How long to dry hop in the secondary?

I just recently purchased a carboy to start doing secondary fermenting. I am making an IPA which was in primary for 3 weeks, then I moved to seconday and added 1oz Cascade pellets in a disposable pellet bag. Are whole hops better, do you bag or no bag and do I leave the hops in the secondary the full time or should I remove the bag after several days? How long would you keep this beer in a secondary. The OG 1.067, at xfer to secondary was 1.014This is the first dry hopping I have done and would appreciate any tips from the experts. Im still new brewer 1yr and just begin to do all grains and still much to learn.

I dry hop for 2 weeks max. I have heard you can get grassy flavors from excessively long dry hopping. I have never dry hopped more than 2 weeks + few a days since I don't want to ruin a batch.

In general, I primary 3 weeks, and 2ndary for 2-4 weeks. This gets me mighty clean beer and its very drinkable once its carbed. No green flavor whatsoever. I give a generous 3 weeks to carb as well. Nearly 2 or 3 months of no rush beer turns into mighty fine beer.

I brew frequently so the time factor isn't an issue for me.

I like to dry hop with whole hops, but either will do fine. I don't bag my dry hops they are free-range hops.

This is 4 oz of cascade for my house amber. (See my recipes) House Amber

I'll usually dry hop for 2 weeks if I secondary and then add more hops in the keg until it is gone. In the keg the hops are in a bag with marbles. Secondary hops roam free.

damn Schlenkerla...thats alot of hops for an amber with not much headroom. Nice lookin hops though.

Same as him, i usually dryhop but for no more than 2 weeks. Ill usually use pellets because they soak up less beer which means i have more when its finished. I also get more added "percieved" bitterness and nose from pellets vs leaf to which i attribute to more surface area. Either work well. You can always taste every few days to get it to the exact flavor you want. I usually find 10 days right

Would dry hopping for 3 days do anyting? A buddy of mine told me to dry hop this current batch I followed from him, but he says only 3 days dry hopping...

scinerd3000 said:

damn Schlenkerla...thats alot of hops for an amber with not much headroom. Nice lookin hops though.

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I grow my own, I'll use a bunch if I make this beer close to harvest time.

This particular batch was made with 8oz.

I go a week when dry hopping. The question was would a few days do anything? Sure it would.

The key is not to go too long.

I go for one week. I was reading somewhere recently about polyphenols in hops. Like the alpha acids, these contribute to the bitterness, but unlike AA, are somewhat soluble in water (beer) with no boiling required. This can result in a beer tasting more bitter than planned. If you want to dry hop for longer, than one might drop the bittering addition so you don't overshoot. I made an English bitter last year that called for dry hopping in both primary and secondary. This beer ended up being a fair bit more bitter than I thought it would.

daveooph131 said:

Would dry hopping for 3 days do anyting? A buddy of mine told me to dry hop this current batch I followed from him, but he says only 3 days dry hopping...

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Yes, it will definitely impart hop flavor and aroma. For my base IPA, I dry hop with either whole hops or hop plugs in a bag and add it to the carboy four days before I plan to bottle.

Cheers!

Ya I dry hop for 5 days with either 2-3 different hop additions

How do you guys filter out the hops when bottling? I have my beer dry hopping in secondary. I used 2 OZ pellets. There is a layer on top and bottom. Any ideas how to keep that out of my bottles?

3-7 days at 70F+ for me.

brewdude25 said:

How do you guys filter out the hops when bottling? I have my beer dry hopping in secondary. I used 2 OZ pellets. There is a layer on top and bottom. Any ideas how to keep that out of my bottles?

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Transfer again and let it settle a couple days then transfer to your bottling bucket.

brewdude25 said:

How do you guys filter out the hops when bottling? I have my beer dry hopping in secondary. I used 2 OZ pellets. There is a layer on top and bottom. Any ideas how to keep that out of my bottles?

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You might even try racking to a bottling bucket. You'd be surprised on how little makes it to the bottling bucket. The simpler thing to me is to wait a bit longer and let it settle.

If you do rack to a bottling bucket try to avoid it in the transfer. In the event it makes it to the bucket odds are the most of it will float and only the last few bottles will have hop particles. Save these few as the 1st sample bottles. The overwhelming majority should be free of hop particles.

brewdude25 said:

How do you guys filter out the hops when bottling? I have my beer dry hopping in secondary. I used 2 OZ pellets. There is a layer on top and bottom. Any ideas how to keep that out of my bottles?

