Dry Hop Info Needed Please

Hey everyone, My buddy and I brewed our first IPA and were wondering about dry hopping. The question may sound stupid but I havnt heard much about this.
The question is:
I have read that for optimal hop aroma and whatnot during the dry hop use 2-3oz. of hops anywhere from 3-5 days before bottling. One of the techniques I have seen brewers do is dry hop when racking to secondary by putting leaf hops in the carboy and siphoning on top. Here is the thing, if you want to dry hop the last 3-5 days how is it they are just then racking to secondary? Do they just wait 1-2 weeks in primary and then when they transfer to secondary dry hop for the whole secondary or do they transfer twice, once for actual secondary and then again for the dry hop technique? I have heard that if you leave hops in for whole secondary the hops wont have as fresh of aroma and can also have a grassy note to them. I am anxious to know what you guys think. Thanks

The first time that I tried dry hopping, I used whole leaf hops in a 5 gallon glass carboy. I racked my beer from the primary (3 weeks) to the secondary onto the dry hops. First 2 oz of whole leaf hops are not easy to get in the small opening of the carboy. Second, the siphon kept getting stuck.
Most dry hopping is done for 7 days. If you have to use a carboy, I would recommend hop pellets.

Here is the thread I started about it.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dry-hopping-got-better-way-283910/

Put 30g of flowers in a net (sterilized or something) and throw it in the fermenter a week before bottling. You need mid-high temps to extract all the oils so if you are not making a lager it's ok . Consider that dry-hopped aromas are the first to be lost if you age your beer, they last about 5 months I think (but while they do they are great!) I hope I helped.

I've dry hopped twice, both times using hop pellets. The first batch was a barleywine that had been aging in secondary for a couple of months. On this batch, I took the stopper out of the carboy, tossed in the hops, and closed it back up for 7 days. I cannot stress enough the need to be sanitary here: I age my beers in the basement and the carboy rim and stopper can collect alot of dust/gunk/grime/etc. over the course of a couple of months. The second batch was a light American Ale which I racked directly from primary onto the hop pellets in secondary for 7 days before bottling.

One thing I didn't think of was that the hop pellets create a lot of hop matter in the beer. While my siphon did not get stuck, it pulled a lot of hops into my bottling bucket. In the future, I will rig up some method of filtering into the bottling bucket.

This is good info. but not really answering my question. Our IPA has been in the primary for 2 weeks now...I think what we are going to do is secondary it without dry hops...and in 2-3 weeks take a gravity reading to see where we are at...from there we can determine how much longer before dry hoping right before bottling...but the question is...since 3-7days seems to be what everyone does for dry hopping...how long do you primary ferment for? Do you let it go in the primary until 7 days before bottling and then rack it with siphoning it over the hops addition for dry hopping? That's my question. Because if they do this siphoning technique over the hops in the secondary, either A they go longer than 7 days with dry hopping or B they rack to secondary and then when dry hop wait and 7 days before bottling transfer into another carboy for dry hopping to do the technique I am talking about. Does this make sense or am I reading to much into it? Thanks guys. Sorry for an confusion.

I guess over all I am just trying to see what your process is...or what a good process is for an IPA and dry hopping...

I am listening to Jamil's podcast right now and he is interviewing Avery about their Maharaja Imperial IPA, and what they do is wait for fermentation to finish, rack off to secondary, and then dry hop for 7-10 days, but no more. He doesn't recommend dry hopping for longer than 10 days, so you don't pick up unwanted aromas. He recommends also to 'rouse' the hops by stirring it or something to get the hops moving around in the beer.

From what I understand is you are asking whether or not it is better to have the beer in secondary longer or not. If you think your beer needs to age longer before you dry hop, I would just do it in primary.

However if you are insistent on doing secondary and want to age it, and it will be for longer than 7 days, just rack it and wait for the difference. In otherwords if you wanted it to age for another 2 weeks in secondary, rack it today and in a week, add the dry hops.

That being said, after 2 weeks you are probably fine to simply rack it into secondary directly onto the hops. Make sure to rouse your hops often and bottle/keg after a week or no longer than 10 days.

i let primary fermentation go for 2 weeks, then dry hop in the primary...others do what keesh was saying.

i keg, so i've moved on to primary for 2-3 weeks, then rack onto hops in the keg for a week, then chill and carb.

Pugs13 said:

This is good info. but not really answering my question. Our IPA has been in the primary for 2 weeks now...I think what we are going to do is secondary it without dry hops...and in 2-3 weeks take a gravity reading to see where we are at...

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It shouldn't leave the primary until it's finished. Then you can dryhop in the secondary, or in the primary AFTER it's done fermenting. I do neither, I prefer to dryhop in the keg.

heferly said:

i let primary fermentation go for 2 weeks, then dry hop in the primary...others do what keesh was saying.

i keg, so i've moved on to primary for 2-3 weeks, then rack onto hops in the keg for a week, then chill and carb.

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Yeah I've only ever really dry hopped in primary, that is primarily (heh) out of laziness, and also I don't like the idea of additionally aerating or possibly infecting my beer.

Pugs13 said:

I guess over all I am just trying to see what your process is...or what a good process is for an IPA and dry hopping...

Click to expand...

For an IPA, it's about 7-10 days fermenting and then 5-7 days or so of dryhopping. Sometimes I rack onto the dryhops, sometimes I add them to the primary at the end of fermenting. After the dryhopping for those 5-7 days, the beer is packaged.

You don't want to keep the beer in the fermenter overly long, as the hops aroma will start to fade within a short period of time.

I get my IPAs kegged or bottled by week three.

Yooper said:

For an IPA, it's about 7-10 days fermenting and then 5-7 days or so of dryhopping. Sometimes I rack onto the dryhops, sometimes I add them to the primary at the end of fermenting. After the dryhopping for those 5-7 days, the beer is packaged.

You don't want to keep the beer in the fermenter overly long, as the hops aroma will start to fade within a short period of time.

I get my IPAs kegged or bottled by week three.

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Man that seems just so fast...week three in the bottle, really? I guess I am just used to doing souts...I mean with our stout we went 1 week primary and up to 4 weeks in secondary...then another 4 weeks in the bottle...I guess main thing here is just make sure the fermentation process is complete before racking...

Pugs13 said:

Man that seems just so fast...week three in the bottle, really? I guess I am just used to doing souts...I mean with our stout we went 1 week primary and up to 4 weeks in secondary...then another 4 weeks in the bottle...I guess main thing here is just make sure the fermentation process is complete before racking...

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Ever had a Pliny? Read the label... Pliny is not meant to be aged! Drink fresh! etc. etc. so on and so forth. The faster turnaround for your IPA the better. If you could keg it, I'd stay drink it 3 weeks after brewing, but that is just me.

Good to know guys! Thanks!

I try to follow Vinnie Cilurzo's method of Dry Hopping, which is cold crash for a day or two, then add your dry hops. I've heard him state multiple times that a 12 day dry hop is the magic number for him. There apparantly are studies that say hop oils will attatch themselves to yeast cells and then fall out of suspension. So the theory is that it is best to get as much yeast out of suspension before Dry Hopping. I dry hop in the keg now and usually start drinking my IPA's after 2 weeks in the keg, that's after a 3-4 week primary.

I just brewed a brown ale that I am dry hopping. Trying to get an extra special bitter out of it.

I primary'd for 2.5 weeks, was very cloudy after steady gravity, so I moved to secondary for a week.
Now I am in a tertiary with dry hops and so far so good.

I think what you are looking for is two different things: 1. Steady gravity => 2. Is it Clear? If no, rack until clear, then move to yes. If yes, dry hop depending on style.