[nateo]

I'm working a Belgian Brut and will be doing the methode champenoise to bottle it. Basically, you let it carb up on the lees, invert bottle, freeze lees into a plug, uncap the bottle, blow out the lees, then recap.

Would it be possible to dry hop in the bottle, then blow out the pellets with the lees? Is there a reason I should, or shouldn't try this?

[tschmidlin]

I think you should definitely try it in at least a few bottles.  I think you can expect a bigger plug, it might not all come out in one try.  But Drew will be able to give you a better answer obviously.

[nateo]

Drew has been helping me out in private correspondence, although I haven't asked him that specifically. I just thought other people may wonder this later. I'm planning on bottling in a few days, so I'll try it in some of them and post here with my results after disgorgement.

My other thought was to make a dry hop tea, and use that for my dosage. I'm using Nelson Sauvin hops, and I was thinking about using some NZ Sauvignon Blanc as my dosage liquor.

[dbeechum]

I'm trying to remember, we did some of the Houblonee that was dry hopped. My vague memory was that we had some bottles explode like mad when we disgorged because the extra hop material that had gotten into the bottle (we dry hopped in the keg) served as super nucleation sites from hell.

That was un fun. Don't recommend it unless you can keep hop material out of the bottle. The hops don't seem to settle and compact down as well as you'd like.

NinjaEdit!

[nateo]

Thanks Drew! That's super helpful to know now. I'll dry hop now, then crash before I bottle.

[dbeechum]

I totally forgot to add... those dry hopped bottles that survived were amongst some of the best things I've ever had a hand in, so it's a good thing if not slightly dangerous!

[nateo]

Drew - what do you think the shortest amount of time between bottling and riddling/disgorging would be?

[dbeechum]

I turned one around after a month of bottling for a pair of weddings.

[brewallday]

so is he going to answer any questions or just mess around?

[richardt]

Check out Drew's 2009 NHC presentation on the AHA website (you know... that site you frequently hit when you're trying to select for "unread" posts).

Why not just dry hop the beer you have reserved for the dosage step?
Dry hop the reserved beer approximately 7 days before disgorgement, etc.
Crash chill the reserved beer a day or two before disgorgement, and carefully rack the reserved and dry-hopped) beer to a sanitized vessel that can be kept closed and cold until it is time to dosage with cold hop-particle free beer which should help reduce the "super nucleation sites from hell."

[nateo]

I hadn't looked at the AHA presentaiton, just the one on the Maltose Falcons webpage. It's a good place to start, though. I had already thought of "Fletch's method" for riddling, but I'm glad to see it'll work. I also thought of dry hopping the dosage, and maybe use a french press to strain out the hops?

[dbeechum]

Did the French Press hop technique the other day - my one impression from it is you need to give it plenty of time on the hops and between that and the actually pressing - you lose a lot of carbonation.

[richardt]

http://www.hopunion.com/1022_VarietySpecificHopOil.cfm?p4=open
Perhaps just adding the hop oils during dosage, and skipping the whole dryhopping from pellets or leaf hops?

[nateo]

Drew - what exactly were you dry hopping? Were you doing a whole bottle of carbonated beer? I was thinking of using wine as the dosage liquor, and just dry hopping the wine. Probably not as much aroma that way, but I'd rather have subtle flavor than too much flavor.

Richard - Where do you buy that?

[richardt]

http://www.hopunion.com/1022_VarietySpecificHopOil.cfm?p4=open
from USA
http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=25
from UK
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/default.asp?CID=13
from Australia
I'm just brainstorming ideas and trying to help solve a problem of getting more hop aroma in a "champagne" beer.  I don't have personal experience with using hop oils--that's more of a pro brewer thing.  I figure that guys like you and Drew would have fairly good access to sympathetic pro brewers who could get their hands on the hop oils if you (as a home brewer) could not.