Dry Hopping

What I do...2 weeks in primary then 7-8 days for dry-hop. Making it 3 weeks total.

 

That's what I do. I've read that if you dry hop too early the flocculating yeast can tend to pull the hop particles out of suspension prematurely.

 

“I was thinking dry hop after 7 days in primary, wait 7 more days, then if fermentation allows, bottle.” In all likelihood that schedule would work out OK.

I just want to expound upon:

· I personally wait until the primary has stopped producing CO2 (no airlock activity) before I add my dry hops. This may well occur at day 7 but I let the yeast/fermentation decide that vs. the calendar

· 7 days of contact time for the dry hops is a good rule of thumb; 7 days is good.

Cheers!

 

Definitely wait until airlock activity has stopped or really slowed. Active fermentation will drive off the aromatics of the hops, which is the point with dryhopping in the first place. I typically let the beer sit for 2 weeks, dryhop around that time for 5-7 days, and then bottle.

 

I dryhop in a purged keg 2 weeks before consuming (1 week room temp and 1 week cold)...this could be 2 months after brewing sometimes. YMMV if direct bottling.

 

This is what I do. Primary, and crash it. Keg it, and dry hop it and allow it to go to room temp. Give it a week or 10 days... then I cold condition it, and depending on beer, toss another round of dry hops in it, and carb it while it chills and dry hops more.

 

What do you have hop wise to use?

Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic.. All are pretty "hot" hops at the current moment. Chinook is one of my personal favorites, next to Simcoe and Amarillo. I'm not fond of Citra these days, and Mosaic hasn't really spoken to me yet, but I'm trying to love the pound I have in the freezer.

 

You mean you're not all citra, all the time? The hell you say!

When I dry-hop, I try to get 6-7 days of dry hop contact before bottling. Total time in fermenter (including dry hopping) is optimally about 20-21 days for me. It can be less, but it's probably better to give it three weeks total time (give or take a day or two) for typical beers.

 

One comment here - while dry hopping kegs with whole leafs is a good idea, I advise against it for pellets. Too much hop junk will make it into the final beer. For pellet dry hopping, stick to dry hopping in the primary. Cheers!

 

Or use a very fine mesh nylon bag, IMHO.

 

I normally use leaf for almost all my brewing. On the rare occasion I have to use pellet I use a fine mesh bag. First beer is floaters and second beer is pretty clear. After that no issues with pellets

 

Chinook and Amarillo are hot together.

 

I think the more or less standard practice is to wait till after primary fermentation is done, and then add your hops for 7-10 days. But like almost everything in brewing, there is a lot of variation in what people do.

But there are some really great brewers who say you ought to add the hops while the yeast is still fairly active, so that they will get rid of the oxygen you're introducing. (There are even some who claim you'll get different flavors out of the hops from doing it this way.) Also, there are those who say that a shorter dry hopping period (3-4 days) will actually give you more aroma than the more standard 7-10. And then there is the debate between those who say leaving dry hops in the beer for longer than about 10 days will give you unwanted grassy flavors versus those who say they leave hops in their kegs for months at a time with no ill effects. So what's the moral of this little story? Danged if I know. I suppose we might conclude dry hopping is pretty hard to screw up, since you can apparently do it any one of a dozen different ways and still get good results.

 

This is true.

 

I'll toss a vote in there, and say, with your hop schedule, something loud and potent would be tasty in the dry hop.

I vote for straight Simcoe, or a Simcoe/Cascade mix, and ounce of each at least.

 

For a straight single-dry-hop choice, I'm all about cascade. But I'm biased, because I'm a cascade nutjob.

 

if you want loud why not leave the cascade out and go centennial then? Honest question, not being a jerk.