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To be honest , I tried a batch by "Carefully" racking to the bottling bucket. Got lots of stuff that came along. The best way I've found is to get a nylon stocking and sanitize it. Put that over your siphon/racking cane on the end that goes into the fermentor and use a rubber band to hold it (sanitized too of course). Works like a charm for me. (Be sure to leave a "boot" on the end so it doesn't clog as easily).

Not completely off topic... What about shaking the carboy once a day while the dry hop is in there. I have heard of those with conicals blasting some co2 in the bottom to get the hops into suspension and help distribute that hop goodness. I have an IPA in secondary with dry hops and have been giving it a good shake/swirl every day.

This might answer some questions:

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/Brew-Strong-12-08-08-Dry-Hopping

I have an IPA in secondary with dry hops and have been giving it a good shake/swirl every day.

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Oxygenation? That's my concern there.

Twofox said:

Oxygenation? That's my concern there.

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I would think that because I am shaking out a lot of co2 and getting some foaming, that the headspace is full of co2 and has pushed all the o2 out. I could be wrong... Even if there is a small amount of o2, the yeast would probably use that up. Maybe it'll even help dry out the beer a bit??

Yeah I don't know. It makes sense that in a somewhat sealed environment, you should only be dealing with CO2. Good question tho.

With dry hops, I've swirled the carboy a bit to get them to drop, but haven't given it the hard shake yet

Can I clear up the residue from pellet hops by using gelatin at the end of the dry hop to pull the material to the bottom before racking off?

BigdogMark said:

Can I clear up the residue from pellet hops by using gelatin at the end of the dry hop to pull the material to the bottom before racking off?

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I dry hop and do fining at about the same time. Gelatin should drop out the hopd, but using the nylon stocking over the racking cane will also help for a clean transfer.

Wow Schlenkerla, I thought I was going crazy with 2oz cascade leaf hops and 1 oz Hallerau plugs in my attempt at recreating "Back in Black" black IPA. Sure is pretty though haha.

OK. I am going to dry hop for the first time and have some questions.
When I transfer the secondary, do I wait or can I wait a week or two to put the hops in the beer after transfering to the secondary? Also, at what point do I transfer to the secondary? Right now I go 2 weeks in the fermenter using single stage fermentation. I am making an American Pale ale and plan on using 2oz of Amirillo. Any idea how much is the right amount? I don't want it too hoppy as I am not shooting for an IPA (although I love IPA's). From what I read, it sounds like a week of dry hopping should be enough and 2 weeks causes more problems than good. Am I right?

beerguy2009 said:

OK. I am going to dry hop for the first time and have some questions.
When I transfer the secondary, do I wait or can I wait a week or two to put the hops in the beer after transfering to the secondary? Also, at what point do I transfer to the secondary? Right now I go 2 weeks in the fermenter using single stage fermentation. I am making an American Pale ale and plan on using 2oz of Amirillo. Any idea how much is the right amount? I don't want it too hoppy as I am not shooting for an IPA (although I love IPA's). From what I read, it sounds like a week of dry hopping should be enough and 2 weeks causes more problems than good. Am I right?

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If you're waiting 2 weeks, you can probably just dry hop in the primary. As long as most of the yeast has dropped, you're fine. If you want to use a secondary, wait to transfer until the beer is done fermenting, give it a few days to drop bright, and then rack onto your hops.

I like to dry hop for 5 days and usually don't go over 7 days. There's some data that's shown if you're dry hopping with pellets, you get the best aroma extraction in a few hours and things actually start to drop off quickly after 24 hours. I haven't done that experiment yet, though my current APA will be packaged with a 3 day dry hop (2oz) and we'll see how that is compared to my normal 5 day dry hop (I always use pellets).

2oz should be great for an APA, but if you're looking for only a light aroma, 1oz would be totally fine. Many people use 2oz dry hop for their IPAs, but I prefer 4 or more.

So if I ferment in the primary for 7 days, transfer the beer to the secondary, let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks, and then dry hop the beer will it make any difference to how the beer turns out? Due to scheduling issues this would be the only way I could make this current batch which will be my first attempt at dry hopping.

beerguy2009 said:

So if I ferment in the primary for 7 days, transfer the beer to the secondary, let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks, and then dry hop the beer will it make any difference to how the beer turns out? Due to scheduling issues this would be the only way I could make this current batch which will be my first attempt at dry hopping.

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That would be fine. If you're not going to be around, you just don't want to leave it on the hops way too long. I think shorter > longer, plus, your beer will have dropped even more yeast by then.

