So I just finished brewing my first beer on Monday its a double IPA 6 gallon batch and it is now in the first stage of fermentation which seems to be going well ( except yesterday i came home to find that my air lock was filled with gunk !) so i switched to a blow off tube and the temperature is steady at 64 . I plan on leaving it in the primary for 2 1/2 weeks . My OG was 1.062 and hops were added during the boil . My question is should i do a secondary fermentation or bottle and let another 4 weeks in the bottle ? thanks for the input
There is no need to conduct a secondary for a DIPA. Have you completed your dry hopping phase? Once that is complete the beer will be ready to be bottled. Cheers!
Imperials should be fine just doing a primary ferment, and then conditioning in the bottle. I would personally give it 3-4 weeks in primary to make sure the yeast has cleaned up, but you'd be fine with 2 1/2 as well. You could probably start sampling 1 bottle/week after 2 weeks just to see how it's coming along. If you're as impatient as I am, it'd be hard not to!
no i wasn't planing on dry hoping , in the boil there was 8.29 oz of hops . should I ? and when should i dry hop ?
Yes you should if you want to brew to style. Dry hop aroma is very much part of the DIPA beer style. I would recommend that you add the dry hops to the primary once signs of fermentation have stopped (i.e., once there is no longer bubbling through the airlock. Have you read the book How to Brew? Cheers!
As Jack said above, Dryhopping is part of the style for Dipa and most IPA's for that matter. I would dry hop for sure once fermentation has stopped and let that roll a days. It will improve your beer drastically!! Good Luck!
Dry hop in primary after 7 days. Let it dry hop for 7-10 days. Rack from primary into bottling bucket or keg Finish packaging immediately. ~ 4 oz of hops would be a good dosage. Pick 2 of the late boil hops that you used.
If i want to change the variety of hops to dry hop would that be a big issue ? i feel that during the boil was only one variety and i would like to bring something new, i used cascade so far
Nope. Feel free to select any hop(s) that will provide the sort of aroma(s) that you prefer. Cheers! P.S. I brewed a DIPA recently and for dry hopping I used a total of 4 ounces: one ounce each of Simcoe, Amarillo, Centennial and Columbus. The resulting aroma of that beer was complex and very enjoyable.
thx for the tip i stopped at my local brew shop at lunch and purchased a fees variety's , centenial and sazz
Just to set expectations, the 'potency' of the essential oils (which is what provides hop aroma/flavor) in Saaz hops is much lower as compared to Centennial. If you were to dry hop with the same amount of Saaz hops as Centennial (for example 2 ounces of Saaz and 2 ounces of Centennial) the hop aroma/flavor of the Centennial hops will dominate the hop aroma profile. If you were to dry hop with 3 ounces of Saaz and 1 ounce of Centennial the Centennial hop aroma/flavor will still dominate. I am not specifically discouraging dry hopping with Centennial and Saaz; I am just trying to set expectations here. Please report back on how the resulting beer tastes. Cheers!
Saaz would not be traditional in a DIPA. It doesn't have a lot in common flavor and aroma-wise with typical American C-Hops. Differences in flavor aside, if you use enough Saaz that you beer approaches typical DIPA hop intensity level, you're going to make hop soup, with some vegetal flavors you probably will not like.
thx for the feed back , i was thinking of using mostly the centennial and keeping the saaz to make a hoped hard cider this week end
I always skip secondary when brewing IPAs. Give it a couple more weeks (or however long you were planning on keeping it in secondary) in primary and bottle from there. Bottle conditioning should only take 2-3 weeks after that. Only issue I have run into is extra sediment in the bottles but that isn't too big an issue and can be avoided with careful siphoning
The style is not my fav, it's true, but these advocates here know a thing or two about how to hop a tasty brew. Run your recipe by them. They'll advise you and guide you on the way of the hop, and IPA, times two.
