To Dry Hop. . .?

[Georgian Novice]

Hi, all. Made a kit from Midwest, English IPA. Very simple. Wanted to take a break from all of my various experimentations.

I heated the water and then added the DME and the Hopped LME. I have not used hopped LME before, so was interested in trying that.

My mistake is that I forgot to add the 1 oz of Cascade Hops during the last 3 minutes of the boil. Just forgot them. Put the wort in the fermenter, added the water, and had sealed it up before I realized I forgot them.

My question. . .should I throw them in the secondary fermenter? Taste the result first before I do it? Anything necessarily wrong with throwing them in for awhile?

Just curious. Happy brewing to all.

 

[user 574]

Well if you were going to miss a hop addition that was probably the best one to miss. 3 minutes worth of a boil is almost all aroma with a little bit of flavor. Once you're done with the primary ferment toss them into the secondary. Actually the best time to "dry hop" an IPA is in the secondary so you're following what most of us do anyways.

 

[McKBrew]

It is really up to you. Give it a taste and see what you think. Depending on the brew the missed hops might make a difference, but it really does come down to your preference.

 

[david_42]

If you are looking for IPA hop aroma, add them to the secondary. Otherwise, there won't be much nose and I suspect you will be disappointed in the final results. What you have now is more of an ESB than an IPA.

Of course, you could split the batch & dry hop half.

 

[the_bird]

An option you would have is to make a little bit of "hop tea" to add to the secondary. Bring a small amount of water to a boil, toss the hops in there for three minutes, cool, add to the secondary, rack on top. That would extract a little more flavor from the hops that you would get by just dry-hopping.

Ideal, actually, would be to do a hop tea like that, AND do a dryhop. Most IPAs are dryhopped for aroma, but they also have late hop additions for flavor. Not having one or the other, and especially not having either, yeah, it'll likely be a little disappointing if you were really looking for an IPA (still potentially quite good, just not as much flavor).

 

[Georgian Novice]

Appreciate the advice on all counts. It will be my first time dry hopping regardless so this will be a nice experiment. :fro:

 

[Georgian Novice]

Just a quick update, I did "the bird's" suggestion and made a hop tea out of .5 oz of the Cascade and then dry hopped with the other .5 oz for 2 weeks. This batch really turned out great. 2 weeks in the bottle and I have already been able to give it away to people as presents. Just keeps getting smoother and a really nice kit from Midwest if anyone is interested in it. Really turned out well and I recommend to dry hop it even if you did remember to add the aroma hops in the last few minutes of the boil unlike myself. Thanks for all the suggestions.