Kegging Double IPA... is it too early?

[Hophead2u2]

I have several questions... about 3 weeks ago we brewed a double ipa and all has gone perfectly. The beer was in primary for 2 weeks. We then racked it into a glass carboy for secondary and dry hopped it. It now has been in secondary for 7 days with dry hops the entire time. We'd like to have the beer carbed up and ready to drink over memorial weekend.

If we rack the beer into the keg after 11 days in secondary, will a week in the kegerator be long enough that we can fill up some growlers and enjoy it?
Or should we try to stretch it to 15 or 16 days and then attempt to force carb the beer? Would we notice a big difference between 11 and 15 days in secondary?

Also, if we after 11 or 15 days we find that the beer is still a little young and we want to continue to condition it, can we just take the keg out of the fridge to let it continue to condition at room temperature?

Cheers!

 

[bartbert]

Typically, you don't want to dry hop for more than about a week. Much longer than that, and you may start to imbue the beer with a grassy taste (or so I'm told, because I have never tried going longer than a week).

If you are force carbonating, you really need to give it at least 2 weeks in the keg, which means it needs to go to keg now to be ready by Memorial Day. The only problem is that an Imperial IPA probably needs more conditioning time than a smaller beer. Ideally, you would keg it now, but let it sit at room temperature for a week or two before dropping the temperature and drinking. But what the hell. Give it a try and see what happens.