Do you dry hop in the primary or the secondary?

[tater2000]

What do you do? Is it better to keep the beer in the primary when dry hopping and skip the secondary all together? Or rack to the secondary? Would leaving it in the primary affect the clarity or increase your chances of contaminating your beer?

Cheers


-Nate

 

[bennie1986]

I dry hop in primary.

 

[lumpher]

^ this

 

[old_hydrotech]

I dry hopped my ipa in the primary. Waited until signs of active fermentation had subsided, opened the lid and added hop pellets directly to the wort, without using a hop bag. The beer turned out great. I really don't see much of a downside to dry hopping in the primary

 

[drainbamage]

I've done both. It isn't really worth transferring to secondary just for the purpose of dry-hopping for a week.

 

[Stauffbier]

I do it in the primary, too.

 

[bennie1986]

Stupid phone double posted sorry deleted

 

[mtnagel]

I've done both. It isn't really worth transferring to secondary just for the purpose of dry-hopping for a week.

I agree with this.

 

[Yooper]

I do all three (adding another option!), depending on what's going on.

I normally dryhop in the fermenter, about 5 days before packaging. I don't rack to secondary just to dryhop, but sometimes I have some yeast in the fermenter that I want to reuse so I will rack into the carboy on the dryhops so I can rinse and save the yeast.

Sometimes, I just dryhop in the keg. That works well too, as long as I use a fine mesh bag so I don't clog up my diptube.

 

[m3n00b]

I dry hopped my ipa in the primary. Waited until signs of active fermentation had subsided, opened the lid and added hop pellets directly to the wort, without using a hop bag. The beer turned out great. I really don't see much of a downside to dry hopping in the primary

Same here. I don't cold crash so it takes a while for the bottles to clear up.

 

[psymonkey]

Sometimes, I just dryhop in the keg. That works well too, as long as I use a fine mesh bag so I don't clog up my diptube.

I'm doing this for the first time with a classic APA. I'm really excited to see how it works out! The suspense is killing me, but I'll be ten days on CO2 on Wed, trying to hold out until then to give it just a little more time to WOW me

 

[wailingguitar]

Another option, though far less common, is dry hopping simultaneously with your yeast pitch. The argument against this is that volatiles will be blown off through the process of releasing CO2, and this is true to a point.

I had to experiment with this process when working at a pub that used spundigs for carbonation. Since the fermenters had to be sealed with the pressure relief set at a certain point to allow gas beyond that needed for carbonation to escape during fermentation, there was no convenient method of adding the hops post-fermentation. The only reasonable time to put them in the fermenter was along with yeast pitch.

After fooling around with it some, trying different amounts of dry hop, etc., I came to the conclusion that an additional 10-15% of the dry hop bill was required to achieve a similar effect in the finished product.

The upside is less effort and fewer times opening/closing your fermenter, every time you do so it is another potential contamination source.

The downside is that it takes more hops which means more $ and more junk in the fermenter.

 

[nolabrew85]

dry hop in primary. not worth the effort for secondary. I do not reuse yeast and rarely make lagers or fruit beers, so I almost never secondary. I have dropped plenty of times in primary with great results. Even better if you have

 

[mtnagel]

Don't leave us hanging man!

Even better if you have WHAT?!?!?

 

[cpatel479]

I dry hop in primary and then won't do secondary ....carboys are a pain to clean after dryhoping.

 

[NedStackey]

I personally dry hop in a secondary. I think it's just preference and what your process is. I usually always rack to a secondary and use it as a "settling tank".

 

[dapete]

Good question. I was wondering the same thing myself. I'm on my 5th batch and haven't dry-hopped any yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it. 11-1 makes me feel a lot better about not using a secondary, which was my main hesitation. Thanks!

 

[ShizuokaBrad]

I dry hop in my primary. In fact, I'm going to go do that now!

 

[jigtwins]

I have done both. If you like to let your brew drop out a bit more, or need the fermenter for another batch. Then secondary is a good way to go. Just take time to properly clean and sanitize your secondary, and it's all good.

 

[ShinyBuddha]

Secondary

 

[drainbamage]

Another option, though far less common, is dry hopping simultaneously with your yeast pitch. The argument against this is that volatiles will be blown off through the process of releasing CO2, and this is true to a point.

