Secondary fermentation? dry hop Black IPA

Don't secondary.

Add hops in 2 more days, for about 7 days.

I might also suggest adding another oz of hops as this is an IPA, but it's up to you.

 

This is your answer: “let it sit in primary for another week or so and then add the hops?”

Here is something I just mentioned in a recent post: My first comment is that I would recommend that you don’t transfer to a secondary; that is an unnecessary step which results in risks of oxidation and infection.

Good luck with your Black IPA!

Cheers!

 

Ditto what JohnSnow says . . . except I would suggest even stronger to add more than one ounce of Cascade. Cascade is delightful, but mild. You know what you are after, but this will be an Imperial Black IPA (love they way that sounds). In a five gallon batch you can easily DH up to 4 ounces. I have made IIPA's up to 9% with massive dry hops, all in the primary with great results. A hop-sock or paint strainer bag will help keep it neat.

You will also have some fun serving this. The eyes see a jet-black brew and prepares the brain for a stout or porter. Then . . . BAM . . . the nose sends a flash message to the brain to "belay there, prepare for HOPS". Who says homebrewers don't have a sense of humor?

 

Two things. First, you'll get different flavors from dry hopping on the yeast and dry hopping off the yeast. Second, oxidation isn't an istantaneous process and any exposure to oxygen from transferring beer with an autosiphon to a secondary vessel, isn't likely to become readily apparent during the amoung of time it takes to drink a batch of homebrew. Third, if you're worried about contamination from transferring, you're not practicing good sanitation. So I guess I meant three things.

 

I have never heard this before. What is the difference in flavor?

 

While I have no empirical data to disagree with you here, I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

Unless he cold-crashes before racking to secondary, he's still going to be dry-hopping on quite a bit of yeast. I also don't think the beer is going to sit, nor the hops sit, long enough for the yeast to make an appreciable difference.

What exactly are the flavor differences you mention?

Racking your beer is always going to introduce the possibility of infection or oxidation...you can of course minimize this with good practices...but it's still there.

 

You will receive different input from different folks as regards dry hopping.

· Duration of dry hopping: a commonly discussed timeframe is 7- 10 days. I would suggest a minimum contact time of 7 days but you will obtain dry hop aroma with a contact time of 5 days. There is even some recent research that seems to indicate that you only really need a few days (3-4 days) to obtain all of the aroma from the dry hop. I prefer to be conservative in this regard and dry hop for 7+ days.

· Amount of dry hop: this will indeed depend on the hop variety and the amount of dry hop aroma desired. American aroma hops like Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, etc. tend to be more potent from a hop aroma perspective. I have seen where folks have advocated amounts like 4 ounces for dry hopping. I personally have obtained very good hop aroma using 1-2 ounces of American aroma hops for dry hopping. I should caveat that I also use American aroma hops for end of boil (aroma) as well

So, my personal ‘bottom line’ for this Black IPA is dry hop for at least 7 days and use a minimum of 1 ounce of Cascade but 1.5 ounces or 2 ounce would be OK as well. I suspect that this is a kit beer so the ingredient amounts are already accounted for.

Cheers!

P.S. I stand by my previous statement that a secondary is an unnecessary step: there is no real need to do it and while the risks of oxidation and infection may not be large the risk is there nonetheless.

 

My personal 8 step approach to your situation (presuming you keg) at this point in time would be to:

1. Take a gravity reading to make sure you are at / near your intended FG
2. Cold crash the beer (if you have the capability to) for 1-2 days
3. Add 3oz of dry hops to a secondary fermenter and co2 flush it
4. Rack the beer into secondary and dry hop it for 12 days total
5. On day 5 add another 1oz of dry hops
6. On day on day 10 cold crash the beer for 2 days
7. On day 12 package / start to carbonate
8. Drink it while its fresh!

 

Not something I claim to understand, but it will vary greatly depending on the yeast(s) and hop(s) used and when the hops are added and at what temp. It's briefly covered in Hops and I think both Stan Heironymous and Mitch Steele talked about it in their NHC presentations this year, which are online for AHA members. Stan quotes Steve Dressler from SN about the importance of the interplay between yeast and hops and dry hopping several points above FG. I think Mitch said to never dry hop on yeast. Didn't mean to imply it was an either-or choice, but it's not as simple as 'never transfer'.

 

I have seen it discussed that the presence of yeast in the beer can ‘mitigate’ the aroma compounds of dry hops a bit. I have seen where folks will state that the yeast cells could ‘strip’ something like 10% of the dry hop aroma compounds. There is a very easy solution to that particular ‘problem’: just add 10% more dry hops: 1.1 ounces vs. 1.0 ounces.

Or you can simply accept a 10% diminishment of dry hop aroma.

Cheers!

 

I can't speak to "flavor" but this link should provide some insight into the concept of biotransformations of hop derived aroma's via contact with yeast.....

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1373716311001636

 

I'd go 4 or 5 oz of hops to dryhop. 2oz gets lost.

 

So the real answer to your question is there is no real hard fast rule to dry hopping. The anti-secondary coalition will tell you your beer is going to oxidize or get infected. I rack ALL my beers to secondary and have never had oxidation issues. I have had one infection, but that had more to do with lax sanitation than using a secondary. The way I like to dry hop consists of racking my beer to secondary and allowing most the yeast to flocc out, and then add between 1 to 2 oz for a week. Most commercial breweries use about 1 to 2 lbs per bbl, which calculates out to .5 to 1 oz per gallon. Anything more is overkill and has little effect on the final product. You can dryhop in primary, however if you read "for the love of hops" there are flavor differences between hopping on the yeast cake and off. But really, the only real rule I stick to besides always use a secondary is wait until primary fermentation is over.

 

Oxidation is a major reason for the fading and changing of hop flavors and aromas. And each transfer results in more oxygen dissolved in the beer (unless you're 'pressure transferring' with CO2). If you haven't experienced this, you are drinking your IPAs very quickly indeed.

 

This recipe is begging for some Centennial in the DH. My last three IPAs had at least 4 ounces of DH. Something like 2/Centennial and 2/Cascade will give you a big aroma to go with a big beer.

Not a strong opinion, but I wouldn't DH until the start of 3rd week. Others will disagree, but you won't have drinkability until about the 5-6 week mark. It will condition just fine in the primary or in the bottle/keg. I tend to measure gravity pre and post DH'ing.

 

Just my opinion:

· I would dry hop when the beer has stopped outgassing. I let the beer tell me when it is ready for dry hopping vs. the calendar.

· I would think that 2 ounces of Cascade for dry hopping would be just fine

Again, just my opinion.

Cheers!

 

There are 2 things you can count on from this subforum. The overwhelming majority will tell you 1) never transfer to a different vessel to dry hop, and 2) always use more/different hops that what you have asked about. This

is a fairly common response that borders on the extreme.
Both of these things are not gospel. The amount of hops that you planned on using is perfectly fine, although another ounce would also not be out of the question if you felt the urge. This is your second batch. If you dry hop the shit out of everything you brew you will not learn nuance (which is not something that American brewers are known for really). And the preference against racking to a 'secondary' is exactly that: preference. If you read these threads enough you will begin to believe that these 2 things must be The Truth and that is just not the case.
Like SFACRKnight above, I also rack everything off of the yeast to let the beer clear whether I am dry hopping or not, and have never had an oxidation or infection issue that could be attributed to just that.
Use your own judgement, do things that will help you learn and become comfortable with all processes, and never assume that one bit of advice is more correct than another until you have had the opportunity to try it for yourself.