Dry hopping question

[siwelwerd]

I'm looking to do an American IPA, and want to play around with trying dry hopping. I haven't dry hopped before, so I've been reading different things, and there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus. Some people said to just throw them in the primary, others have said dry hopping is one of the few reasons to secondary. What's the rationale behind using a secondary for dry hopping? Also what's a typical dry hopping rate?

[koalasprint]

Not sure of rates etc, but if I dry hop, I put my hops into the bottom of my secondary, cover them with a bit of hot/boiling water for about 10-20 mins and then rack the beer on top of that.

flavour and aroma have been great, the only worry has been filtering out the hop debris when bottling.

I was advised to put the whole lot into a cold fridge for about 48 hours to get the pellet debris to fall out and then bottle carefully - this worked for me. A bottling assistant is pretty handy - ie, the wife. I found a bit of filter material over the end of the racking tube didn't help too much and was more of a PITA.

hope that helps.

Kev

[BadRock]

Dry hopping is most effective in the secondary because if they are added during active fermentation the release of CO2 will scrub the hops from the beer.

Depending on the type of beer you can use up to several ounces of dry hops. I typically use about 1-2 oz. in a standard APA.

Personally I think the easiest way to dry hop is in the keg, add your hops to a weighted bag and seal'r up!

[Lufah]

If you don't want to mess with the secondary or keg just wait until fermentation is done in your primary and then add the dry hops. Cold crashing it will help drop them out at the end if you can.

[macgruffus]

If you aren't kegging yet (you poor bastard) you can use the same basic procedure in a conditioning tank (carboy). Just put your hops in a fine mesh bag and add a couple marbles and then stuff it through the neck of the carboy. The real challenge is getting it out after you've racked off your beer but with the help of another person to help you hold the carboy upside down you can untie the bag and dump out the goop before pulling the bag out.

I usually soak the bag in StarSan before using but don't worry about the hops themselves. The alcohol and pH in the finished beer will usually take care of any nasties that might be on the hops (unless you've just had them open to the air for a significant time).

[boobookittyfuk]

i just throw the dry hops in the fermentor after the first 7-10 days of fermentation have passed. If i use cone hops, then i put a sanitized hop bag over the end of my autosiphon as a strainer. it keeps the leafs from jamming up the siphon tubing and from getting in your teeth.

remember....more is better....i've dry hopped an IPA with 4 oz/ 5 gallon

[siwelwerd]

Not sure of rates etc, but if I dry hop, I put my hops into the bottom of my secondary, cover them with a bit of hot/boiling water for about 10-20 mins and then rack the beer on top of that.

Seems like boiling them for 10 minutes would be akin to just throwing them in at the end of the boil, no?

How long do y'all usually leave the beer on the hops before bottling/kegging?

[boobookittyfuk]

10 days or so