Dryhopping in Primary

Has anyone dry hopped in the primary rather than racking to a secondary and then dry hopping? Also, can you dry hop and add gelatin finnings at the same time?

Yes and yes.

I've only used secondaries to lager and/or get rid of yeast before transferring into a keg. I normally dry hop for a week but only add gelatin a few days or so before kegging/bottling. If you add them at the same time I doubt there'd be an issue.

You can dry hop in the primary no problem. The beer should be chilled when you add the gelatin, so i would do that after your done dry hopping and before you bottle/keg.

Thanks. Second thought, I had been thinking about trying my hand at yeast rinsing with this batch. Would it be better to transfer to a secondary so I don't "contaminate" the yeast with hops i may not use in my next batch?

Have you thought about putting the hops in a muslin bag? That's what I normally do when I dry hop. Let it ferment for a week, dry hop in a muslin bag for a week then bottle/keg. That way you can easily pull the hop bag out when bottling or kegging and no worries about hop sludge.

blaster_54738 said:

Have you thought about putting the hops in a muslin bag?

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I have but always wondered if the hop utilization was as good since the hops are confined in a bag rather than dispersed throughout the beer. Do you still get good aroma and flavor?

chanson16 said:

I have but always wondered if the hop utilization was as good since the hops are confined in a bag rather than dispersed throughout the beer. Do you still get good aroma and flavor?

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I haven't had an issue doing it that way

chanson16 said:

Has anyone dry hopped in the primary rather than racking to a secondary and then dry hopping? Also, can you dry hop and add gelatin finnings at the same time?

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I dry-hop in primary exclusively. Never used gelatin though.

I do all of the above - dry hop in primary with finings, and wash the yeast after dry hops. Just don't do all three - if you wash yeast after finings, you'll harvest the finings along with the yeast. Can't remember where I read that on HBT, but I just remember seeing that washing + finings is no good.

JonM said:

Just don't do all three - if you wash yeast after finings, you'll harvest the finings along with the yeast.Can't remember where I read that on HBT, but I just remember seeing that washing + finings is no good.

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Good point. I didn't even think about that but makes sense since the point of the gelatin is to drop the yeast out of suspension.

Your probably better racking off the beer then putting the gelatin in your bottling bucket or keg than putting it right into your primary.

The gelatin can obviously only pull down so much yeast relative to how much you put in, so racking off may help.

If you are planning on harvesting the yeast, i wouldn't dry hop in the primary. The hops are unboiled and probably safe in the current batch that is fully attenuated, low enough pH and high enough alcohol level to resist infection but there might be something in the hops that could contaminate a future batch.

I've tried dry hops straight up and inside a bag with no difference that I noticed, they are just easier to clean out/remove when they are in a bag.

I always wash my yeast for later use, and I almost always use gelatin (unless it's a stout, hefe, etc). I have not seen any difference in the quality of my washed yeast whether or not gelatin was used. There very well could be something going on that I just don't know about, but the yeast still washes up easy and works well for me later.

Thanks all for the input. I think I will experiment a little bit to see what works best (while having a homebrew of course).

I think I will move the beer to a secondary so I can harvest the yeast as clean as possible. The only thing I have to do it in is a keg. Will a lot more yeast settle out to the bottom of the keg? I am concerned about it coming out when u dispense.

chanson16 said:

I think I will move the beer to a secondary so I can harvest the yeast as clean as possible. The only thing I have to do it in is a keg. Will a lot more yeast settle out to the bottom of the keg? I am concerned about it coming out when u dispense.

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The first few pints will be cloudy but then it should be good. If you are dry hopping in the keg, whole hops in a bag seem to work better for me. I've had problems with hop bits jamming up the poppets a few times when using pellets.

i pretty much always dry hop in the primary