Dry hopping question

[Eddiebosox]

SO I brewed an all grain Yellow Snow IPA clone with a lot of cascades on Friday the 3rd with some us-05. THE fermentation was never vigourous which concerned me, but it’s still going after 4 days at a steady clip. My problem is one of time. I’m hoping to have this beer carbonated and ready to drink by Christmas eve. I plan on dry hopping 2 oz of cascade and am trying to figure out my timing. I don’t want to move it to the secondary until its really done fermenting since I don’t want to lose aroma due to blow off, but I also don’t want to have a shortened dry hopping session so it doesn’t get as much aroma in the final beer.

If I do 2 oz of cascade in the secondary for 3 or 4 days will that not be enough time? if I ahd to cut one thing short waht woud it be, time in the priary, or dry hopping in secondary?

Its a heavily hopped IPA so im not worried about it being to green since i figure the hops will domimainte so much that any greenness wont be noticed.

 

[david_42]

Kegging or bottling? You could just leave it in the fermenter and dry hop the last week.

 

[Eddiebosox]

bottling. I usually rack to secondary before I dry hop.

 

[rjwhite41]

Don't shorten the primary. If you must, then shorten the dry hop schedule but you aren't going to get a whole lot without a week. My recommendation would be to drink something else Christmas Eve. But if you really want to you will sacrificing aroma with a shortened dry hop schedule and not impacting drinkability. If you pull off the yeast too soon we will be answering questions about how to restart a stuck fermentation and then people will start arguing about the necessity of secondaries and the need for patience. I don't want to see that again.:cross:

 

[Eddiebosox]

I only ask as I work a lot from AHS kits and they say 5-7 in primary and 5-7 in secondary dry hopping, which goes against a lot of what people say here but would fit my tight schedule.

What is the minimum time to get carbonation in a bottle? That will factor into it. I have an Irish Red that was bottled last Tuesday but was still flat as of Saturday.

 

[zeb]

I've been kind of confused about when to move to my secondary. This is my first batch and I bought an Amber Ale kit that came with instructions. The instructions say to rack to the secondary after 3-4 days. I barely had any action in my airlock on the 4th day so I went ahead with this schedule. But I have read alot of topics and everyone seems to go longer. I am very new to this and have learned alot from my mistakes already.

EDIT: It was neccessary to move to a secondary due to the fact that I had so much action in my airlock that it actually pushed foam and hops into the airlock, which caused alot of hop flakes to stick to the top of my carboy and made a big mess. It would have been a big mess going from the first carboy to bottling, I had alot of hop flakes fall into the young beer when opening it up and siphoning.

 

[rjwhite41]

You rack to a secondary, if you so choose, when the beer is done with it's primary fermentation, i.e. creating alcohol. You determine this by taking gravity readings. When the gravity has stopped going down, generally judged by no change in a 3 day period, then you are safe to rack to a secondary where it will clean up any off flavors. If you do not want to wait the 3 day period then you could judge it based upon a targeted final gravity. You need a hydrometer to do any of this. Judging by airlock activity is not a good means of judging fermentation. Lots of different things can cause airlock activity besides active fermentation.

In general good beer is made with knowledge, skills, and, most importantly, patience. Rushing a beer to some artificial deadline is never a good idea although you can get lucky and have a good result. If you want to rush, go ahead, but in the future you will enjoy the fruits of your labor more through better planning. Hopefully I don't sound like an a$$, I am trying to be helpful.

 

[RenoDean]

Try not racking to secondary and add the hops to the primary now. I don't secondary anymore and I dry hop in the primary all the time.

 

[tcory77]

+1 on dry hopping in the primary. No need to move to a secondary in the first place, especially if you are short on time, just toss those bad boys in the primary and get it done!!!

 

[greenbirds]

It will be young, but I think you have enough time. Dry hop the primary in few days, give it 5 more, then bottle. Inverting your bottles every 12 hrs will help speed up the carbonation process.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Recent interview with New Belgium in BYO discussed their experiments with dry hopping...IIRC, said they noticed little to no difference in blind taste tests between a day and a week...

I too rushed a brew schedule on 4 batches of different brews for my graduation party next week. I started on the 3rd of Nov., and finished on the 14th. I went back and forth about when and if to secondary, when to bottle, etc. All got bottled on the 25-27th, and right now they all tast pretty good. The last one brewed and bottled was a pale ale that is just getting adequately carbed at around 2 wks but is still a little green.

You are really pushing the quick turn around with a dry hopped beer brewed on the 3rd trying to have it ready by the 24th. 3 weeks is the minimum amount of time you should primary AND the minimum amount of time you should bottle condition. I would make sure primary fermentation is over through hydrometer readings, dry hop for 3 days and bottle. You aren't giving the yeastie beasties much time to clean up after themselves, but it will be drinkable beer. I haven't tried the bottle inverting trick but have heard many recommend it. Try it out and report back on the progress.

Good Luck!!!

 

[KevinW]

What about pulling a portion (1 gallon) of the mostly finished beer and dry hopping that then add it back to the finished beer before bottling, sort of like a hop tea?

Just a thought!