Dry hop time

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BlauMaus

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I know there has been extensive discussion on dry hopping before but I can't seem to find any word on what the shortest time is one can dry hop in the secondary. I was brewing an IPA, which was going fine until I transferred to the secondary, at which point I sampled and found that I could neither taste not smell the hops. I proceeded to add some oak chips to the secondary as I'd planned, thinking that maybe I just wouldn't call this an IPA after all, but then I decided I still would like to round this off with a punch of hop aroma, so I dry hopped two days ago with 2oz US Fuggle. I don't want to lose any aroma, is 2 days long enough for the hops to do their thing and to move on to bottling? The beer itself was in the primary for a week and has been in the secondary a week and two days now.
 
It'll be there, just less. Dry-hopping will develop different flavors by different times left in as well as amount of hops used. I would say a min. would be 4 says, but for light AA hops like Fuggles, I'd use 3-4 oz if I was going to do 4 days. I like 5-7, but do what you gotta do!
 
Thanks. Sampled again today, aroma is and probably will continue to be predominantly oaky. I'll never use that many chips again. I'm glad I dry hopped anyway; it curbs the oak aroma and does seem to allow more bitterness to to come out in the flavor. I'm going to bottle tomorrow and let it mellow with age, hopefully it will be a pleasantly drinkable some-kind-of ale.
 
If the oak is getting too much, you should take it off the oak. Move it to another fermenter or bottle it. The oak will eventually fade with aging.

There is no minimum time for dry hopping. Last night I read of a major craft brewery that will not leave it's beer on dry hops for more than 3 days as it feels grassy flavors start to come out of the hops at that time; They dry hop the beer several time for short periods. personally, I leave the dry hops in for 2 weeks.
 
Yeah, I have read different things, I guess that was my questions. One guy had even said with a 5 gallon batch the hops can do their thing in two days MAX. I'm sure there are plenty of factors that play into variability of that number.

On another note, dry hopping with pellets and loose oak chips proved to be an absolute ***** when it came time to rack from the carboy to the bottling barrel. Definitely going to try and use something more self-contained next time.
 
1 week primary & 1 week secondary seems a little short to me. Was the beer at a stable FG? Was it settle out clear or slightly misty before dry hopping?
 
Yeah, in fact I've been finding that my beers are fermenting too fast, Final ABV was a full 1% less than the estimate, and I had added an extra 1.5 pounds Ultralight LME. It was done fermenting before I racked to secondary and clear before dry hopping.
 
I use muslin hop sacks or grain sacks for pellets or whole leaf hops in the boil & when dry hopping. Oak chips go in a hop sack too. Cleaner at bottling bucket racking time that way.
 
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