Do you rack single IPA to a secondary?

No. The risk outweighs the benefits.

 

Racking to a secondary sometimes has a purpose, but probably not in this instance.

For batch 4, using a secondary will probably have zero effect on making the beer amazing. A secondary won't make batch 100 amazing either. A secondary won't solve your mediocre beer problems. Not ever. Though it could definitely make it worse.

Skip the secondary. Focus on the other 25 things to make your beer amazing.
Cheers.

 

Oxygen is the death of IPAs. The use of a secondary only increases the potential for oxygen uptake by your beer. Eschew the secondary. Cheers!

 

What they said

A little more detail for you below.
You will find that most people here do not do a secondary for the majority of their beers. It is just not worth it from a time point of view or more importantly from a risk point of view. For an APA/IPA, I don't think anyone here would suggest a secondary because you are likely to add excess oxygen to your beer and oxidation sucks for hops.

A good rule of thumb is never do a secondary. Or only do one if you are really sure that your beer needs it. If you have to ask, it probably doesn't need a secondary

 

IMO, no, don't secondary.
Most of us here (myself included) won't do for anything other than bulk aging on wood, fruit or for souring.
Can you provide details on your other brews on exactly why they weren't amazing, and your recipes and procedures? We may be able to help narrow down what is going on.
Also, keep in mind that very few people brew amazing beer their first time out. It takes a lot of time, practice and beer to get comfortable with the big picture that you can sweat the small details that make the difference between a B beer and an A beer.

 

I don't secondary as a rule, but I usually will if I am dry hopping. I've tried dry hopping in the primary but feel I've had better results in the secondary. As always, YMMV.

 

Sitting on the trub is not a huge deal over the time frame of a dry hop. You don't want your beer on trub for months after the fermentation as the yeast may begin to autolyze. For weeks, it's not a big deal.

 

Another option that no one talks about is to dry hop in the bottling bucket with hop bags. You have to transfer to the bottling bucket anyway. This way, you can avoid a second transfer.

 

If you did this, would you extend the time in the bucket to increase contact time? When I bottled, I never kept beer in the bottling bucket for any length of time, just long enough for the priming sugar to disperse with a few gentle swirls.

 

Yes. Dry hop in the bucket for 5 days, then bottle. It works.

 

Transferring to something with that headspace and giving it 5 days to equilibrate with the O2 contained there in concerns me, but it sounds like you aren't having a problem?

 

It's not something I currently do. All my dry hopping happens in the keg now. Back when I dry hopped in the bucket, the beer had good, but not great aroma for 1-2 months.

CO2 from the beer gets released during dry hopping. The bucket always had positive pressure. Sometimes I would add an ounce of sugar to get a mini fermentation during the dry hop. Sometimes I would infuse CO2 into the head space. Sometimes, I wouldn't add anything and just let it dry hop. I'm not saying the beer picks up no O2, but I was usually satisfied with the results and less satisfied with dry hopping in the primary.

 

No

 

Good point. I imagine this helps.

 

I'm with everyone else. Don't do it. There are likely other things you could do to improve your beer which are significantly less risky.

 

I used to follow a schedule similar to the following for my IPA's:
day 1 pitch yeast
day 14-21 rack to secondary and dry hop
allow dry hops to sit for desired time
day 21-28 bottle.
day 35-42 drink a bottle.

Now I use the following schedule for my IPA's
day 1 pitch yeast
day 7 first dry hop addition
day 9 second dry hop addition
day 14 bottle.

I find my ipas have way more aroma and flavor this way.