question about these Pale Ale instructions

The instructions are located here:
http://www.highgravitybrew.com/docs/GlacierPaleAle.pdf

my question: I see that it contains 2.0 oz of glacier hops (dry hops). The word dry hops kinda scares me, this is my very first brew and not sure I'm ready to dry hop, but I'm not sure that is what it means because in the instructions I see nothing about dry hopping. Can anyone help me out?

Dry Hop -
after you ferment your beer, (maybe a week, maybe two) throw in a handful of hops (per recipe). They provide flavor and aroma, no bitterness. Eventually, they'll settle to the bottom or if they're whole hops, they'll keep floating. A bit of a pain to work around when siphoning, getting ready to bottle or keg, but absolutely worth the effort.

When popping that first beer, if the flavors are too strong, leave them be for a while. They'll mellow out. If they're perfect, drink up fast, before it mellows.

dry hopping takes place after primary fermentation (or at least after the majority of it). basically, you just add the hops to your fermenter, let them sit there for a week or two and then rack your beer like usual. you can go to some trouble putting them in a sanitized bag, etc, but i've had great success just tossing them into the fermenter. an extra week in the fermentation vessel is just fine. dry hopping adds some great aroma and flavor to beers, i'd definitely recommend doing it since it came with hops for that purpose.

edit: hang glider got me!

It's nothing to be afraid of....like they said, add some hops in the primary or the secondary later on when fermentation is nearly or completely over...

It's like frosting a cupcake after it is cool.

You can handle it.

The kit and directions look great - much better than many kits' instructions, imho. With the notable exception of saying nothing about the dry hopping - doh!

Dry hopping is a technique to add more hop aroma and fresh flavor to the beer. When fermentation is done, but before bottling, you put the hops in a hop bag (something like the bag that your kit comes with for steeping grains will work - just clean it well) and put it in the beer. Leave it for a few days - four days is what I have done when dry hopping. Take the bag out and continue on to bottling.

Hope this helps - cheers!

so wait until fermentation is complete and the beer is ready to be bottled, THEN do the dry hop? Or do I have to try and time it so the dry hop is complete after 4 days and hope the fermentation is done then also?

rival178 said:

so wait until fermentation is complete and the beer is ready to be bottled, THEN do the dry hop? Or do I have to try and time it so the dry hop is complete after 4 days and hope the fermentation is done then also?

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I dry hop for two weeks....I usually rack my beer to a secondary on the 14th day and add the hopps, then bottle on the one month anniversary of when I brewed the beer...

Many folks are dryhopping in primary, and opting for a long primary...so they usually add the hops to their fermenter after 2 weeks, for another 2 weeks.

GREAT!! lots of awesome info there....Now do I chose to go with 4 days or 2 weeks? I'm guessing the longer I dry hop the stronger the aroma and taste are. Is that correct? also I dont have a secondary, so I would dry hop in the primary.

You can also e-mail Dave Knott at High Gravity with questions. He typically answers very quickly in my experience.

I brewed this same beer a few weeks ago and I shot him a message about the instructions not being clear on the dry hopping. He must not have udated it.

rival178 said:

GREAT!! lots of awesome info there....Now do I chose to go with 4 days or 2 weeks? I'm guessing the longer I dry hop the stronger the aroma and taste are. Is that correct? also I dont have a secondary, so I would dry hop in the primary.

Click to expand...

As Revvy said, dry hopping in your primary fermenter is fine. When he said to wait for two weeks then dry hop, that is the same thing as saying wait until fermentation is done, in most cases. You do want to wait until the fermentation is done, I think.

In addition to stronger aroma and taste, the length of time you dry hop will also impact the quality or substance of the aroma and taste. I've found that longer dry hopping leads to a more vegetal aroma and flavor, which can be very nice. As you know, it isn't about correct or incorrect in most cases, but about finding out what you like.

maybe split the difference on this one and try out a week for dry hopping. then you can increase or decrease the time based on how you think it tastes. i recently did a 1 week dry hop and was really happy with the resulting aroma and flavor.