Dry hopped too soon?

[AdamHops]

Hello everyone,
So yes I am on my 4th batch of beer and still learning and making mistakes. My recipe said dry hop 4 days, and I dry hopped on the 4th day of fermentation. Yes I know....I read that completely wrong!

Anyway I added about 1.4 ounces of Citra hops on the 4th day of fermentation. My question is, should this have any ill effects on the beer? If so, is there anything I can do to minimize the effects at this point like transferring to secondary on day 10 or 11?

The recipe calls for another hop addition as well.

Thanks!

 

[lumpher]

a little of the aroma will be carried off by the fermentation, but it'll be good. won't hurt the beer at all. you can counter any effects by adding another 1/2 oz later in the fermentation, if you want to

 

[m00ps]

You may get grassy vegetal flavors from leaving them in that long. Can you remove them in any way?

Also any hop aroma that they will impart will likely all go out through the airlock due to active fermentation. That's why you are supposed to hold off before dry hopping

 

[AdamHops]

Unfortunately there is no way for me to remove the hops. I dumped the pellets in. I got a little too ahead of myself.

 

[slym2none]

Don't worry about it. I dumped in an ounce of Cascade into my fermentor right after pouring the wort in on my very first brew. I didn't know one was supposed to wait until fermentation was finished. My dry-hop session was 3 weeks long, and I got absolutely no "grassy" or "vegetable" flavours.

Seriously, RDWAHAHB!

 

[TungstenBeer]

Was fermentation moving along pretty quickly? A lot of brewers (including pro brewers) like to dry hop before the last bit of fermentation is done, for reasons that seem to vary.

I think if your fermentation is going to be done in the next week to 10 days, you're OK if you can either keg/bottle at that point. Personally I get a little squirmy once dry hops have been in the beer for more than 10 days, but others may have different experiences. If you think you'll be at your final gravity by then, then I would probably transfer the beer after 7-10 days before you do your next hop addition as you mentioned.

 

[AdamHops]

Was fermentation moving along pretty quickly? A lot of brewers (including pro brewers) like to dry hop before the last bit of fermentation is done, for reasons that seem to vary.

I think if your fermentation is going to be done in the next week to 10 days, you're OK if you can either keg/bottle at that point. Personally I get a little squirmy once dry hops have been in the beer for more than 10 days, but others may have different experiences. If you think you'll be at your final gravity by then, then I would probably transfer the beer after 7-10 days before you do your next hop addition as you mentioned.

I brewed on 12/3 and fermentation was moving along really quickly just about 12 hours after pitching. Airlock activity drastically slowed by 12/6 and last night when I pitched the hops I had virtually no airlock activity. The beer did smell delicious!

 

[TungstenBeer]

Then it sounds like you will be fine to rack the beer into a different vessel within that 7 day or so window. Be sure to check your gravity a couple days out to make sure it isn't still dropping, as always.

 

[lumpher]

i wouldn't re-rack. i'd just let it go, dump in another 1/2 ounce maybe 3 days before bottling/kegging, and call it a good beer