Why do you want to use a secondary when dry-hopping?

I know a lot of people have moved to just using a primary and seen no need for a secondary except with additions such as fruit, chocolate, coffee, etc. What I am wondering is why it is suggested to use a secondary when dry-hopping? What are the benefits of using a secondary to dry-hop as opposed to just dry-hopping in the primary? I ask because I recently made an (I)IIPA and I dry-hopped in the primary (3oz pellets just dropped in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy). Now, I'm not particularly worried about my beer as I know it'll be fine, but what would the advantages have been if I did decide to use a secondary (in my case, it would have to be a bucket), opposed to less trub?

I'm curious because I think there is more benefit of simply dry-hopping in the primary due to the CO2 still being in the head space, don't need to worry about contamination in the secondary, and prevent aeration.

Ultimately: why does it seem that most people suggest to use a secondary when dry-hopping, as opposed to just dry-hopping in the primary?

The problem that I see with CO2 is that it's known for stripping liquids of flavors. Think of bottle shock when wine is bottled. For the first month after bottling, the wine has just about no noticeable aroma, since most of the more volatile odor components have been stripped from the wine.
Now imagine you add your hops during fermentation, when lot's of CO2 bubbles are rising to the surface of the beer. Those bubbles are stripping away some of the odor compounds present in the hops.

Don't know. I dry hop in primary exclusively, never use a secondary.

i think its of a concern if you dry hop in the primary while the beer is still fermenting, because the release of co2 from the fermenting beer can drive off some aroma-although i have heard of a brewer on a podcast who does it in the primary while fermentation is tailing off. other than that i can't think of any reason why not to... i always dry hop in the primary.

mrfocus said:

The problem that I see with CO2 is that it's known for stripping liquids of flavors. Think of bottle shock when wine is bottled. For the first month after bottling, the wine has just about no noticeable aroma, since most of the more volatile odor components have been stripped from the wine.
Now imagine you add your hops during fermentation, when lot's of CO2 bubbles are rising to the surface of the beer. Those bubbles are stripping away some of the odor compounds present in the hops.

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defenestrate said:

i think its of a concern if you dry hop in the primary while the beer is still fermenting, because the release of co2 from the fermenting beer can drive off some aroma-although i have heard of a brewer on a podcast who does it in the primary while fermentation is tailing off. other than that i can't think of any reason why not to... i always dry hop in the primary.

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Oh yes, I'm aware of this as an issue as well. I waited two weeks until my beer was was done fermenting until I dry-hopped, so I'm not too worried about that.

Either way, this issue could be avoided just by waiting for the beer to finish in the primary. Still doesn't need a secondary, so this isn't really a supporting reason to use a secondary yet. Anyone else?

DavidSteel said:

I'm curious because I think there is more benefit of simply dry-hopping in the primary due to the CO2 still being in the head space, don't need to worry about contamination in the secondary, and prevent aeration.

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Unless you've rigged up a method of dropping hops into your primary without opening your primary, then you do not still have a significant amount of CO2 in the headspace. That being said, I would think that the risk of oxidation is quite low.

slowbie said:

Unless you've rigged up a method of dropping hops into your primary without opening your primary, then you do not still have a significant amount of CO2 in the headspace. That being said, I would think that the risk of oxidation is quite low.

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being that co2 is heavier than air, i dont think that a carefully and infrequently opened primary would necessary release the majority of the co2 blanketing the beer.

I always secondary my beers (except hefes and a couple others). Just my preference. When I dry hop, I use exclusively leaf hops and like to rack the beer on top of them to get them fully saturated. This may not be a reason to dry hop in secondary, but it works well for me.

defenestrate said:

being that co2 is heavier than air, i dont think that a carefully and infrequently opened primary would necessary release the majority of the co2 blanketing the beer.

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This is a common misconception among homebrewers. The gases dissipate much faster than you think. If it actually worked that way we wouldn't be able to breathe because heavy gases would be suffocating us.

schristian619 said:

I always secondary my beers (except hefes and a couple others). Just my preference. When I dry hop, I use exclusively leaf hops and like to rack the beer on top of them to get them fully saturated. This may not be a reason to dry hop in secondary, but it works well for me.

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i know there are a few guys on here who hydrate their leaf hops with water before secondary, that way they dont suck up precious beer.

slowbie said:

This is a common misconception among homebrewers. The gases dissipate much faster than you think. If it actually worked that way we wouldn't be able to breathe because heavy gases would be suffocating us.

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very interesting

Yeast can actually pull some of the flavors of the hops out of the beer. You aren't going to run into any problems with CO2 scrubbing your hops if your fermentation is finished. The only reason I ever DH in secondary is when I want to save the yeast from a batch. Typically though if I am DHing a beer, I am not making a 1.050 beer and so don't really want to save the yeast anyways.

defenestrate said:

i know there are a few guys on here who hydrate their leaf hops with water before secondary, that way they dont suck up precious beer.

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That would have the effect of diluting the beer, and then soaking the hops with the diluted beer.

slowbie said:

This is a common misconception among homebrewers. The gases dissipate much faster than you think. If it actually worked that way we wouldn't be able to breathe because heavy gases would be suffocating us.

