Dry Hopping in Active Fermentation question...

Hello everyone,

I have a question. I am brewing my 3rd batch ever (Ruination IPA clone). It calls for dry hopping at 3-5 days after pitching the yeast. Our local homebrew store owners suggested that I put it in as soon as the fermentation begins. I have very active fermentation today (24 hours after yeast pitch) so I dumped the hop pellets in. I have noticed that a lot of the pellets have broken up and got stuck to the side of the bucket in the fermentation head. Is this going to pose a problem??

Thanks,

evans5150

Well, first off, I have never heard of such a thing. The reason you do dry hopping in the secondary stage is that you have enough Ethanol in solution that it inhibits any bacterial contamination that you may have gotten from the hop pellets. Hops are somewhat antiseptic or bacteriostatic in and of themselves, but I think you are taking a big risk.

Furthermore, I think that dry hopping in the primary phase is completely unnecessary, as you are not going to get any more aroma from doing it in primary as if you would have waited until secondary to do it.

That said, I'd like to know how this comes out.

and I doubt that a few hop pellets stuck to the side will cause any dry hopping problems. Remember, you dry hop to get a good hop aroma. It does little for flavor or bittering.

Thanks Biermann,

All of that makes good sense. The recipe that I have does NOT call for a secondary fermentation (it's from BYO magazine). It just calls for the dry hopping to be done 3-5 days after yeast pitching. Here is what I usually do:

Ferment for 7 days in the house at the required temp for the brew. Let it settle outside in the garage for the next 7 days in temps around 38-50 degrees to let the sediment fall. So I'm thinking I should have dry hopped when I moved the brew outside for the second week??

Thanks,

evans5150

evans5150 said:

Thanks Biermann,

All of that makes good sense. The recipe that I have does NOT call for a secondary fermentation (it's from BYO magazine). It just calls for the dry hopping to be done 3-5 days after yeast pitching. Here is what I usually do:

Ferment for 7 days in the house at the required temp for the brew. Let it settle outside in the garage for the next 7 days in temps around 38-50 degrees to let the sediment fall. So I'm thinking I should have dry hopped when I moved the brew outside for the second week??

Thanks,

evans5150

Click to expand...

If you have a secondary I would use it...Just let it ferment at normal temps (65-70F) for a week or so, then drop it to a secondary, add the hops and let that sit at the same or lower temps for another 2 weeks (or more). If you dry hop too soon then the escaping co2 from the active fermentation will scrub away most or all the hop aroma goodness. If you dont use a secondary, at least wait untill fermentation is finished before adding the hops. (You will know when its mostly done if the airlock is bubbling less than 1 time every other minute or so.)