Strict time for secondary with dry hops?

Hey everyone,

So my last batch was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone that used my own home grown cascade hops. It is getting better but I ended up leaving the dry hops in the secondary for ~3 weeks (had a kitchen leak issue). Since I've never dry hopped before this batch, and the batch didn't turn out fantastic (a couple off flavors) I'm wondering whether the extended time with the hops in the secondary did something to the flavor?

My latest batch, Stone Ruination IPA clone, has 2 oz of centennial and it's been in the secondary for a week as of today. Is there a need for me to bottle soon (today or tomorrow) or can I leave it for another week or so? I'm still doing some kitchen remodeling and would prefer to not have to bottle the beer.

Thanks,

justin

We had a very good keynote speaker at Bluebonnet Brewoff this year.

Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker Brewing presented a great talk about hops. One of the things he spoke of was dry hopping and it was his opinion that the type of components you want out of the hops in dry hopping happens fairly quick.

At their brewery they leave the beer on the hops only long enough to get the aroma qualities they want. With extended time on the hops you get more of the vegetable/grassy qualities to come out.

I think you can best gauge the beer by tasting it over time and pulling out the hops when you get it to the aroma you desire.

He said he had his power point presentation available for us. If I can get a copy of it, I'll ask if its ok to post it here.

I don't know about a strict length of time, but typically dry hopping is done in 3 - 10 days.If it were mine I wouldn't leave them on much longer. Another option would be to rack off the dry hop if you have another carboy.

I dryhopped once for 3 weeks do to uncontrollable circumstances. Yes it does leave off flavors. I agree that dry hopping happens quickly, more so if using pellets. 3-7 days is my recommendation.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Looks like I'll be bottling tomorrow which will be 8 days since secondary. And I'm kind of glad to hear an extended dry hopping can cause off flavors as I was concerned my cascade plants were just not for brewing (this cascade strain was given to me by a family friend who has used them only as ornamental vines). Here's hoping it was just the 3 weeks or so in secondary.

I'm so used to transferring to secondary and forgetting about it for a while that this quick bottling is a bit foreign.

I chucked 2 cases of bottles in some oxyclean last night to remove the labels just in case, and so after reading these posts I rinsed them off and loaded them into the dishwasher. I'll start the sanitization procedure before I go to sleep so they will be clean and cooled for bottling tomorrow morning.

Thanks again everyone!

If you wanted to "forget about it in the secondary" try putting the dryhops into the primary for last week. This will prevent the off gassing of your hop volatiles and allow you to leave it in the secondary until you are ready to bottle.

Why not just dry hop the last week the beer sits in the secondary? I wanted to let my Ruination IPA to rock the secondary for a month or so. Would that be ok, or is that too much?

That would be fine. The OP indicated that removal from the secondary was not on a timetable. Removal of the dryhops is though.

BrewN00b said:

Why not just dry hop the last week the beer sits in the secondary? I wanted to let my Ruination IPA to rock the secondary for a month or so. Would that be ok, or is that too much?

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That would probably be my method in the future, but wasn't possible in this case since I followed the directions of dryhopping when transferring to the secondary. And since these were pellet hops that turned to dust, I can't just pull out a bag the way I possibly could with whole flower hops (still not really possible since I use a carboy with a narrow mouth and not an ale pail).

Thanks guys for the help. I'll be bottling tonight after the carboy sits for the afternoon from the trip upstairs to the kitchen.