Skipping secondary for an IPA

[Brett3rThanU]

I brewed an IPA (OG 1.069) last Saturday and I'm heading out of town tomorrow morning, so I either have to rack it to the secondary tonight or leave it in the primary for another 2 weeks. I still see a bubble every 20 seconds or so, so I don't think it's completely done.

I'm leaning towards just leaving it in the primary, but if I do should I go ahead and dry hop now and skip the secondary all together? I haven't done a beer without secondary. When dry hopping in the primary should I stir the hops in?

 

[nostalgia]

I dry hopped my recent IPA in the primary. Just dropped the pellets in, gave it a swirl and forgot about it until I was ready to keg. It's delicious

-Joe

 

[2bluewagons]

No real need for secondary in my opinion. It makes less of a mess in your primary to split up the dry hops and yeast cake and you may lose less beer in transfers, but other than that I'm not sure of the thinking behind having to use a secondary for dry hopping.

I've done it both ways now and the only difference has been that with the dry-hopped primary I got more yeast sediment in the bottles, but that might not have much to do with anything, as I didn't give it much of a chance to settle after moving it to the bottling area.

I would say that 2 weeks is on the longer end of dry hopping, and if you are putting more than 1-1.5oz in there you might get some grassy notes, some say.

Are you using pellets or whole hops? Either way, don't use a bag and you don't need to stir, they will find their own path to the beer. A swirl of the whole fermenter by picking it up and spinning wouldn't hurt, but they'll all get there.

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Is it necessary to swirl when adding the pellet hops?

Wouldn't swirling stir up the yeast/trub from the bottom of the fermenter?

If so, would it take longer for the beer to clear?

I'm dry hopping in two weeks and I am still looking for the best method when dry hopping in the primary.

EDIT: 2bluewagons, answered while I was typing.

Do not stir, got it!