Do you like IPAs? Well, more like big juicy NEIPA like a tropical cocktail style ?
We’d love to !
And just in time, we’re going to take a look at CRYO hops !
What are “Cryo Hops” ?
Cryo Hops were developed by Yakima Chief Hops. As the name suggests, Cryo comes from cryogenics.
During harvesting, the hop cones are frozen with liquid nitrogen. This process makes it easy to separate the lupulin glands from the plant material. These lupulin glands are then compacted together to form pellets, marketed under the name “Cryo Hops”.
In fact, Cryo hops are a massive concentrate of essential oils containing aroma and bitterness stripped of the main plant material.
The alpha acids in Cryo hops are easily double those of their standard counterparts. For example, if Citra is around 12%, then the Cryo version will rise to 22/25%.
So Cryo hops are just a big bittering agent ?
No ! And that’s the main advantage of this type of hop…
The essential oils contained in the lupulin glands contain the main hop aromas, stripped of almost all their plant matter. You’ll get the same level of aroma with half as much material. (#bye bye oxidation)
But since you like big IPAs, you’ll probably dose Cryo like a standard hop…
And why not? Since Cryo is a concentrate of essential oils, you’ll be able to avoid the “hop burn” phenomenon, which is a strong astringency and occurs when there’s too much plant matter in the beer.
Of course, we recommend working under CO2 if you exceed 5 or 6g/l in dry hop. But don’t forget that 4g/l of “Cryo Hops” will be equivalent to a standard hop dosage of 8g/l !
Up-date November 2023
After a few experiments and more experience with the product, we still recommend keeping 5 to 10% of standard pellets in your beer (especially on your dry hops).
This is because Cryo has been stripped of most of its plant matter. And yet, this plant matter is an important part of the beer’s structure. In any case, we find it very much lacking in 100% cryo IPAs, which, by the way, no longer exist in professional brewing.
Catalog entries in June 2024
While some classics make a comeback (Citra, Cascade and Centennial), we’ve also included hops from New Zealand (Wai-iti, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin).
But that’s not all ! As we like a little aroma bomb, we’ve added a few little nuggets (El Dorado, Ahtanum and Loral).
As you know, we’re avid readers of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine.
Guilty as charged, we often succumb to their ads 😅
Among those that have caught our eye in recent months, we’re entering these two great new releases :
- Nectaron : An explosion of pineapple and passion fruit with notes of peach and grapefruit.
- Cryo Pop Blend : We’re really excited to get him back…
Read the description, it’s been optimized for bio-processing and will leave an aromatic bomb in Whirlpool and/or primary fermentation !