I had to experiment with this process when working at a pub that used spundigs for carbonation. Since the fermenters had to be sealed with the pressure relief set at a certain point to allow gas beyond that needed for carbonation to escape during fermentation, there was no convenient method of adding the hops post-fermentation. The only reasonable time to put them in the fermenter was along with yeast pitch.

After fooling around with it some, trying different amounts of dry hop, etc., I came to the conclusion that an additional 10-15% of the dry hop bill was required to achieve a similar effect in the finished product.

The upside is less effort and fewer times opening/closing your fermenter, every time you do so it is another potential contamination source.

The downside is that it takes more hops which means more $ and more junk in the fermenter.

Really? I would have expected the loss of volatiles like you said, but did you ever have problems with the beer sitting on the hops long enough to develop the grassy flavors that everyone dreads?

 

[Dirty25]

From time to time I will dry hop in secondary. It is not a clarity thing it's a fermenter availability thing. Sometimes my 6.5 g carboys need to have other stuff in them and I can't dry hop in them. Normally I dry hop in primary though.

 

[wailingguitar]

Really? I would have expected the loss of volatiles like you said, but did you ever have problems with the beer sitting on the hops long enough to develop the grassy flavors that everyone dreads?

No. Ales were typically 10-14 days brew to glass and never had an issue like that. Typically about 2 days before xfer to serving tank I would dump the yeast and the bulk of the dry hops with it. This meant that the beer was sitting with the hops for 8 to 12 days most of the time.

 

[BassBeer]

I've done both and get just as good (or better) results dryhopping in the primary. I usually throw them in loose at about 2.5 weeks and cold crash before transferring to the keg. Works great!

 

[hogwash]

In the keg, ftw!

 

[Dolomieu]

+1 in the keg and leave them the entire time it's on tap

 

[psymonkey]

I'm doing this for the first time with a classic APA. I'm really excited to see how it works out! The suspense is killing me, but I'll be ten days on CO2 on Wed, trying to hold out until then to give it just a little more time to WOW me

Quoting myself here - I couldn't wait and drew a couple of pints yesterday for the wife and I. It is excellent, and was fully carbed - bonus! I think the hop aroma was more intense than the dry hopping I've done in the primary and secondary, but this was also my first time dry hopping with Citra.

I wonder how much of a difference it makes dry-hopping under pressure as the CO2 is dissolving into the beer? It stands to reason that one might get a more intense aroma, and this beer doesn't disappoint. I think this is my new method of choice.

 

[kal]

99% of the time I dry hop in the primary, a typical AIPA or APA fermentation schedule (US-05 yeast fermented at 66-68F) goes something like this for me:

Day 1: Pitch yeast (8 gallon plastic fermentation buckets).
Day ~7: Add dry hops to primary. I just remove the airlock and drop them in. They get moved around by CO2 being released.
Day ~14: Rack to 5 gallon carboy (brite tank) and add ~4g of gelatine dissolved in hot distilled water.
Day ~16-17: Keg.

On rare occasions I'll dry hop in secondary but only because I want the yeast in the primary. If that's the case, I'll wait longer (12-14 days) before racking to secondary as I want to be 100% sure the yeast has done fermenting and has had a chance to 'clean up' after itself a bit.

Another option, though far less common, is dry hopping simultaneously with your yeast pitch.... After fooling around with it some, trying different amounts of dry hop, etc., I came to the conclusion that an additional 10-15% of the dry hop bill was required to achieve a similar effect in the finished product.

Interesting - that's far less than I would have thought. I think I may start adding my dry hops sooner, after most of the heavy krausen has dropped (like after 3-4 days instead of 7).

Kal

 

[psymonkey]

I wonder if this increased the risk of something getting a foothold in the beer or if the yeast take over too quickly for that to be a concern? I kind of thought it was done later int he process due to the high quantity of yeast coupled with the alcohol minimizing the possibility of infection.

EDIT: This is in response to dry hopping at the same time as pitching.

 

[BiggestDawg]

I personally dry hop in a secondary. I think it's just preference and what your process is. I usually always rack to a secondary and use it as a "settling tank".

I also have been dry hopping in secondary. I always rack and let clarify and if dry hopping do so when racking. Yes it is a bit more work at cleanup but it has always come out better than when I tried it in primary.