Choose the better of two beer evils.

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temptnmonkey

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so here is the situation:

I brewed a 3 gallon extract batch of an imperial IPA (1.078 OG--Citra and Columbus in case you want to know), and it has been fermenting in a 5 gallon carboy for about 2 and a half weeks. Fermentation went well as far as I can tell (used a little starter of WLP001--good and rigorous for a few days then the krausen dropped). Haven't taken any new hydrometer sample yet, because I didn't want to loose the CO2 blanket (and all i have is a turkey baster to use for roughly 3 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy). I wanted to dry hop it for a 5-7 days, and I have one of two options (that I can think of).

1. I can just throw the hops into the carboy where the beer is already housed. Potential problem is i didn't get a chance to filter out the hop trub from the boil, so it has been hanging out with that the whole time.

2. I can siphon it to a free 6.5 gallon bucket off the yeast/trub and dry hop there. Potential problem is there would be an enormous head space.

So what should I choose as the better of two evils?
-the continued risk of unfiltered boil hops exerting unwanted grassy/vegetative flavors
-the higher risk of oxidation by racking a 3-gallon batch to a secondary

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm open to #3 (RDWHAHB) too :)
 
Leave the beer in the carboy, wait another week for then add the hops for one more week. That should give at least 3 weeks in the fermentor before dry hopping.

While doing all of this keep practicing option #3 (cause that is always a good option):rockin:
 
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