Dry Hopping

I'm going to try dry hopping and racking to secondary this weekend. I've never done it, so should be a learning experience. Heres my question. I have an American IPA partial mash 5 gallon batch. I had 1 oz of Columbus pellets at 60, 1 oz Cascade pellets at 15, and 1 oz cascade pellets at 5. I currently have

2 oz Chinook
1 oz Cascade
1 oz Citra
1 oz Centennial
1 oz "Magic Hop Dust" - not sure what this should be used for. Probably not buttering cause it's about 7.0 AA. Anybody used this?

What should I dry hop with??

 

If it was my beer, Id put 1 oz. of Cascade and 1oz. of Centennial in there.

 

Agreed - great combo and will compliment the Cascade flavor that you have in there very well.

 

As someone about to try hop as well, should I put the hops in every few days or all at once? I'll be secondarying in a 5 gallon carboy, so I'm thinking of not using a bag. Alternatively, I could rack into an empty keg and float a bag of hops in there. Thoughts?

 

I just dump them in all at once and I never use a bag, I just toss them in. Heck, I don't even use a secondary, just dump them in the primary and let it sit for a week.

 

Ok sounds good.

Side note, anybody know what to with hop dust? It was only $.69, but I figured I could use it for something. Any thoughts?

 

Going to do the same this week anticipating bottling 4-6 days after. Does it matter if they are pellet hops that i'm dumping in primary, bag free?

Thanks !

 

It's a specialty product that AHS puts out on occasion. They are basically repackaging left-over hop remnants, usually from a combination of different hops. People have used it as a flavor/aroma hop with good results, you just don't know the varietals.

 

Is it normal for all the hops to sit on top like a krausen? They weren't all on top when I racked but they are now.

 

Yes - they will eventually become saturated with beer, break down, and fall to the bottom. For the first few days, they lay across the top like that as a sort of green krausen. Should have a completely clear top layer of beer in about a week.

 

Nope, I've used both leaf and pellet with no bag - both end up falling out to the bottom of the fermenter after about a week.