Dry Hopping For Dummies.

[CarlosHernandez]

Listened to both dry hopping shows (Brew Strong & Sunday Session) and got a lot of good tips, and useful information. I still am a bit confused though. JZ talked about removing the beer of the yeast to a secondary, and then dry hopping, while Nate talked about dry hopping in primary. Also, their total dry hop times were different. I know there are many ways to dry hop, but I wanted to get some feedback on how you guys do it. What are some of the steps you guys take? What is the simplest but most efficient way of dry hopping in carboys? Do I dry hop in primary or secondary? Any help would be awesome! Thanks.

[mattman688]

Listened to both dry hopping shows (Brew Strong & Sunday Session) and got a lot of good tips, and useful information. I still am a bit confused though. JZ talked about removing the beer of the yeast to a secondary, and then dry hopping, while Nate talked about dry hopping in primary. Also, their total dry hop times were different. I know there are many ways to dry hop, but I wanted to get some feedback on how you guys do it. What are some of the steps you guys take? What is the simplest but most efficient way of dry hopping in carboys? Do I dry hop in primary or secondary? Any help would be awesome! Thanks.

i don't do secondary ferment so i dry hop in primary... i usually wait till ferment is almost done... the little bit of fermentation left will help scrub out some of the o2 you introduced during dryhop(though you might lose a little aromatics from it).... i just throw the pellets in there...usually 3-7 days depending when i can packaged the beer....

[Cliff]

I dry hop exactly the way I do a cross examination:
Get in, hit hard, get out, and don't leave a mess.
I hop heavily for a very brief period a day or two is the most I'll leave the beer on the hops then I rack it off and bottle. I've found that when I leave the beer and hops together over long I get grassiness.

Recently I read about a guy whose doing it at refrigerated temperatures and can leave the beer on the hops a lot longer.

[mlevy810]

Ive listened to the shows as well, unfortunately i wasnt in the live chat at the time to get them to cover this, but i was wondering if the primary/secondary questions varies based on fermenter type. For instance, tasty talked a lot about how he was anti-secondary and DH's when its bubbling every 10-15 seconds. This makes a lot of sense to me b/c the active fermentation will help minimize oxidation problems, but he also said he has a conical so he pumps the yeast out pre-DH. For most of us using carboys or buckets that want to gently rouse the fermentor every 2 days to maximize contact time of the hops in solution- is this realy possible with a huge yeast cake at the bottom and a bunch of leftover hops from boil (didnt use muslins and whirlpool was pretty unsuccessful). Because of all that stuff at the bottom would it make more sense to rack to a secondary, or just throws em in the primary and rouse it even though id be shakin up a lot of other stuff as well.

[mlevy810]

I was wondering if this varied based on the type of fermentor you have and how much sediment is at the bottom of it. For instance, tasty and Jamil have conicals so they have the luxury of being able to blow off yeast before dry hopping. i have an IPA thats been in a carboy primary for 7 days now and i think its ready to DH. My main concern about primary DHing is that there is a massive layer of hops and yeast at the bottom of the carboy (i didnt use muslins and my whirlpool attempt was pretty unsuccessful). Since i would like to rouse the fermentor every 2 days to maximize hop contact time with the solution, would it make more sense to rack to secondary so when i rouse it all the other crud doesnt get back into solution as well?

[brewinhard]

I roughly follow this methodology. Add the hops to primary with fermentation slowing down (around day 5-6) to minimize oxidation effects. Swirl the carboy/bucket every other day or so and let it settle out for 2-3 days (trub, hop debris, and yeast will all settle, more or less). To clean up the beer the rest of the way, cold crash if you can for 2 days before packaging.

[CarlosHernandez]

When cold crashing, I've heard some people have an issue with the Star san or water in the air lock getting sucked into the fermentor. Does this happen?

[brewinhard]

It can happen if you use a 3-piece airlock. If you switch to an S-shaped airlock and only put a tiny bit of liquid in it (starsan, water, vodka,etc) you will not have a problem. Learned that the hard way of course.