Dry hop question.

[Phan71]

Okay, I'm about to brew an IPA that I wanted to hop-up a bit. This is a kit IPA (the TrueBrew kit) that includes wood chips. I've bought some whole cascade hops to dry hop with.

Now, my question is, would it be better to add the hops to the primary, or to the secondary? Bearing in mind that I'll be adding the oak chips to the secondary and keeping it in the secondary for at least three weeks to a month.

If I add the hops to the secondary, will keeping them in there that long have any adverse affects? Should I wait a couple weeks before adding them? Or, should I just add them to the primary?

What difference does adding to the primary vs. the secondary have?

Right now, I'm leaning towards putting them in the primary.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[the_bird]

Don't. The active fermenation will strip the hop aroma away. If you're going to dry-hop, you want to do it in the secondary when you don't have tons of CO2 being released and taking the hop aromatics with it.

Regarding the oak - I'm using some oak chips in my next beer, but one thing I'm going to be extra-careful about is not leaving the beer on the oak too long. I'd be worried that having it on there for three or four weeks might make the oakiness too strong. I'd recommend you pull a sample at 10 days, maybe two weeks, and see if it's "done."

 

[Phan71]

So, you think two weeks in the secondary will be enough to get the flavor of the oak? I kinda wanted to leave it in there longer because I do want more of that flavor. (I've had a few cask aged beers that I thought were fantastic.)

If I do dry hop to the secondary, but plan on leaving the beer in the secondary longer than two weeks, is it okay to keep the hops in there that long? Or, should I wait a week or two in the secondary before adding the hops?

Thanks

 

[DiegoProf]

I've heard some people talking about the idea that there's an advantage to be had in adding dry hops before primary fermentation has completely stopped. I'm not sure what the theory is, exactly, but it's supposed to do a better job of capturing hop aroma. I'm also not sure how this would work (apart from doing an early rack to secondary) if one is using two different fermenting vessels. The August 10th episode of Basic Brewing Radio talks a bit about this:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/radio/

-matt

 

[Brewtopia]

So, you think two weeks in the secondary will be enough to get the flavor of the oak?

A lot depends on the type of oak as well. I've used 2 oz. of American oak chips for two weeks in the secondary for an Oud Bruin and it came out tasting like a lumber yard. That being said, my Spiced Cherry Dubbel contained 2oz of medium toast French oak cubes in the secondary for 3.5 months and it tasted wonderful. I definitely feel like I can control the "oakiness" more with the cubes than with chips. (less surface area touching the beer) and also the French oak won't be as strong as the American.