Hey guys, I feel that my last IIPA had some oxidation issues, and I feel these probably happened when racking to the secondary. After going through old threads, seems that the consensus is to just dry-hop in the primary. I have another IIPA that is about ready for dry-hopping, and I just wanted to get some insight into the technique you use to dry-hop in the primary. Interested in how to limit introduction of oxygen into the fermenter when adding the hops, if I should bag my hops, etc. For reference, I'll be using 2 oz Simcoe pellet hops in a 7.9 g Speidel. Brewing a Hopslam clone. Thanks for any information you can provide!
My personal technique is that once signs of primary fermentation are complete (i.e., no outgassing through the airlock) I add my dry hop pellets enclosed in a muslin bag that is weighed down with marbles. I use a modest amount of hops (e.g., 1-2 ounces) compared to what many other BAs post and yet obtain very significant hop aroma (more hop aroma than I smell in commercial hoppy beers). My addition technique is pretty simple: open the bucket lid and ‘plop’ the hop bag in. If you are very concerned about oxidation one thing you could do is add the dry hops when the primary fermentation is mostly complete (still some signs of fermentation). The notion here is that the continued yeast activity will consume whatever oxygen was introduced during the hop addition. I personally prefer to add hops after all signs of fermentation is complete; I do not want any of the dry hop aroma to get outgassed. Cheers!
I'm adding my dry hops in a paint strainer in the keg while carbing, tie to the lid using unflavored wide floss, and remove after 10 days. Some people complain that a cold dry hop results in too much "face in a bag of hops" effect, but I love that. A comercial example that screams cold dry hop to me is Ghandi Bot.
I just toss the pellets in after fermentation slows/stops. I keg so I can just put my fermenter in the fridge for a day or 2 and the hops drop out. This IMO would still work well with bottling but people worry about dropping out too much yeast by cold crashing.
I'm with @JackHorzempa as far as the timing is concerned, except that I ferment in a carboy. I don't want to try to squeeze a hop bag thru that mouth opening so I just plop my hop pellets into the beer and then rack off of the trub when it's time to bottle.
I do the same as Jack and have had great results w/o oxidation. I generally dry hop for the last four days of a two week primary. Not to thread-jack, but what do you all prefer for the amount of time to dry hop? Also, perhaps it's implied, but I always hit the muslin bag and marbles with starsan first.
My best batch to date was one where I just tossed the dry hops into the primary (glass carboy) after fermentation was finished. Life interfered with my plans and I wound up leaving them in longer than I wanted, about 9-10 days instead of 7. When I bottled the beer, it was just exploding with hop aroma, in this case a nearly overpowering smell of ripe mangoes from the Citra I added. They mellowed a bit in the bottle and the resulting beer was by far the best I've made so far. Of course, I'm pretty new to brewing, so even my very best is only 7-8 out of 10, but I was happy with the dry-hopping technique. No vegetable flavors that I can detect, either, despite the long period of dry hopping.
I just dump them in the primary near terminal gravity, no bags. Usually for 5-7 days. Then cold crash at *38 for a few days. If I am worried about sucking them up I use a fine mesh nylon hop bag over the end of my auto siphon. Cheers!
