Best hops for dry hopping ipa's?

I am a new brewer on my first ipa. I have an ipa in the primary fermenter and it will be there for 2 weeks before I move to secondary where I plan to dry hop it.

What I wanted to get was some input on what hops I should use to dry hop it. What has worked best for y'all?

What was the recipe. I like to dry hop using the same and/or similar hops.

Some pretty common IPA DH's, Cascade, Amarillo, Simcoe, Centennial, etc.

+1 cascade

Citra/Amarillo, simcoe/Amarillo are probably my favorite combos. Can't go wrong with centennial, cascade, or columbus either though.

It's all personal preference. You just have to experiment and find out what you like.

Try some commercial brews. Gumballhead is all-Amarillo, Two-Hearted is all Centennial, Torpedo from Sierra Nevada has Citra, I think, Mikkellar does an all-Simcoe brew (expensive, though), etc. Google around and you can find other hop varities that are showcased in commercial brews.

Or, if you have tons of patience, you can try something like this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/genius-exercise-futility-277563/

Cheers!

samc said:

Some pretty common IPA DH's, Cascade, Amarillo, Simcoe, Centennial, etc.

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Add Citra, Columbus, and Ahtanum to the list.

Any of those have that big citrus punch that you look for in an American IPA.

Agree with all above, needs to match your recipe. Amarillo and Ahtanum was a great combo I have done.

big centennial fan here

I just mixed Columbus/ahtanhum/amarillo/cascade into a dry hop and it its wonderful. Pine, resin, and super grapefruit all in one. However, any of these would be wonderful by themselves or mixed. My favorite is simcoe/amarillo and sometimes adding summit to the mix for more soft citrus.

Brew365.com has a great hop rundown on flavor and aroma to get some ideas.

What is a good amount for a 5 gallon batch? I brewed my first IPA over the weekend and planned on dry hopping with some Amarillo and Cascade, but really am unsure of how much to use.

I usually go with 2 oz for dry hopping so if you want to dry hop with two types do one oz of each.
Also I made a single IPA with galena and dry hoped with it and it tasted amazing like a nice southern ambrosia. Which has flavors of orange Cream and coconut!

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If you get your hands on some Citra I would recommend it highly. Great citrus, almost tropical taste, really good

Citra!!!

D. All of the above.

I do cascade centennial and citra for my house ipa. These are pretty much everyone's favorite just from reading the responses you've already gotten

I brewed a Red IPA last weekend that I plan to dry hop with an ounce each of Cascade, Simcoe and Amarillo.

Brutus Brewer said:

What is a good amount for a 5 gallon batch? I brewed my first IPA over the weekend and planned on dry hopping with some Amarillo and Cascade, but really am unsure of how much to use.

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I usually use 3oz in a regular ipa.

Best thing to find out what hop combinations taste like...drink a lot of beer. Beers like furious, hopslam, and dfh 60 all have simcoe and Amarillo. Very citrusy. Green flash west coast ipa has a lot of centennial and cascade, for a more bitter taste and aroma. It's up to you how you want your beer to taste and smell.

We're dry hopping with Simcoe for a double ipa this weekend, but we like the citrusy aroma and clean hop taste.

LOVE me some Citra for an APA. Simcoe and Amarillo for IPA.

HappyLoon said:

Best thing to find out what hop combinations taste like...drink a lot of beer. Beers like furious, hopslam, and dfh 60 all have simcoe and Amarillo. Very citrusy. Green flash west coast ipa has a lot of centennial and cascade, for a more bitter taste and aroma. It's up to you how you want your beer to taste and smell.

We're dry hopping with Simcoe for a double ipa this weekend, but we like the citrusy aroma and clean hop taste.

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I agree with determining what commercial beers you like and researching from there, but to help the OP, according to Can You Brew It, GF West coast is mostly Simcoe/Columbus for a piney/danky Aroma/flavor with small additions of several other hops, and per info that someone got from Bells, Hopslam is centennial, herbstrucker, glacier, vanguard, crystal then dry hopped with Simcoe. Furious and DFH are mostly simcoe Amarillo, with some warrior for bittering.

I use a lot of citra, simcoe, Amarillo, centennial, Columbus and cascade. Haven't found a bad mix between them.

Depends on your taste but for me...


Citra/ Amarillo.... Cascade/ Amarillo. ....or all Centenial. or.?????????? Tons of good combinations. I can think of plenty more.....

actually a big fan of the chinook/cascade combo

Simcoe/Amarillo is always great as others have said, I did a 1/2oz each Chinook/Simcoe/Citra/Centennial once and it was pretty awesome. Not a huge fan of Columbus myself, I tend to just use that for Bittering.

I like the chinook, cascade, centennial combo.

I brew a single hop IPA with cascade (I grow my own hops). How much whole hops should I brew with and should I just put them in whole or grind them up first (in a spice grinder) How do you keep the siphoning rack clear with out getting clogged?

I did an APA playing with some homegrown whole hops, and everything I found said you need to multiply your normal weights by 5 or 6 to account for water weight. Basically, if you'd normally add an ounce of dry hops, you need to add 5 ounces of your fresh hops. (If you've already dried yours, you might have to play it by ear, depending on how effective your drying setup is.) Because I couldn't be sure of AA%, I bittered with something neutral and focused the fresh hops on flavor and aroma additions, but I'm sure others here have managed to bitter with homegrown hops.

Throwing in the whole cones worked fine for my setup. But I pour from the boil kettle into another bucket through a metal strainer. You may have to think through how to deal with it with your setup. (Muslin hop bags, maybe?)

Fresh hop beers are amazing. Best of luck with yours!

Brutus Brewer: I have found that anywhere from 1/2 oz to 1 oz in a five gal batch is plenty.

Bobcatbrewing42 said:

Brutus Brewer: I have found that anywhere from 1/2 oz to 1 oz in a five gal batch is plenty.

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Per gallon...