Dry hopping question

[rjolin01]

I am working on a Heady Topper "clone" kit I got from Northern Brewer call "Off the Topper." It has a two part dry hop. It also is 6 gallons in fermenter which I have in my 6.5 gallon big mouth fermenter. I did a yeast starter and forgot to adjust amount in fermenter to allow for starter so the fermenter is quite full. I also anticipated strong ferment and automatically put a blow off tube in. This was good idea cause it is doing just that.

The instructions say to dry hop with half the hops for four days then transfer to secondary and dry hop with other half.

My question is, does dry hopping have to be right away or can I wait till the blow off has settled so I can use the the Depth Charge I have for the hops? I was figuring as long as I can get the two four day dry hops in I should be good unless there is something about the more active part of fermentation that occurs at the beginning that is better for dry hopping?

 

[day_trippr]

If you want to get close to Heady, you need to add some dry hops around 4 days into fermentation to enable the whole "bio-transformation" thing that's attributed to the NE IPA/DIPA style.

That should be past peak krausen but in your case maybe not far enough.
You'll just have to play it by eye...

Cheers!

 

[rjolin01]

That's what I figured! Thanks

 

[rjolin01]

So I did the first addition of dry hops after about four days and after the blow off subsided. Now it's four days later and time for second addition. However it says to rack to secondary then add the hops. Thing is there is active fermentation showing in air lock. About a bubble every 10 seconds.

Should I still rack to secondary? Add second dry hops to current carboy and transfer after few more days? Wait to add dry hops?

 

[day_trippr]

I've done the Heady recipe ("As Seen On HBT") three times now and have not racked to secondary for that 2nd dry hop addition.
Don't see the need...

Cheers!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Don't waste your time with a secondary for this style beer. Add the second round of dry hops to the fermenter, give it 3-5 days and start thinking about kegging/bottling.

Some people are sticklers for checking for multiple unchanged readings during fermentation, but if my gravity is about where I expect and there's no obvious signs of fermentation, I package. NEIPA's need to be served fresh, so I'm not wasting 3 days for consistent gravity readings.

I think NB and the like spec a secondary to sell more carboys. Other than lagers and big beers that you want to pseudo barrel age, there's little reason to rack to a secondary and many reasons not to.