Idea: Would cold-conditioning IPAs help retain the hop flavor?

[Zabuza]

I recently brewed a batch of american IPA. I want to prevent hop flavor (as distinct from pure bitterness) degradation as much as possible. This may be something some of you have already thought of, so I thought I'd ask if you've tried it or it sounds good. Simply put, it's the question in the title; would cold-conditioning my IPAs (even though they are ales and that's a bit atypical) be "better" than room temp conditioning? Usually room temp conditioning brings out some hidden sophistication in the flavors produced by the yeast and barley more quickly and efficiently, but I'm thinking that since this is an IPA you don't get much of that so it doesn't matter as much - primarily it's the hop profile you're concerned with. I want to submit this stuff to competitions over the next couple months, so I want to preserve what I believe to be a good and unique hop profile. Would cold conditioning be the way to go, you think?

 

[AntzBrewz]

I would think cold conditioning would prolong the conditioning process thus making your hop flavor less fresh.
That's just me thinking of how hops work, and it is a guess.
Maybe using a colder storage than room temp may help, but not cold conditioning.

 

[Zabuza]

Usually you don't want to condition hop flavors - you want to drink them as quickly as possible because they start to degrade instantaneously. As far as I understand it, this is the theory behind things like Stone's Enjoy By and other such beers. As time goes on, the alpha acids break down and volatile oils responsible for aroma and flavor dissipate. Beta acids gain bitterness over time, but typically have unpleasant flavors (e.g. grassy, one-dimensional bitterness, etc.). Can you link to something that demonstrates hop flavor improves with conditioning? I'm really not familiar with such claims.

 

[brewguyver]

It depends on how long you plan on cold conditioning. A lot of beers get cold crashed to drop out yeast, and get dry-hopped during/after the cold crash.

If you're bottle conditioning, you should store at cellar temps (40 - 50 *F) once the beer is carbonated to extend the life of the beer. Even Stone Enjoy By has a shelf life of a few months, so cold conditioning for a month (while liberally sampling bottles) isn't going to hurt you, and you can bulk age cold in the carboy for a month or so, while dry hopping, without a huge negative impact. I did this with 1z each of citra and mosaic (carboy was in a 10g igloo cooler on ice) for a month while out of the country (wife helped, thankfully) and things turned out fine.

My advice is to test it out with some of the bottles and see which you like better. Homebrew is all about experimentation - there's a lot of non-ideal situations that make for great beers. Just bare in mind that some of those beers will be tough to reproduce if you're following non traditional methods.

 

[Cyclman]

Hop odors and flavors are rather volatile, if you can figure out how to retain them you'd be very rich. Brewing as close to competitions as possible would be my recommendation.

You can try first wort hopping. Dry hop after the beer is mostly fermented out (yeast steals away those flavors). I know that some hophead brewers go to tremendous lengths to keep any air out of their beer after fermentation- that may be an important tip.

 

[brewguyver]

Also - if you're trying to maximize, avoid oxygen eating caps and storing beers in constantly changing temps. The caps scalp hop oils/aromas, and caps in general aren't air tight. Changes in temp cause the air in the bottle to expand and contract, which can pull in small amounts of oxygen.

 

[unionrdr]

I don't tend to think the o2 barrier caps strip hop aroma. The flavor & aroma come from oils dissolved in the beer that aren't air or easily aerosolized. Besides the o2 absorbing layer is so small, that it couldn't absorb that much. It just breaks down over a couple months. Carb & condition around 70F. Then store between 40-50F for a short time. Hoppy beers don't store well regardless of method. I agree that brewing closer to the competition so the beer will be at it's prime when tested would be ideal.

 

[Zabuza]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm aware hoppy beers don't store well for long, but I was simply curious as to which conditioning method people thought would be (minimally) better. I think I'll do as brewguyver suggested and basically run my own experiment (do some at fridge temps, some at cellar temps, and some at room temp). Thanks for the FWH suggestion Cyclman; I'll keep that in mind in the future.

I'll try to update every couple weeks or maybe in a month or two with developments on how the flavor of the beer progresses over time in the three different environments.