Secondary Fermenting/Dry Hopping

[butterblum]

I am currently in the process of making a DIPA (Hop Head kit from Midwest). It has been sitting in the primary fermenter for the last 9 days. I took a gravity reading on day 7, and it was at 1.014 (1.072 OG). The kit instructions say to transfer from the primary to the secondary after 1-2 weeks, and to leave in the secondary for 10 weeks, dry hopping for the last 7-10 days.
I know that there are many proponents of eliminating secondary fermentation on this forum. I emailed Midwest about the long secondary fermentation, and this is how they responded: "You certainly could bottle condition after a couple of weeks in the secondary but with the amount of hops used you're going to end up with quite a bit more sediment in the bottle. It's also going to be quite a bit tougher to avoid drinking the beer before it's ready if it has already been bottled."
My first question is whether or not I should/can rack to the secondary. I know that my primary fermentation is almost totally finished, so if I racked to a secondary with an airlock, would there be any CO2 output from the yeast to purge the oxygen in the headspace of the carboy?
Second question: can I dry hop in the primary (whole cones)?
Third question: If I choose to leave the beer in the primary for 3-4 weeks (dry hopping for the last week) and avoid the secondary, how long am I going to have to wait for the beer to condition in the bottles? Is it worth it to condition for a longer time in the secondary and dry hop at the end, resulting in more hop aroma when the beer is actually conditioned, instead of dry hopping and then waiting a while for the beer to condition?
Thanks for your help guys.

 

[JLeuck64]

Here's the thing I've noticed about moving to a 2nd versus leaving it in the primary...

Pretty much all of the beers I've moved to the secondary will release some CO2 after doing so. You usually notice a little air lock activity for a day or so after moving to the secondary.

ALL the beers I've moved to the secondary always take longer to bottle condition, well... they take longer to carbonate really ( ;.

Since I've stopped moving beers to the secondary ( I am talking about smaller beers like around 1.070 or less) I have noticed they carb up in the bottles SOOOO much better! I am talking days here to less than a week! But I am currently testing a 1.070 batch that was in the primary for about 6 weeks and went straight into bottles so stay tuned!

My recent experience with this has totally changed my opinion on transferring to a secondary. I used to do it religiously for over a year...

So, I let my beers finish. I add dry hops for 7 - 10 days (I put them in a nylon bag that has been sanitized) Then I wring out the dry hop bags with clean hands before I bottle.

I've followed the instructions on recipes to the letter... and I've strayed from those instructions on occasion. It's good to experiment and it's ALWAYS tough to keep from tasting those bottled beers before they fully condition LOLOLOLOL!