Recipe Help Thread #1,300,147 - American IPA

I'm brewing my first (on my own anyway) 5gal batch and the recipe I've put together is an American IPA. I would like to dry hop in the secondary and looking for advice on which hops to go with.

I'm using the following for the boil:

Magnum @ 60min
Warrior @ 15min
Crystal @ 0min

Should I go with Crystal on the dry hop as well or would anyone care to chime in on something more appropriate for an American IPA...perhaps Cascade or Citra?

I would go with an oz of cascade and an oz of citra

Well, that's an idea that I would be comfortable with!

Now, I have witnessed several brews, but never taken part in doing a secondary. I will be transferring to secondary 7 days after primary. If I understand this correctly, dry hopping is best done in the secondary for 7-14 days?

My exact recipe:

http://hopville.com/recipe/1209035/american-ipa-recipes/snows-maiden-ale

I would leave it in primary for the entire time. You can dry hop in the primary with no problem and you give your yeast a chance to "clean up after themselves", plus no need to risk infection or anything by transferring.

My understanding was that it was best to dry hop after the majority of fermenting was over so that you get the aroma and flavor of the dry hops. Not to say that is the letter of the law, but I simply was under the impression dry hopping was best achieved in a secondary.

You do want to wait until fermentation is complete, however racking to secondary is not really needed. I usually go 2 weeks in primary then dry hop for 7-10 days with excellent results.

I get great beers with huge hop flavor and aroma when I dry hop directly in primary and I don't use bags... Many options out there but it is often best left as simple as possible

Most of the techniques will make great beer, so experiment and find out which works best for you and your equipment

That's great advice Remman, I would imagine like every other hobby people hold close to their preferences. I am concerned about infection like anyone else, so maybe I will just dry hop in the primary.

After talking to the guy at my LHBS, he mentioned that he uses gelatin to help sediment clear out of the beer for a more clear final product. Any experience with that? Or do you think I should just use hop bags?

I have never used hop bags myself, I just dump em in. As long as you are careful when racking to your bottling bucket, or uss a paint strainer bag, you won't have a clarity problem. Most of your clarity comes from how quickly you can drop your temp from boil to pitch temp.

Gelatin helps remove suspended proteins of I understand the mechanism correctly, so it will reduce haziness, but I have not used it before

I use Irish moss in my boil to help clarify the final product