Dry Hop Work Around?

After hearing some very positive reviews of the fairly new hop terpene products called Abstrax Quantum, I started thinking about ways to incorporate this into my brewery. Although fairly expensive ($15 for 5ml), there are several versions of fruit and/or hop products for homebrewing at morebeer. So I started out by ordering the Citra Abstrax 5ml vial.

From The Manufacturer:

There is no more successful hop in the modern history of beer than CIT. Bred to bring balanced, spicy woodiness and citrus notes together with a high alpha backbone to create an instant classic.

Learn More

For the initial batch using the Citra Quantum, I decided to use the terpene product as my dry hop solution exclusively to see what kind of aromas and flavor I could get without adding additional T90 hops to the fermenter.

The beer was a Nelson Rye IPA (west coast) with Citra "dry hop" using Abstrax

RECIPE

Here's the hop schedule I used for a 3g batch:

• 0.5 oz Magnum for 30 minutes (29 IBU)

• 0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin for 15 minutes (16 IBU)

• 0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin for 5 minutes (8 IBU)

• 15 Minute Hop Stand at 176F addition of 1 oz Mosaic Cryo (15 IBU)

• 1.5ml Abstrax Citra added directly to fermenter at yeast pitch

BEER STATS:

• OG: 1.061

• FG: 1.006

• IBU: 68

• MASH: 155F for 45 minutes

• ABV: 7.1%

• YEAST: S-05 at 68F for 11 days

RESULT:

I would say this one was a big-time success! Although it was quite aggressive in terms of bitterness, the aroma was pronounced woody, citrus zest and white grape. Outstanding! I have never made a beer with this much hop character before and I really enjoyed the result. The only question here is I don't know if the Abstrax is mostly responsible for this or (more likely) the blending and layering of Nelson Sauvin, Magnum, Mosaic Cryo AND the Abstrax. In any case, this was an excellent west coast IPA with hints of rye spiciness, white wine grape character and citrus, all coming in at 1.006 so it was very dry and crisp.

The only thing I would change in the recipe is to retain a little more residual sweetness by mashing at a higher temperature. The weird thing is I did mash at a higher 155F, hoping to get a little more sweetness. I was expecting the S-05 to attenuate to 1.013 but it ended up at 1.006. I don't know why. Perhaps a step mash at 148 then again at 158 would work....

One thing to note is I never needed to open the fermenter/ serving keg at any point after yeast pitch so there was no risk of oxidation since we serve our beer in the same vessel with a floating dip tube. So adding the Abstrax liquid at yeast pitch (or wort pitch) was my only dry hop used. Pretty amazing stuff..

My tasting Notes: wow nelson is the main feature, some citra, very dry and clean with a slight rye character. very clear and a nice light color from the Xtra pale malt.

4.7 / 5 STARS