Dryhopping in Primary?

I know that the answer is probably on here somewhere, but can't seem to find it...

Since the majority of brewer's with much more experience than I prefer to stick to primaries, giving the yeasties more time to clean up, that is what I will probably do (most of the time). Having said that, is it acceptable to dryhop in the primary? Is the exposure to more yeast detrimental to the hop aroma or something?

I do it all the time. Your good to go. schedule it 7-10 days before your going to keg or bottle.

bjl110 said:

Is the exposure to more yeast detrimental to the hop aroma or something?

Click to expand...

In regards to this I have heard of guys who dry hop the last few days of active fermentation with great results.

It's fine, just make sure fermentation is complete

I have dry hopped in the primary it works great but just like everyone else says just make sure your fermentation is complete.

Sweet. I'll wait a couple more days and toss the bag in then. My reading yesterday was already at estimated FG, and it was extract so not a bunch of wiggle room I would imagine.

why do so many people say to rack onto the hops then....is it just to allow for time off the yeast cake and have more time on just the hops? I dry hop in secondary, but also have asked myself why?

I wonder as well. Best I can figure it is what I would call "path dependancy", meaning that we do it that way because we have historically always done it that way. The more common and longer a practice has been accepted, the harder it is to change that practice.

Take the qwerty keyboard - originally it was made that way so people typed slower and more uniform, that way the arms on the manual typewriter wouldn't bind up. There are no more manual typewriters in use, but we still use qwerty even though there are other formats that would allow for faster typing.

People used to always transfer to a secondary. That is out of practice now to some extent, but is still used for all flavor additions. I assumed it really wasn't needed, but was still the predominant practice because it used to be the predominant practice.

or if you don't use a bag to dry hop but intend to harvest the yeast cake, it may be more difficult to get a clean yeast cake. (this is just speculation)