Aging an IIPA and dry hopping?

So let's say you've got an IIPA and you want to dry hop it. As a higher gravity beer, it's gonna need to age a little bit longer than a normal IPA, probably. So do you dry hop first knowing that you're going to lose some of that hop aroma over the time you age it? Or do you age it for a little while in the secondary, then dry hop it, then bottle/keg, carb and serve.

Could be wrong.... but considering the nature of hops, and that higher alcohol tends to discourage bacterial growth... I'd guess that you'd dry hop later.

Well, either way, fermentation is gonna be done. So the amount of alcohol won't vary from method 1 to method 2.

I never use a "secondary" vessel. For IIPAs, I'll let it ferment out for maybe 4 weeks in the fermenter, then add 2-4 ounces of hop pellets, then let that sit for another 7-10 days, then bottle.

if you're beer is done fermenting (with no more CO2 pushing the aroma out of the vessel) you can throw the hops in. If you make sure not to leave the dry hops in for longer than 14 days, you're good.

I'm not saying that dry hopping later will affect the amount of alcohol, I'm saying that since the effects of dry hopping will diminish over time, it's probably better to dry hop later than sooner. This will decrease the amount of time from dry hopping to drinking, and minimize the amount of flavor / aroma that will diminish.

The amount of alcohol in an IIPA will help keep any contamination from being a concern.

alexdagrate said:

I never use a "secondary" vessel. For IIPAs, I'll let it ferment out for maybe 4 weeks in the fermenter, then add 2-4 ounces of hop pellets, then let that sit for another 7-10 days, then bottle.

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So I think that answers my question. By letting it sit for 4 weeks before you dry hop, you're doing some of the conditioning in your fermenter. The alternative would have been to get it into the bottle sooner (because it certainly didn't need 4 weeks to finish fermentation) and then let it bottle condition longer. But that would result in less hop aroma and flavor, I'd think, because it'd be longer between dry hopping to drinking.

jaobrien6 said:

But that would result in less hop aroma and flavor, I'd think, because it'd be longer between dry hopping to drinking.

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I often add dry hops just 5 days before bottling. I agree with previous posters in that an IIPA has so much alcohol and such a high AA content that you can add dry hops MONTHS after fermentation has ceased as long as the vessel is sanitary.

You could brew an IIPA, let it sit in the fermenter for six months, then add the dry hops 5 days before bottling and it'd probably be fine.

I brewed my first IIPA a few months ago, and it was so cloudy (and a bit harsh tasting) I'm doing exactly what you proposed in the OP. In my case I'll do 4 weeks in primary, rack, condition at room temp a few weeks, cold crash a couple weeks, dry hop, and then bottle. Then hopefully my only cloudiness will be a little chill haze from the dry hop.

Yep, I did my first IIPA back in May and it is over 11% ABV so it is just now becoming drinkable. I was planning on dry hopping again in the keg to get back some of the aroma I lost in the time it took to condition.