Dry Hopping Right into the Primary

Hi,

I'm just doing a two week primary ferment then a week to condition in a pressure barrel.

The primary has been fermenting for 5/6 days now and has stopped bubbling.

Should I open the top and dry hop for the last 8 days before racking off into my pressure barrel? Or would it be best to dry hop directly into the pressure barrel?

Thanks

Take a gravity reading. I usually dry hop in the primary when fermentation is about 90% complete. Anything before that will most likely get shrubbed out by the fermentation.

No no no no. My first dry-hop, recently, I added it after day 5 thinking fermentation was almost complete based on airlock activity slowing down, but it kept going another week and a half. I lost alot of aroma and ended up with some grassiness. Work backwards.... if you are set on your 'bottling' day then work backwards from that day, 3 to 5 days.

Even at 90% fermentation on your hydrometer, that last 10% could take longer than you think it should.

I recently made an IPA. Had it in primary for 3 weeks, added hops to primary and let it dryhop for a week. The aroma was fantastic, but be warned:
Avoiding trub AND hop debri with an autosiphon? Jesus can't even do that. Definitely use a bag or teaball.

Just my personal experience, but I've made the exact IPA recipe back-to-back. On the first attempt, I dry-hopped in the primary after 3 weeks (fermentation had been complete for at least a week and a half). The second time, I racked to a secondary after 3 weeks in the primary and dry-hopped there. Both times, I dry-hopped for 10 days using the same amount and type of hops (from a bulk buy, so same AAUs as well). The aroma wasn't even close - the secondary-dry-hopped version was much more fragrant.

I don't want to start a "whether to secondary" debate - this is just my own anecdotal results. I will admit I've seen an article discussing how yeast can attach/bind to the hop oils thus diminishing their fragrance, but of course can't find it now.

I've dry-hopped in primary in the past with excellent results. If you cold crash before bottling it's not hard to avoid most of the hop sludge, but I'd go with a strainer bag anyway just to be safe.

I'm thinking of trying the same thing. I'm doing a double brew day this weekend, and will be brewing an Oatmeal Stout and a Rye IPA, both partial mash. I will be dry hopping the Rye IPA with 2oz of Amarillo, and will put them in a mesh bag to avoid hop particles in the final beer.

I only have two fermenters, so I won't be racking either to secondary. I'm going to let both of them sit in primary for at least 3 weeks to allow the yeast to clean up after themselves.

My question, will I lose aroma by dry hopping in the primary, even after waiting a little while after primary fermentation has finished?

jbrookeiv said:

My question, will I lose aroma by dry hopping in the primary, even after waiting a little while after primary fermentation has finished?

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Again, just my personal experience, but I think you lose some aroma if the yeast are still in suspension. If you're using a highly-flocculant strain, you may have better results than if using a less-flocculant stain. If you could cold-crash the primary before dry hopping, I would expect better (i.e. more aromatic) results.

Hophazard said:

Again, just my personal experience, but I think you lose some aroma if the yeast are still in suspension. If you're using a highly-flocculant strain, you may have better results than if using a less-flocculant stain. If you could cold-crash the primary before dry hopping, I would expect better (i.e. more aromatic) results.

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I will be using Safale US-05 as my yeast, but don't have equipment to cold crash it (i.e. apartment with a fridge that won't fit my carboy).

S-05 is pretty flocculant. I was using the equivalent of S-04 in the comparison I mentioned above. Only way to tell is to dry-hop once in the primary and make it again using a secondary (or second primary) for dry-hopping. I believe I kept all other aspects constant (grain bill, hops, fermentation time/temp) so the only thing I can peg the difference on is the presence of yeast in suspension.

I have decided to dry hop with the bag. I have just added 25g of my garden hops (whatever they may be... slightly fresh citrus smell) in a hop bag tied both ends so it makes a ball.

The beer (English Real Ale) has been fermenting in the primary for 5 full days. When I opened the seal there was no gas expelling.. (does this mean that most fermentation has finished?)

I'm planning to leave the bag in (although sitting high on the surface) for 9 days. Do you think this is too long?

Then I'm racking off into a primed pressure barrel and will leave to sit for 7 days.

Any advice on this?

PS - do i add the finings to the primary for the last few days, or add the finings to the barrel for the 7 days sitting?

nickrjsmith said:

The beer (English Real Ale) has been fermenting in the primary for 5 full days. When I opened the seal there was no gas expelling.. (does this mean that most fermentation has finished?)

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The only way to tell is to take a hydrometer reading. Once it's remained constant for a few days, fermentation is finished. Even after you've reached FG, I would wait a week or so to let the yeast finish consuming some of their byproducts before dry-hopping.

nickrjsmith said:

I'm planning to leave the bag in (although sitting high on the surface) for 9 days. Do you think this is too long?

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I routinely dry-hop between 7-10 days (depending on when I have time to rack off of the hops) and haven't had a vegetal aroma or any other negative side effects, so I think you'll be fine. 7 days in the pressure barrel should be fine - you just want any remaining hop particles to settle out (and there will be some).

So do you think dry hopping after 5 days fermenting in the primary is too soon?

Yes - unless fermentation has ended, the production of CO2 will drive off the hop aroma.

Hophazard said:

Yes - unless fermentation has ended, the production of CO2 will drive off the hop aroma.

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The technique that I use is to drop hop in the primary when it's almost done fermenting. The theory is that you want a little CO2 production to prevent oxidation, but not to add the hops too early otherwise the CO2 will blow out a lot of aroma as you say. After 10 days on the dry hops I usually cold crash for 5 or 6 (adding gelatin) which drops everything and compacts it nicely. I also started dry hopping in the keg which works very well (I learned this from a local craft brewery: they dry hop in the primary and also add hops in the serving tank and their IPAs have the most amazing aroma).

I also do a CO2 push from the primary to the keg after I've flushed the keg with CO2 as additional insurance against oxidation.