After reading this I wonder what my beer will turn out like. I made a Citra pale ale that after 7 days in the primary I added 3 oz of Mosaic hops to dry hop it. I was advised that 2 wks would be a little short prior to bottling so I transferred it to a secondary w/o the Mosaic hops and it has been setting for 7 days at 66*. Will I lose alot of the hoppyness? The sample I pulled when I transfer tasted awesome. I plan to bottle this weekend. I probably should cold crash it but am unsure if an additional extended amt of time will help the flavor and I don't freak out about some chill haze at this point. Still trying to get the processes down but still have beer to drink.

bump

stoneyts - I would cold crash and bottle.

My experience is that you get the MOST upfront from dry hopping (2-3 days) but you can go much longer. Some hops really seem to peter out over extended times and get dull/muddy/soapy, but I have only seen that in a secondary that I forgot over months - it got pitched out.

Extending the amount of time is really something you should try over many brews until you reach the point you can more or less predict the result. Typically - I go short (2-4 days) but with lots of hops.

IMO - you said the sample tasted pretty good - time to get it into the bottle to carb and enjoy!

I second mchrispen, your beer is fine. Bottle and start drinking!

I just got a recipe that called for dry-hopping for 18 days, I was confused on the concept of this. I have never dry hopped more than 10 days (only on accident), usually just 7 days. The 10 day beer is actually kegged and gassing up right now, so I am not sure of the flavors. In regards to the 18 days though, I am just going to up the hop amount that gets dry hopped and only do the 7 days I normally do.

How do you guys normally siphon out after dry hopping? People have been saying that muslin bags clog up easily and sometimes caused oxygen to be sucked in from outside the siphon.

I was thinking of using a 5 gallon nylon bag you would use for BIAB, apparently that works better...

I used a bag to hold my dry hop addition so I don't know what works best but I was thinking that the transfer to bottling bucket would work putting a bag at the end of the hose in the bucket. You would need to sterilize the bag but that would give an element of filtration that might not clog as easily. Of course this isn't speaking from experience but seems like it would work. I'll know more tomorrow when I bottle my beer just as a means of keeping as much crap out of the bottled beer as possible.

ercousin said:

How do you guys normally siphon out after dry hopping? People have been saying that muslin bags clog up easily and sometimes caused oxygen to be sucked in from outside the siphon.

I was thinking of using a 5 gallon nylon bag you would use for BIAB, apparently that works better...

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For siphoning after dry hopping, just siphon. I've never used any bags or screens to filter with. If you cold crash, everything settles down on its own as it cools. Even if you don't cold crash you still can avoid everything. If whole leaf I will bag, but pellets I just toss right in. I just haven't stepped too far into beer critiquing that I am that worried about oxygenation that much, but using bag obviously will and is avoided. Just pay attention to what you are doing and you'll be fine bare-backing it.

In these forums I have read others claiming that the transferring to a secondary is not needed. So, my question is, if the recipe calls for adding hops to a secondary, can I just add to the primary and let is go another 3-7 days??

invmgmt said:

In these forums I have read others claiming that the transferring to a secondary is not needed. So, my question is, if the recipe calls for adding hops to a secondary, can I just add to the primary and let is go another 3-7 days??

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I add my dry hops 2 weeks into the primary fermentation and let it go another week. Works for me.

So from what I am reading, dry hopping for 5 day would get most if not all the aroma and flovor I could get from the hops? I am fermenting an American Pale ale and going to dry hop with 2oz of amarillo hops.

Dry hopping at room or fermentation temps (60's-70). The colder it is, the harder for the dry hopping to take place. If you dry hop in a keg at 40*, it will end up taking you two weeks to get the same results as keg at room temp for a week. This is all from my experience.

beerguy2009 said:

So from what I am reading, dry hopping for 5 day would get most if not all the aroma and flovor I could get from the hops? I am fermenting an American Pale ale and going to dry hop with 2oz of amarillo hops.

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This should come out great. I'm about to do this with 1oz Amarillo/1 oz Simcoe in my IPA.

My first time dry hopping with fresh (but dried properly on a screen for a couple days then stored a couple weeks) hops from my fence. 1 oz. I transferred from Primary to Secondary today, then will bottle next week I guess. I guess I could have let it sit in the secondary before dry hopping, but they are in now. I don't want to leave them too long. I suppose also, I could rack the beer out into another secondary and let it sit a bit more, as I usually go at least a couple weeks in a secondary. The beer was three weeks in the primary, with no dry hopping there. I used copious fresh (but dried) hops in the boil, after 1/2 hour, and the sample from the hydrometer tube tasted dang good. Like a nice pale ale. Some dry hopping should make it even better. Any thoughts?

I just added dry hops today to my current batch if IPA. My current situation won't allow me to bottle until 11 days from now. That should be good, right? What do you guys think?