Dry hopping in primary or secondary?

[worlddivides]

Hi guys. Next month I'm going to be making an IPA that I plan on dry hopping after the fermentation is mostly done. I know that most brewers nowadays are against using a secondary for anything other than fruit additions and so on, but I've noticed that almost every article I've read about dry hopping talks about "racking the beer onto the hops," which would suggest using a secondary, while I've been thinking of just putting sanitized marbles in hop bags with the different whole cone hops in the primary (to keep the hops from floating).

So, do you dry hop in the primary or the secondary? And... why?

 

[ThunderpantsBrewing]

This topic has been discussed over a billion times on this forum. Consensus: it's a matter of personal preference.

 

[Teromous]

I generally dry hop in the primary, except when I dry hop in the secondary or the keg...but sometimes a combination of two or more.

 

[Yooper]

I generally dry hop in the primary, except when I dry hop in the secondary or the keg...but sometimes a combination of two or more.

Yep, me too.

If I'm harvesting the yeast, I will dryhop in a carboy or in the keg, but otherwise I dryhop in the fermenter. But sometimes in the keg. And sometimes I rack to a carboy anyway, to free up a fermenter that I want. But not always.

 

[unionrdr]

Yup. Firm, definite maybe. If I need a fermenter, then secondary in 6G BB. Otherwise, in primary when beer has settled out clear or slightly misty for 5-7 days in sanitized hop sacks.

 

[worlddivides]

So I guess this might be the one area where the anti-secondary folks aren't really anti-secondary at all.

 

[dobes]

What I don't do is use a secondary because I think I have to.

I use them if I need to move beer out of primaries, maybe split a ten gallon batch and add different ingredients to get two different beers.

But if I have no reason to move it I leave it. I dry hop, add fruit and do other additions to the primary.

 

[Yooper]

So I guess this might be the one area where the anti-secondary folks aren't really anti-secondary at all.

I think you're right! I think that anybody who has brewed for a while just feels that being rigid isn't the right move. Great beer can me made in a bucket, or in a $6000 set up.

 

[Roadie]

As was said earlier if you want to wash the yeast then dry hop in a secondary, otherwise just dump the pellets into the fermenter and call it a day. When I have more than 1 dry hop to do and not saving the yeast I do the primary dry hop in the fermenter then rack beer to a keg and do the rest of the dry hopping in that. I like this because I can purge w/co2. I use one of those SS tubes that has a removable lid and drops down into the keg. I tie some dental floss on an eye that's on the lid and drape it outside the keg when I put the keg lid back on. Works like a champ.

 

[Remmy]

If I dry-hop in the primary with loose pellets, I make sure I cold crash. Which means I leave my primary outside of the house for a week - I can only do this during winter. I sometimes throw hops into a muslin bag and keep that in the primary. It's just sometimes hard to get the pellets out of suspension when the beer is still somewhat warm.

Otherwise, I rack to secondary with a muslin bag and bottle after the dry-hop period without issues.

Additionally, if I plan to wash my yeast, I always dry-hop using a muslin bag or add the hops in the secondary and save the yeast from the primary.

 

[krackin]

And there you have it, precisely.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I typically dry hop in the primary unless I need to free up the fermentor. I suppose if I was going to dry hop a lager, I'd be doing it in the secondary (because I do rack to a secondary fermentor for lagering), or If I was going to re-use the yeast. There are some who say racking to a secondary will help clear the beer faster or better or some such, but my clear beer styles are typically brilliant without resorting to a second fermentor, as cold conditioning helps a lot. But to each his own - I don't think racking a finished beer to a secondary fermentor harms anything.

 

[worlddivides]

Thanks for all the input, guys. I still haven't decided whether I'll do it in the primary or secondary, but I've gotten a ton of good information. I'm leaning a bit more towards doing it in the primary when the fermentation is about 95% done, but I'll still have a little over a month to consider what to do.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for all the input, guys. I still haven't decided whether I'll do it in the primary or secondary, but I've gotten a ton of good information. I'm leaning a bit more towards doing it in the primary when the fermentation is about 95% done, but I'll still have a little over a month to consider what to do.

It will be more than 95% done in a month- unless that means you're not brewing it for three more weeks of course!

 

[worlddivides]

It will be more than 95% done in a month- unless that means you're not brewing it for three more weeks of course!

I'm not going to brew it until early January. I'd love to brew it right now, but I just think that it would be a really bad idea to start brewing something and then leave it unsupervised for several weeks while I'm away for the holidays.

 

[AnOldUR]

But don't forget that there is a different hop chartacter from dry hopping on and off the yeast. You'll have to try both and see if you have a preference or can even notice it. Niether way is better. It should be about taste preference, not a boogyman fear of transfer. Not just copying the latest trend.

 

[worlddivides]

But don't forget that there is a different hop chartacter from dry hopping on and off the yeast. You'll have to try both and see if you have a preference or can even notice it. Niether way is better. It should be about taste preference, not a boogyman fear of transfer. Not just copying the latest trend.

I've read that. One interesting article I read had two professional brewers with those two opposing views. The one who waited for fermentation to completely end said that he didn't want the yeast active because it would "strip the hop oils," while the one who always dry hopped near the end of active fermentation pointed out that the yeast would break down some of the hop oils into different forms, giving a very specific flavor that he (and other brewers) like.

Since this is the first beer I'll ever dry hop, I'll have to try the other style sometime in the future for reference.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

But don't forget that there is a different hop chartacter from dry hopping on and off the yeast. You'll have to try both and see if you have a preference or can even notice it. Niether way is better. It should be about taste preference, not a boogyman fear of transfer. Not just copying the latest trend.

I really appreciate you bringing that up, as I have heard it and had forgotten it. I think when I first heard there is an interaction between yeast and hop oils, I wasn't in a position to play around with it much, but now I have 3-gallon carboys, so I could rack half of a 5.5 gallon batch into a 3 gallon carboy, dry hop both and see what differences arise.