Early dry hopping question

I've read a lot recently about adding a round of dry hops in an IPA as early as 4-5 days after pitching yeast. I understand the theory about this but was wondering how long most people leave their beers in the primary before packaging. If your adding hops on day 5 then I assume you maybe packaging on day 10 or so.
Is this still giving the beer and yeast long enough to clear up, etc?

I currently add my dry hops on day 14 (in the primary) and racking to the keg about a week after that.

I really don't know what scientific evidence there is behind the early dry hop theory, but I do it on my NE IPAs anyway. I add on day 4, while there is still a good deal of activity. I bottle around day 10, and there have been no issues.

FWIW, I also then keg hop using muslin bags, and while I attach some floss to it so I can pull it out, thats more for if it starts leaking hop gunk. I have had the bag in there for well over a month, and it was fine. I recently keg hopped a Rye PA and about a month in, the keg hops really started to shine. Never any odd vegetal characteristics. The cold might be part of the reason for this.

I'll try dry hopping in the keg with the strainer. How soon do you drink your IPA's after kegging?

fwiw, particularly when using whole cones, the advantage of dry hopping while there's still a bit of fermentation going on is any air conveyed by the hops will either be consumed by the yeast or flushed out by the evolving CO2.

The down side is some of the more volatile hop aromatics will get flushed out as well.
So it's a solid technique but one should take note of the intensity of the result and make adjustments if desired for the next batch.

As for cold keg hopping, I always use whole cones in sanitized muslin bags sunk to the bottom with stainless weights, and have never picked up any off notes even if the keg takes a month or more to kick.
If I tried that with room temp beer it'd be Veggie City...

Cheers!

Interesting. I guess when your dry hopping in a primary or secondary at room temp then you really need to get the beer off the hops within a week or so to avoid the veg taste.
Have you noticed dry hopping in a cold keg also suppresses the aromatics from the oils or do you still get the same intensity as you would at room temp?
Thanks.

NewkyBrown said:

Interesting. I guess when your dry hopping in a primary or secondary at room temp then you really need to get the beer off the hops within a week or so to avoid the veg taste.

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I never go past 5 days when dry hopping.

Have you noticed dry hopping in a cold keg also suppresses the aromatics from the oils or do you still get the same intensity as you would at room temp?
Thanks.

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Lower intensity ounce for ounce, but longer lasting...

Cheers!

NewkyBrown said:

Interesting. I guess when your dry hopping in a primary or secondary at room temp then you really need to get the beer off the hops within a week or so to avoid the veg taste.
Have you noticed dry hopping in a cold keg also suppresses the aromatics from the oils or do you still get the same intensity as you would at room temp?
Thanks.

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I'd argue it's not less intense if you have patience. My rye was keg hopped and the hops really shinned after 4 weeks.

Ive been having hop aroma issues. I had been dry hopping around day 7 in primary. day 14 into a secondary and hopping again, then day 21 into a keg. As far as keg dry hopping I have tried this 3 or 4 times with no off flavors or veggie/grassy issues - even over a month in the keg. But still lacking aroma I thought I should have given the amount of hopping I was doing. My last NEIPA I am hopping at 4 days in primary - with some ferm action still going. Will let sit for 10 days then into keg with 2 ounces in hop sock. May or may not remove the sock depending on how I feel. I agree with the patience, I have noticed more hop flavors/aromas after 3 weeks or so with keg in fridge at 45deg.

Is the idea of hopping while ferm is still active (with pellets) to drive off some of the oxygen from the pellets, possibly less oxidation? New to this idea myself, always been a ferment fully then hop kinda guy.

Also this time around I started ferm low 60's for 48hrs then moved to upper/mid 60s to finish. Using S04 in one ferm and propagated Conan in other ferm (10 gallon batch)