Dry hopping in secondary and resumed fermentation question

OK, last wednesday I racked an APA from primary to secondary. All signs pointed to a completed fermentation (ie. close to target gravity, no activity for a few days, etc)....as an afterthought, I decided to toss in the remaining .5 oz of centennial/cascade hops pellets blend that I had from brew day.

A day later, I gently rocked the carboy to help submerge any remaining 'floater' hops and the carboy immediately started bubbling. I would have assumed this to be off-gassing, except that the beer formed a small krauesen on top and has been bubbling once or twice a minute ever since then...

The only thing I'm worried about is the dry hops in there....the sample I tasted when I racked was delicious and i don't want to ruin it with a rotting vegetable flavor because I had to let the raw hops sit for so long....what should I do? rack it to yet another vessel? give it another week and hope it finishes it's business? thanks.

How long are you planning to leave it in the secondary on the hops?

I would not worry.... the agitation reinvigorated the process, and I have seen that often. The hops should only add a second layer of flavor to the beer.

All is well. Give it a few days to settle back down, check your hydro, and proceed as normal. RDWHAHB.

everfrost said:

All is well. Give it a few days to settle back down, check your hydro, and proceed as normal. RDWHAHB.

Click to expand...

thanks, this is what I will do....one more question, and this one shows my noob-ness a lot,

......if it is just 'off-gassing' (assuming this to mean releasing trapped Co2 already present in the carboy) is it safe to bottle, or will 'off-gassing also create bottle bombs?

(my theory is that the act of transfering an off-gassing beer to the bottling bucket will rid it of it's excessive flatulence, but that's what makes me a noob...all theory, no practice!....:cross

As long as fermentation is complete, you don't have any bottle bomb problems. Also, the hops will not give you any rotting veggie flavors, even if fermentation was not complete. The only downside would be renewed fermentation might carry off some of the hop flavors.

To elaborate, the bottle bomb would come from the presence of excess sugar in your just bottled beer.

When it is time to bottle (which is when you reach the final gravity... the point at which the yeast has eaten all the sugar it can, leaving behind co2 and alcohol), you add priming sugar in a measured amount for the batch. This is an amount calculated to give you a certain level of carbonation per bottle (or volume of beer). 3/4 corn sugar per 5 gallons, being the standard.

If fermentation had not finished and you bottled early (or added 2 cups of priming sugar), the yeast in the bottled beer would happily eat all the extra sugar, burping co2 along the way... eventually reaching the point where the bottles explode from excess pressure.