of “rat-tailing,” a new word I picked up which, as Larry, explained, meant a harder “shell” on the outside of the pellet, indicating excessive heat during pelletization. As previously reported, Indie Hops has been able to lower the temperature at the die of it's spanking new 'patient' pelleting mill without coolants to 104F – 110F, whereas the Yakima standard is 130F.

Third, the Yakima varieties crumbled into a fine powder, the French pellets broke up into a coarser grind, and the IH pellets offered the coarsest grind. I asked the Hop Oracle about the importance of the coarseness of the pellet grist to the craft brewer.

“You have to go back to the beginning. We started pelleting hops back in the mid 1960’s for one reason: whole hops occupied too much valuable space, which translated into higher shipping and refrigeration costs. By increasing the bulk density, we could store and ship more pellets at a lower cost. But the downside was a loss in hop quality.”

“There’s nothing magic about a 4 mm pellet. The smaller the grind, the more cut surface, which means more leaching of vegetative materials into the beer,” Larry rolled on, clearly enjoying his platform. “The English have used ‘plugs,” which are about 25 mm, which they inserted into the bunghole of the cask, but I’ve never seen them produced in the US. A puck-sized pellet with a coarser grind would be … interesting.


We then dropped the hop pellets into a pint half-filled with hot water. The IH brew had the biggest fluid absorption and fiber expansion rates. The pellets on contact sort of blossomed like a dehydrated chili of Brussels sprouts (or, maybe, like a chia pet?).

Next, we performed the flagpole test: we stuck a butter knife in the center of each solution to see if the mass was dense enough to hold the utensil firmly upright. The only Hell Broth to survive the “ramrod salute” test: Indie Hops. Thicker is richer.

Next we compared the pellet fiber expansion with the Real Deal, a cup of compressed whole hops (see photo below). During dry hopping, Larry puts the cones into a bag which he secures to the bottom of the tank. As he explained, the ethanol and Co2 in the wort combine to help extract the lovely oils from the lupulin.

Larry posited that a whole cone is better able to preserve the precious lupulin glands by virtue of a sort of “anti-oxidant barrier” contained in the tannins. “When you chop up the hop and rupture the glands, the only shield left is the foil used to bag the pellets,” he said, again in the easy manner of a professor with a boatload of diplomas. “The outer bracts of the whole cone, as well as the in tact membrane of the lupulin gland, provide a natural barrier to oxidation.”

This struck me as an interesting notion, the idea that the cone’s skin of natural anti-oxidants served to insulate the lupulin from degeneration. After class adjourned, I did a bit of digging. First, a bit of hop morphology. Most of the tiny, grandular lupulin glands are located at the base of the bract but others are scattered on the external bracts (or scales). Preserving all of them in tact sounds awfully difficult. The process of picking, drying and then tightly compressing the flowers into bales inescapably ruptures the glands, not to mention the agitation that occurs during transportation and storage.

In sum, a pristine hop for the commercial brewer is a worthy goal but, practically speaking, highly unlikely. At the same time, proper handling of the cone should be able to provide some measure of protection to the internal lupulin glands congregating in the heart of the cone.

Second, the theory that the flower’s natural anti-oxidants coat and insulate the glands from the ravages of heat and air has an elegant appeal, but is it supported by science? I’m not sure, not because I’ve ever done any hop research, which I haven’t, but simply because I don’t know.

I’m a big fan of tannins conceptually, which contain the powerful flavonoids quercetin and xanthohumol, but it’s my impression that the tannins are a chemical constituent inside the leaves and stem; they are not a structural component, nor are they located inside the glands. And, of course, while tannins offer promise neutraceutically, they don’t endear themselves to good tasting brews.

What does make sense is that the anti-oxidants, if they can survive whole cone or pellet processing, could contribute to the storage quality of the plant material. I’ll have to talk to my friends at OSU about that. Good hop food for thought.

In a nutshell, it’s hard for humans not to disturb the noble flower. To prove the point, Larry trotted out a foiled brick of Hallertau Saphir whole cones from Germany, which looked like it had been processed at the bottom of the Mid-Atlantic trench. In the effort to maximize bulk density, the Deutsch processor essentially crushed the cones flat as silver dollars, which doesn’t bode well for either the lupulin glands or the brewer trying to carefully measure out a quart or two.

Larry Sidor’s enthusiasm for hops and brewing is contagious. As my partner Jim says, “The day you stop getting better is the day you start getting worse.” Jim’s the son of a famous high school football coach, so his cornball fire-up clichés are forgivable. In a good but inspirational way Larry exemplifies this ballyhooed spirit of forever striving for higher quality.

”I’ve seen pellets from 2 to 4 to 6 to 7 millimeters. Why not pellet at 10 to 12 millimeters, or bigger?” Larry suggested, his mind churning with strategies for challenging the status quo. “I’m excited about the coarseness of your pellets, but why stop at a few hundred microns? Why not remove the screen from your hammer mill altogether? That would be perfect.”

“Perfect” as is in more like a whole cone. Larry, thank you, we’re on it. We’re here to challenge the pellet orthodoxy which elevates bulk density over oil preservation. Meanwhile, get ready to test out our new bigger and coarser pellets, you may be pleasantly surprised…

Roger Worthington
6/14/10

Do Your Pellets Pack Enough Punch? Field Testing from Pizza Port Carlsbad

I dropped by Pizza Port in Carlsbad, California this week to conduct a little impromptu field research with award-winning master brewer Jeff Bagby. The mission: compare Indie Hops’ type 90 pellets with that of the competition.