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interesting point.

but, last I checked, there's no jet stream or weather system in airspace of my primary. j/k

that being said....how long does that blanket stay around, obvisouly it must dissapate as slowbie said, but how long are we talking? 1 day, 1 week, 1 month?

I don't have time to dig up my source right now, but if you go to gotmead.com and search threads with "inert" in the title you should find some links to good info. I remember it being only a few minutes but I don't recall the exact situation discussed.

If it stays under airlock your CO2 layer will stay in place, but as soon as you open up your bucket the air will dissipate quickly.

slowbie said:

This is a common misconception among homebrewers. The gases dissipate much faster than you think. If it actually worked that way we wouldn't be able to breathe because heavy gases would be suffocating us.

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In a 6.5 gallon carboy with a tiny hole that I opened once to add hops, the co2 will not all dissipate. But this is also irrelevant to using a secondary, as
(a) one could wait until fermentation is complete to add hops to primary OR
(b) transfer to secondary after fermentation is complete
as well as
(c) one could put hops in the primary when the beer is not done fermenting or
(d) rack the beer to secondary when the beer is not done fermenting.

If you rack to secondary when it is still fermenting and dry-hop, the co2 may push the hop aromas out etc. If you rack to secondary and wait a day or two to dry-hop (for fermentation to finish), you will most likely lose that little bubble of co2 when you open your secondary, especially if you are using a bucket (what I'd have to do).

I still think the superior way to proceed would be to just take off your stopper and drop the hops in after the beer is done fermenting. That way, there will still be co2 bubble in the top layer (and you don't need to take other risks). Even if the co2 did dissipate (say, if you opened it often to do gravity readings or left it open a long time), I'd still argue the conditions would be better in the primary than racking to a secondary. Racking to secondary ensures there will be no co2 and you'd have more oxygen on top of the beer, as well as in the beer.

Still can't see any benefits, in relation to dry-hopping, to using a secondary.

slowbie said:

I don't have time to dig up my source right now, but if you go to gotmead.com and search threads with "inert" in the title you should find some links to good info. I remember it being only a few minutes but I don't recall the exact situation discussed.

If it stays under airlock your CO2 layer will stay in place, but as soon as you open up your bucket the air will dissipate quickly.

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I do agree that the co2 will dissipate quickly if you are using a bucket, but in this case, I'm using a 6.5 gallon glass carboy with a tiny little hole that seems to be something like 1inx1in. Co2 is not going anywhere. But if some of it did, I wouldn't be worried; there'd still be plenty enough in there.

If you are worried that the CO2 will diminish the hop aroma...just add more hops! Seems like a recipe issue.

Eric

EricCSU said:

If you are worried that the CO2 will diminish the hop aroma...just add more hops! Seems like a recipe issue.

Eric

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Nah, not my concern at all. As I already stated, it wouldn't matter either way because you can get around it. I was just breaking down the previous posters argument/claim(s)

I dry hop in my secondary, so I can use my primary again.

I dry hop in my primary everytime, and with a few gravity points left. Yes you hear wait til its done so it does drive off aroma, etc. if you are concerned with that add more hops. I do this for the fact the little fermentation that is left will scrub out in O2 that is introduced and you still have fermentation circulation going on to move things around. Regardless if you transfer you are still going to have yeast in suspension and the oils are going to stick to the yeast, so you are going to loose some anyways. My suggestion add with a few points left and if you didnt get enough to your liking then add more next batch

Prost!

I dry hop in a secondary so I can harvest the yeast from the primary.

fastricky said:

I dry hop in a secondary so I can harvest the yeast from the primary.

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see:

Matt Up North said:

The only reason I ever DH in secondary is when I want to save the yeast from a batch. Typically though if I am DHing a beer, I am not making a 1.050 beer and so don't really want to save the yeast anyways.

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ronaldo_fanbelt said:

I dry hop in my secondary, so I can use my primary again.

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I dry-hop in my primary so I can use another fermentation vessel as a primary.

Southside said:

I dry hop in my primary everytime, and with a few gravity points left. Yes you hear wait til its done so it does drive off aroma, etc. if you are concerned with that add more hops. I do this for the fact the little fermentation that is left will scrub out in O2 that is introduced and you still have fermentation circulation going on to move things around. Regardless if you transfer you are still going to have yeast in suspension and the oils are going to stick to the yeast, so you are going to loose some anyways. My suggestion add with a few points left and if you didnt get enough to your liking then add more next batch

Prost!

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Aha, good advice with the oils sticking to the yeast. But I'm not worried, I have 3oz in there and I was going to add another .75 to double hop it, but It's going to be at the 14 day mark when I get back home and I don't want my hops sitting in there for longer than that. I could rack to a secondary to add more, but I think I'll just leave it as is. If I was home, I would have double hopped. I'll make a mental note for the future.

Edit: I'll throw in a pic of my 3oz of hops after I threw em in my primary

So I want to save the yeast from my Pale ale, and I want to dry hop so I was planning on racking to a secondary to dry hop... However I dont have another free carboy to use for my secondary so I will have to rack the beer to a bucket, clean the carboy, then rack it back to the carboy....

Am I going to be ok doing this or is that moving the beer around too much?