Pliny: to secondary or not?

Pliny is fermenting like crazy and my basement smells like a hop forest! The recipe says to dry hop in secondary for two weeks in two stages. I haven't done secondary in a year or so in favor of the long primary. Is secondary beneficial/useful in this case for dry hopping? Or should I just dry hop in primary? I would like to hear some opinions so that I'm not scrambling when this thing is done fermenting.

Also, how long did others' Pliny clones take to finish fermenting? Two weeks? Three?

Vinny said in his article that there is a greater potential of oxidation in big hoppy beers like DIPAs when transferring. He suggested flushing all lines and secondary with CO2, but I don't know how to do that. I have CO2 tanks but have only used them to push my kegs. I'm afraid of oxidizing this batch.

i transfered mine after 3 weeks in primary, let it sit for 2 more weeks at a little warmer temp, then dry hopped for about 9 days. The samples i took tasted great, just waiting for it to carb now.

In the talks I've heard Vinnie give he was adamant about dropping the yeast out before dry hopping so you don't lose aromatics to the yeast still in suspension. Maybe you could cold crash, pull it and then dry hop in primary?

I've got a Pliny inspired beer ready to keg right now. I dry hopped in primary like I usually do. I'll probably throw a tea ball of hops into the keg too. Just need to finish assembling my new keezer and I can start pouring.

I did the first round of dry hopping in the primary then I racked to a secondary for the next round of dry hopping.

Update: I checked the gravity and it's 1.011. I decided to start dry hopping in primary instead of risking oxidation plus I'm lazy. Sample tasted good. Lingering bitterness on the back of the tongue. It doesn't have hop aroma at all right now. I'm thinking it's going to turn out great after two rounds of dry hopping. I'm going to cold crash it after the dry hopping because it's still cloudy.

I did my own version of Pliny using cascade/centennial/amarillo. I used a 6.5gal carboy for primary for just over a week, and I racked to secondary in a 5gal carboy for just over 2 weeks. Dry hopped for all of the 14 days, the last 4 days adding round 2 of the dry hops. I used Munton's Kreamy X for carbonation, and they have been in bottles for about 3 weeks now. It is absolutely delightful, possibly my best beer to date, and the nice frothy head is delicious. I cannot wait to give them a couple more weeks! I would remake this in a heartbeat!

The only thing I would do differently is not use the dry hop bags and filter straight to the bottling bucket.

OG 1.071
FG 1.017
About 7% abv

Update: I just did my second round of dry hopping. I had decided to leave it in the primary. I think I detected a slight cidery scent. I'll take another hydrometer reading when I keg it in 5 days. We'll see! The sample I had last week was tasting great.

I getting ready to do my first round of dry hopping on the pliny clone as soon I finish this here neirra sevada pint and walk over to the freezer and pull out the hops. Im just throwing them in the primary...no bag no nothin'. I havent had a problem dry hopping like this in all my brews...but then again I havent done anything with this much hops!

I have Vinny's Pliny clone on tap right now. I do not use a secondary at all. I just maintain a fermentation temp of 68-69 degrees, no higher, no lower for a week. I dry hop in the primary as the Vinny PDF suggests, only I add 3/4 oz of Simcoe on the second addition rather than 1/4 oz. along with the other recommended hops.

The beer tastes great. Another thing I do is when I rack to the keg...I tie a very fine screen bag to the hose in the keg to catch hop and yeast particles.

I was considering doing the same thing to catch any hop particles. I can't wait to see how it turns out this Thursday.

Update: I just put it in the kegerator to cold crash.

ILBMF said:

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The beer tastes great. Another thing I do is when I rack to the keg...I tie a very fine screen bag to the hose in the keg to catch hop and yeast particles.

Click to expand...

does it clog up on you? I find when I do this with say a cut piece from a paint strainer it cant keep a siphon going cause it clogs. Any hints on keeping it from cloggin? maybe hold it an inch from the bottom trub/yeast cake and then lower it as the level of the beer gets low?

It never clogs doing a 5 gallon racking. I have the bag on the receiving end (in the keg, not the siphon)

Mine came out great. I forgot to put the strainer on the cane and I did have a clog at the very beginning but I got through it. This is easily the best beer I've made. I'll be brewing a regular IPA today. I'm going for a similar profile but more "session-able" (6-6.7%). I had two pints of my Pliny clone last night and I got really buzzed. The picture was the first pulled so it was really cloudy.

Last two beers I dry hopped have had floaters swirling around the glass even after the keg is half gone.

I like the idea of the strainer on the end of the discharge hose.

Enjoying a pint of the Pliny clone with the Phillies game on and another IPA mashing now. It really came out nice. I'll be using dry yeast a lot more often now.