Dry Hopping in the primary??

Just searching the forums it seems that some brewers seem to leave there brew in the primary and not rack to the secondary at all.

When using this method can you still dry hop??

I am trying to get as much beer in the pipeline as possible....seems that the friends come around alot more when you got some HB.

According to Vinnie from Russian River (the inverntors of the American IPA) the less yeast the more effect the dry hopping will have. This means, either racking to secondary or dropping the yeast before dry hopping. The yeast will become covered in the hop oils and drag them to the bottom and out of the beer.

Others will argue that dry hopping in primary is the best way to avoid any oxidation that may be introduced when adding the hops, which will have small amounts of air inside the pellets. Adding the hops just at the end of fermentation to scrub out any O2 is this method.

I usually go with secondary dry hopping, but I usually secondary all of my beers.

I just wait for fermentation to slooooooowww and dry hop in my primary.

BuffaloSabresBrewer said:

I just wait for fermentation to slooooooowww and dry hop in my primary.

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Definitely this. I've done both (secondary and primary) and haven't noticed any real difference.

Thanks for all the input!!

I think I will try to dry hop the primary after about 3 weeks.


Is oxidation the main reason that some brewers do not rack to a secondary??

JDBREW26 said:

Is oxidation the main reason that some brewers do not rack to a secondary??

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Some say it leaves the beer cleaner tasting if it rests on the yeast cake to uptake any byproducts created during fermentation. Others say it's cleaner if you move it off the yeast as soon as fermentation is over to avoid the yeast releasing off flavors into the beer after they go dormant and aren't working anymore, and to avoid yeast autolization. Autolization does take quite a while though, but when it happens it's nasty, I had it happen once after bottling. I really haven't done it enough both ways to tell the difference, so I use secondaries, partly to free up space in my primary for the next batch, and because I get less crap in the bottles with a secondary (but that's just me).

Im lazy. And because it lets the yeast clean up after themselves.

The recipe for the Chiswick Bitter posted for this years AHA Big Brew day, called for dry hopping in BOTH the primary and then again in the secondary. It was (burp....) a very good beer.