Secondary ferm question, Hop Head Double IPA kit

[Ungoliant]

Ok so I'm an extract brewer, and I've done just about everything I can think of to churn out a good recipe of my own design, and can't seem to get it right. So as a "control" experiment, I ordered a beer kit to verify my brewing process. See photos for recipe (1.070-1.074 SG, 1.016-1.018 FG)

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Looking at the instructions, Midwest recommends a 10 week secondary for this beer, and the dry hop on the last 5 or so days (see photo). I mean I've heard of having a beer set for a good while, but this is looking at 3 months for an IPA that's just barely high gravity. Does that seem a bit much to anyone else?

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1428626920.382950.jpg.

 

[dsaavedra]

I would say 10 weeks is way too long for this beer.

I brewed this exact kit a few months back and it came out pretty good. I did primary for 3 weeks, dry hopping for the duration of the third week, then bottled. If I recall, the recipe uses leaf hops for dry hopping and I just dumped them right into the fermenter. A lot, if not most, never got saturated after the week of dry hopping. I would recommend putting the leaf hops in a sanitized weighted muslin bag to ensure they get saturated with beer.

The beer came out tasting good, but could have been hoppier. I drank the batch slowly and by the time I finished it the bottles had lost all hop flavor and aroma and just tasted like bitter C60.

 

[Ungoliant]

Ok cool. That's about what I was thinking. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Dlou84]

I have done this all grain. I didn't take great notes the first time, but I know I dry hopped in the keg for two weeks before serving so I think I bypassed secondary, but could be wrong. It was probably 7 weeks from brew day to drink. It was one of the best IPAs I've had and they are my brew of choice. I just brewed it again on Monday and plan on doing the same steps.

 

[PGEduardo]

IPA's should be drank fresh. I brewed this early on and made a few mistakes, here's my suggested deviations from the instructions:

1 - Control fermentation temperatures! Keep it at a constant ~65F if you can.
2 - 3 week primary (check gravity to make sure you hit the target).
3 - Do not move to secondary.
4 - Dry hop in weighted (sanitized) bag for whole leaf hops, or use the whole leaf hops in the boil and swap for some pelletized hops for dry hopping.
5 - Leave each dry hop in for only 3 days (not sure if there are multiple dry hops).
6 - Cold crash if possible before bottling/kegging.
7 - Drink fresh! Aroma hops will fade quickly.