First brew in 20 yrs. Dry Hop ?

[Grateful Dan]

Hello! I love this site. A lot of info and positive support here! I just brewed the Northern Brewing Chinook ipa (5gal)with some small changes and I was going to dry hop today. (5 days fermenting) Now I'm worried about opening the bucket and if it would be worth it. I did as the instructions said except for the hop additions. This is what I did.

1oz Chinook 60m
1oz Chinook 10m
1oz Chinook flame out
1oz Citra. flame out

My plan was to dry Hop with 2oz of Citra for 3 days.

Is this a good idea? I'm worried about things that could happen adding and retrieving the muslim bag. When I did a brew 20 yrs ago I did not dry hop.

Any advice?

 

[fourfarthing]

Hello! I love this site. A lot of info and positive support here! I just brewed the Northern Brewing Chinook ipa (5gal)with some small changes and I was going to dry hop today. (5 days fermenting) Now I'm worried about opening the bucket and if it would be worth it. I did as the instructions said except for the hop additions. This is what I did.

1oz Chinook 60m
1oz Chinook 10m
1oz Chinook flame out
1oz Citra. flame out

My plan was to dry Hop with 2oz of Citra for 3 days.

Is this a good idea? I'm worried about things that could happen adding and retrieving the muslim bag. When I did a brew 20 yrs ago I did not dry hop.

Any advice?

Dry hopping should be fine. If you have the ability to cold crash, you can just toss the hops in loose (they don't carry bugs). I haven't used a bag before, but I am sure that someone here has.

Welcome back!

 

[Rob2010SS]

Congratulations and welcome back to the hobby!

I absolutely love a beer with some good aroma to it. That's probably the second quality I evaluate a beer on, after what it looks like of course.

That being said, I would say dry hop it! Just be careful with it.

If you have the ability to cold crash... don't even use the muslin bag. Just dump them right in.

Assuming you don't have the ability to cold crash, either boil the muslin bag for 10 min or so or soak it in sanitizer solution. With your sanitized hands, open the bag, put in a weight of some sort (marble, steel whiskey cubes, etc), put your hops in and tie it shut. Gently open the fermenter and gently place them in the beer. Don't splash and slosh it around. Maybe gently dip them in and out a couple of times to get them wet and then let the weight pull them down to the bottom. Close the lid and you're good to go.

Cautions to take:
1. Make sure everything is sanitary - your hands, the bag, whatever you're going to use as a weight, etc.
2. Don't splash the beer around to introduce minimal oxygen.

 

[Grateful Dan]

Congratulations and welcome back to the hobby!

I absolutely love a beer with some good aroma to it. That's probably the second quality I evaluate a beer on, after what it looks like of course.

That being said, I would say dry hop it! Just be careful with it.

If you have the ability to cold crash... don't even use the muslin bag. Just dump them right in.

Assuming you don't have the ability to cold crash, either boil the muslin bag for 10 min or so or soak it in sanitizer solution. With your sanitized hands, open the bag, put in a weight of some sort (marble, steel whiskey cubes, etc), put your hops in and tie it shut. Gently open the fermenter and gently place them in the beer. Don't splash and slosh it around. Maybe gently dip them in and out a couple of times to get them wet and then let the weight pull them down to the bottom. Close the lid and you're good to go.

Cautions to take:
1. Make sure everything is sanitary - your hands, the bag, whatever you're going to use as a weight, etc.
2. Don't splash the beer around to introduce minimal oxygen.

I do not have a way to cold crash unless sitting the bucket in a tub of ice water for awhile before transferring to bottling bucket would work. I have limited space and money, the only place I can store my fermenter is upstairs. It stay 75°f up there so I made a chamber to try and keep the temp down some. I run round flex from the register into a new trash can and put a refrigerator thermometer in it. It fluctuates in temperature though, from 69 - 74. But that's ambient temp inside the can. I have a small fridge that I am going to gut for a chamber on next go. If I get it done in time can it be used for a cold crash? How cold will it have to be?

 

[eltorrente]

I have a small fridge that I am going to gut for a chamber on next go. If I get it done in time can it be used for a cold crash? How cold will it have to be?

Basically, as close to freezing without freezing as you can get. I typically use 35degrees and it works great.

 

[flars]

I brew the Chinook IPA often Right now only 2.5 gallons left. I dry hop about day 16 to 18 when the beer is beginning to clear in the primary. I don't bag the pellets. With a 7 day dry hop all the hop debris is compacted on top of the trub layer. I use a small catch bag on the end of the siphon tube going into the bottling bucket in case I stir up the trub layer. I like to pour all of the beer from the bottle with no sediment. That is the main reason for not rushing a beer. It's also less work.

 

[Brewers Hardware]

Ditto to what everyone has said so far. If I use a bag, I just soak it in star san before adding the hops and I've never had issues with infections.

Welcome back to brewing!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Yes, definitely dry hop. I tried it early on and was sold the first time. If you are the sort of person that likes big bold hops then Citra will be great. If you are more sensitive to subtleties then dry hop with Chinook instead of Citra. To cold crash, your beer needs to stay cold for at least 24 hours to allow the hops to sink and kind of concentrate on the bottom so you have a chance to keep them out of your bottling bucket. I brew small batches, so I can cold crash in my regular refrigerator, so yes if the new fridge is ready in time then you can use it to cold crash. The other benefit of cold crashing is it will sink any flocculated yeast, but there is still plenty to bottle condition if that’s what you do. This will keep the bottle trub low.

 

[Grateful Dan]

Thank you everyone for the help! I will wait a couple days before dry hopping. I took the the inside of the refrigerator door off and a bucket with a bubbler will just fit in there. I have to reattach the door seal and I will test the temperature settings for a couple days.

 

[Grateful Dan]

Today was day 14 in fermenter. Og was 1.052 . I dry hopped today with 2oz of citra. I used a metal hop filter. I boiled it for a few minutes and sprayed it down with SS before loaded the hops and dropping in. Took a sample and gravity is at 1.010. I think that's right where it needs to be. Took a taste and it tastes good, strong hop flavor and bitter. Nice color. There is alot of residue floating on top and around the side of the bucket. I'm thinking it's just hop residue. I have the first brew worries.

 

[Grateful Dan]

I forgot to ask. Does it look ok?

 

[Grateful Dan]

I hope someone will let me know what they think. May I have a infection? Sorry the pics are not great. I only kept the lid off to quickly dry hop, take a sample and snap the pic. It seems I have alot of headspace. Should I reopen and get better pics?

 

[AkTom]

Looks good. Wish I could drink one with you. Ok 2 then.

 

[Sard Brew]

I forgot to ask. Does it look ok?

I finished my first ever brew Chinook IPA too, looked exactly the same as yours and same fg, tastes awesome btw. I definitely have the bug now though as I spent this weekend brewing a Weissbeir

 

[Grateful Dan]

Thank you all for the guidance and positive support! ! I have been enjoying my beer for a few days now. It's a little over 2 weeks in the bottle. Came out darker than I expected but it taste good. Has the slight bitter hop taste that I love and the citra I added really added some aroma and just enough fruity flavor. Anyone around king william, Va come have a beer!

 

[millatime]

Looks good, congrats!