As reported, we’ve designed a state of the art pellet mill that’s sized and scaled to meet the needs of craft brewers. We’ve increased the average particle size of the grist and lowered the temperature at the pellet die in order to minimize damage to the lupulin glans, home of the rich and aromatic hop oils. We designed the mill with the goal of converting the form of the noble flower without excessively oxidizing the oils.

Pizza Port is near and dear to me. My wife and I have coached our kids for many years in basketball and soccer, respectively, and we wouldn’t think of holding our team “banquet” anywhere but their brewpub in San Clemente. The adults get to drink great craft beer (including outrageously awesome guest taps) and the kids get to run amok with all the root beer they can guzzle

At the 2009 GABF, Jeff won an amazing seven medals and Pizza Port Carlsbad was awarded the Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year. Not only does Jeff have the accolades, he’s also an incredibly polite, humble and decent guy who clearly loves his work.

Despite being pulled in about 12 different directions on a typically helter skelter brewing day, Jeff was kind enough to help me conduct a “field experiment” of sorts. I brought with me ice cold samples of our 2009 harvest, Oregon-grown Centennial and Liberty pellets. From Pizza Port’s cold storage, Jeff scooped up a jarful of pellets from the same harvest and variety, both from another supplier.

And thus began the adventure.

Does Size Matter?

The first noticeable difference was the diameter of the respective pellets. Our pellet diameter was ¼ inch; the other’s was 1/8. When we opted for a bigger diameter, our theory was that the less grist exposed to heat during pelleting, the less oxidation of volatile oils. As we’ve come to learn, the bigger the better.

Jeff broke up the pellets. IH’s pellet, he noticed, had a gummier, oilier feel and did not deconstruct into a fine powder. After concentrated finger work, the pellet broke up into small clumps. The other pellet was a tad harder, and the grind was far finer.

The Verdict: “The IH pellet feels stickier, gummier, and fresher. You can feel the oiliness.”

The Solution Dilution

Jeff then weighed out equal amounts of the respective hops and dumped them into pints of hot water. Both broke apart and dispersed at about the same rate. The IH pellets seemed to be more buoyant. They behaved, as Jeff observed, more like leafs from a flower, suspending longer and floating at the top. After a few minutes of settling, the other hop appeared to increase its density at the bottom of the pint a little more rapidly.

The Verdict: “The IH hop tends to resemble a whole flower when it hits the hot water. It’s a bit more buoyant, and there’s less water separation.”

The Exploding Flower Factor

The density of the hop-shake was substantially different. IH’s pellets blossomed into a thicker solution that resembled a creamy-clumpy milkshake. You could literally float a quarter on top of the IH “shake.” The other’s hop solution was thinner.

I had heard that the original sizing of the particles and circumference of the pellet was driven by the notion that a thinner solution would be easier to wash down the drain after the wort was sent to the heat exchanger. Jeff theorized that the thickness of the IH hops would not pose any sort of clogging problem. “We drain our hop residue into the public sewer system, which I’m sure can easily accommodate a coarser hop grind.”

The Verdict: “The Indie Hops pellets were like a thick Texas chili; the other was more like pea soup.”

What about the aroma?

Finally, the aroma. First, a disclosure. Jeff has been a brewer for over 10 years and he has been using The Other Guy’s Centennial pellets for at least that long. He is accustomed its aroma and uses their pellets in his award-winning Shark Bite, a hopped up IPA which is the beer I usually order when I bring my family to Pizza Port up the road in San Clemente. The point: Jeff is both accustomed to this hop and obviously satisfied with it.

Now then. Jeff noted that The Other Guy’s Centennial hop brew exuded a “sharp, skunkier, marijuana aroma.” The IH pellet, brew by comparison, had a “more herbal, spicy, peppery” aroma.

The Verdict: “I was amazed at the difference in aromas. Each had a distinct aroma, both nice, but the [Indie Hops brew] smelled fresher, greener. It’s incredible when you think they are the same variety harvested the same year.”

Pizza Port’s supplier of the hop in question was from Washington, but we don’t know where the hops were grown. Nor do we know exactly who pelleted said hops. The IH hops were grown on Goschie Farms in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. They were pelleted about 2 months ago at our new “patient” pelleting mill in Hubbard, Oregon, located only a few miles up the road from Goschie Farms.

Thanks Jeff, we appreciate your candid feedback. Throughout the session, I nursed a pint of Sharkbite, which featured the Other Guy’s hops. I loved it. It’s hard to imagine improving an already delightful taste, but like my partner Jim says, “The day you stop getting better is the day you start getting worse.” At Indie Hops, we aim to get it right. Brewer feedback is not only essential, it’s fun. It’s even more fun when it validates our theories about the linkage between pellet particle size, pellet surface area to volume , and pellet die temperature.

As another well respected brewer in nearby San Marcos, Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey, recently suggested to me: if less oxidation is the Holy Grail, why not process cigar sized or even hockey puck sized pellets? Good question. We’re on it!

Roger Worthington
5/28/10