Dry Hopping and Cold Crashing

[BS Brew]

I just started kegging recently and now I have a freezer at my disposal. I have an IPA fermenting in primary right now. I'm about to dry hop with pellets. I have never cold crashed because I never had the equipment.

My questions is should I dry hop for a few days in the primary then take the primary and cold crash it for 2 days around 40F then rack to keg and carb it right away? Thanks in advanced.

[Westco]

Sounds like a good choice to me. I think thats what a lot of brewers do.

Westco

[BS Brew]

Cool. Having a freezer on temp control just opens up a world of possibilities!

[Smelletor]

Yeah, I would dry hop in the 60's and crash it down at around 32 for a few days and keg. A lot of brewer's dry hop a lot of ways, but the general thought is to toss the pellets in right near the end of fermentation - sit for a few days and let the yeast clean up - then crash and keg. Some people do dry hop at cold temps though.

[brewinhard]

I have had best results with dry hopping at fermentation temps (mid 60's) just after the primary fermentation has begun to slow down. I add the pellets (lots of them ie minimum of 5 oz) directly to the primary fermenter and give it a good swirl every couple days or so to keep the pellets in suspension. After 7 total days of dry hopping, put on a one piece s-shaped airlock (will not suck in water like 3 piece will as temps cool) and crash cool at 40 degrees for 48 hrs or so. Keg, carb, and drink ASAP. The last IPA I made came in right at 7% and my first glass pour 1 week after kegging was perfectly clear with no fining agents or filtration.

[BS Brew]

Ok so I have a pretty good idea of how I will handle it.

When I am done cold crashing it will taking the beer out of the freezer and moving to another room to rack to the keg cause it to shake up all stuff that dropped to the bottom? I am only moving the beer to one room over so I dont think there is too much movement.

[nathanm]

All the above advice is sound and I will only concur with my experience - dry hop for at least 5 days, and I wouldn't do more than 7 since you start to get a grassy note after that (at least in my exp.) Cold crash down to about 40 for a few days or so - anywhere in that temp range will cause the beer to clear up, and then when you rack it to a keg, put the keg on top of the chest freezer with your keg on the ground. Let that sit for an hour or so if you have stirred up any of the crap on the bottom from moving the fermenter. This works great for me.