Beer Forum

A friend of mine said he knew someone who liked to dry hop in the primary after fermentation had slowed. He would let fermentation go for a week and then dry hop for a second week before racking. I guess the advantage is less mess and clogging if you use a keg for a secondary and you don't need to use a bag for the hops.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
Are there any disadvantages to this method?

Like Jamil, I'm in the "no-secondary" camp. I also dry hop many (most?) of my beers, all in the primary. I add the dry hops after three to six days of fermentation, depending on the gravity of the beer and the level of activity. This method has worked well for me. One drawback is that it can make it really hard to harvest yeast.

Put a sure-screen on the down tube of a corny keg. After 2 weeks rack your beer into the keg after you add your dry hops. leave the keg at fermention temp. for another week. Put the keg in your fridge for at least 2 days a week is better, then push the beer out of the keg into another keg put in on gas and wait a week.... Enjoy!

BadgerVT1 wrote:A friend of mine said he knew someone who liked to dry hop in the primary after fermentation had slowed. He would let fermentation go for a week and then dry hop for a second week before racking. I guess the advantage is less mess and clogging if you use a keg for a secondary and you don't need to use a bag for the hops.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
Are there any disadvantages to this method?

You nailed it on the head as far as process is concerned. If you have the ability to cold-crash your beer in primary for 48 hrs after dry hopping for 6-7 days then that is even better. If you are careful with racking into a keg, your very first pint can even be fairly clear!

Does it become necessary to add more hops, or rouse more often (as they might get covered by yeast floccing out)? I just dryhopped loose in primary and am thinking of adding a bit more than called for to compensate if needed.

I feel one can never have too much hop aroma in a good IPA, and as you mentioned above some of that aroma might be lost to yeast flocculating out as well as additional CO2 scrubbing from the remaining fermentation going on. I too compensate for these minor losses by adding an extra oz to the batch.