Help with my IPA! Many questions.

Last week I brewed a 10 gallon batch of Imperial IPA and pitched into two separate fermenters one fermenting with WL001, one with WL007 making starters for both. Got to use my new mash tun, here are a couple of pics from the brewing. I was able to control the temp very well by keeping it in a closet with a thermo in plain sight.

OG in to fermenter was 1.087 it has been a little over a week and I checked the SG and got 1.011, and 1.010 looks good so far. Except... does this look alright? When checking the Gravity of the 007 this is what it looked like.

The plan was to keep these in primary for 3 weeks then crash and condition to secondary for another 3 with some lightly toasted oak then bottle.

But I don't know if it looks alright and I've never oaked any of my brews before. Is there anything I should do to the Oak before adding to the fermenter? It just says "add to fermenter" on the label and I dont want to risk infection.

Any suggestions?

Are you oaking and then dryhopping? Or vice versa?

Oak (and dryhops) are fine to use right out of the package.

Oak then dry hop for <week, is it bad to oak and DH at the same time?

Also, I used only Cascade in the boil should I dry hop with it also? I love Cascade I think it smells outstanding.

DrNuBingTon said:

Oak then dry hop for <week, is it bad to oak and DH at the same time?

Also, I used only Cascade in the boil should I dry hop with it also? I love Cascade I think it smells outstanding.

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I've never done both at the same time, but I can't see why it would be an issue.

Cascades make great dryhops!

As far a fining, I'm going to try gelatin I really want this to turn out clear... Besides filtering have you used any finings to clear up your homebrew?

DrNuBingTon said:

As far a fining, I'm going to try gelatin I really want this to turn out clear... Besides filtering have you used any finings to clear up your homebrew?

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I've never used finings (except for whirlfloc in the kettle) and I've never filtered. But my beer is clear, so I've never tried.

Does that pic from inside the fermenter look alright to you Yooper?

DrNuBingTon said:

Does that pic from inside the fermenter look alright to you Yooper?

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Yep. Is that the 1007? 1007 tends to not clear very well, but it looks fine right now. If it's not pretty clear in a couple of weeks, you can chill the fermenter and that will help the yeast drop out. Then it will be clear.