Dry Hopping procedure

[wezil]

I definitely get the concepts of how and why when Jamil says he does not use a secondary fomenter. I was just wondering what he would suggest I do for this DIPA I have working. Normally I would primary for 2 weeks, rack to secondary on top of my dry hops for 10-14 days, rack to a keg and cold condition for about 2 weeks. What you do you suggest for an alternative process:
a) Follow the same process
b) Add dry hops to primary and follow the rest of the standard procedure
c) Add dry hops to primary and cold condition at the same time (because I really want to drink it sooner).

Brad

[hopbumpingbrewer]

Brad,

I would refer to one of the old Vinnie Cilurzo archives. He spoke quite frankly about dry hopping and the values of removing AS MUCH YEAST as possible when doing so.

That being said. Jamil has also said that he tries to avoid secondarys. Sometimes it is neccessary, he referred to meads and some others.

I definitly think that in this situation it calls for secondary. Drop the temperature(if you have the ability to do so) town to below 50 and all the yeast should drop out of solution. From there rack to a secondary and dry hop.

If you can, think about a multiple dry hop. In other words, if you are dry hopping 6 ounces, break them up in 3 stages of 2 ounces. It works quite well. When you are done with the dry hop, get that temp down to almost freezing and get all the hops to fall out. Then rack to keg or bottles.

I took most of my knowledge from Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River Brewing Co. I have found great results.

Hope this helps,
Carlo

[Homegrown Hops]

I dry hop right into the primary now as long as the batch will be moved out of the fermenter within a month. I realize that yeast do not just all of the sudden autolyse at exactly a month but that is the longest I have been able to wait when doing a new IPA recipe. It also stems from the fact that my IPA's disappear quicker than the rest of my brews(even the Wit). So I would probably vote for C. getter done and start sampling!

HH

edit: but if Vinnie or another reliable source say its best to dry hop off the yeast then I would do that.

[wezil]

Thanks Carlo I was planning on going back and listening to the old archive speach he gave last year at NHC.

Brad

[bubrewer]

I have a feeling that with Vinnie dropping the yeast is matter of saving time (and time=$$$) rather than avoiding some danger of dry hopping with yeast in solution. IIRC he uses 50F because that is the warmest temp where the Chico yeast he uses will drop fast. That temp is high enough to help the hops give up oils but is still low enough to drop the yeast.

[beer_bear]

So let me get this right. Dry hop then cold crash? Will I be able to dry hop after I crash if I let it slowly come up to 68F?I might have to add some Nottinghams dry yeast to bottle condition. I was planning on about a half package for that. Any ideas if this will work or not?

[hopbumpingbrewer]

I would let it come back to 68 before dry hopping. Vinnie recommends warm dry hopping with almost no yeast.

Once it gets to 68 go ahead and dry hop. Once the amount of days that you plan on dry hopping passes go ahead and crash it again.

This causes most of all the hops to fall as well. If you keep it on the hops while cold crashing you will find that all your dry hops fall to the bottom.

You then get a very clean beer.

If you re-yeast for cabonation that should work just fine. It all depends on your final gravity and residual sugar of course. But I am assuming that you got at least 75% attenuation and will use the priming yeast soley for carbonation.

Unfortuanatly so much is left to experiementation with bottle conditioning. But if you are adding yeast to the bottles then I would safely assume you will find success.

I would really be interested in your results. Please let us know if you can.

Carlo

[boise_brewer]

I dont keg, yet. So this may a completely ridiculous suggestion. But I sware I have heard of people dry hopping straight into a keg, kind of like the british barrel hopping. Maybe they have cut their dip tube so as not to suck up the particles, Im not sure, but it would be nice if it worked.