Dry Hopped Too Early, Now What?

Personally, I'd just let continue in secondary for 2 weeks, then add some fresh hops to "refresh" it. I don't think anything bad happens from dry-hopping early; you just lose some of the flavor over time. So re-hopping it just before bottling should help restore that similar "fresh-hopped" taste.

 

You could taste it and see if it's ready to bottle (no diacetyl (buttery/butterscotch) or acetaldehyde (green apple) etc.), and if it's not, wait it out and re-hop as suggested. My guess is that if those 2 weeks in the primary were at proper temps with a healthy yeast pitch, it would be fine to bottle now.

 

Time to bottle.

 

I would bottle as is with a gentle siphon session directyl from your primary.

 

Don't try that. It wouldn't be pretty - I assure you.

I would say that the best thing to do is to let it finish out for the three weeks or until FG is reached. It should be fine, but it will be different form your original plan. Some folks feel that dry hopping for too long a period contributes to vegital flavors. The other problem is that aromatic hops constituents tend to disolve in CO2 and can be carried away during fermentation. Oh well.

If you have the equipment to keg the beer, just keg it after a week. There might then be a tertiary fermentation in the keg, but that's okay. You can just put some tubing from the gas line into a bucket of water, or you can leave it sealed and let it naturally carbonate. I use the latter technique with some of my beers. I consider it similar to producing a cask ale.

 

In my opinion, if fermentation has ended I would go ahead and bottle. I feel 2 weeks is too long for a dry hop and your beer will start losing that hoppy goodness that those hops are adding. Plus you might start to get some grassy flavors by leaving the hops in too long, but they might have to sit around much longer for that to be an issue