when to dry hop

[fluketamer]

hi i am brewing a kit where they reccomend adding dry hops at day 7 of fermentation for 3 days

then kegging or bottling

its an ale yeast
ive never dry hopped my beer.

i plan on splitting the batch and doing half the wort with ale yeast at 68 deg and half with diamond lager at 56 degrees . can i still add the dry hops at day 7 for three days even though it will only be 56 degrees in the ferm chamber does dry hopping cold differ greatly from dry hopping warm. i know you can dry hop in the keg and im assuming people do that in cold kegs so i imagine it shouldnt be an issue to dry hop in cold ferm chamber .

i usually do a DAR at day 10 at 72 degrees i was thinking i could dry hop it then but the dar usually is very aromatic and im afraid it would defeat the purpose of dry hopping. by blowing off the aromas that im trying to incorporate into the beer.

thanks in advance

 

[Velnerj]

If you follow the instructions you'll probably be fine. Just don't package the beer until you are sure it's done fermenting. 10 days will probably be fine but sometimes it can take longer. If you dry hop for 3 days or 7 it probably won't have a perceptible difference.

As far as temperature, this does make a difference but perhaps in the opposite of what you might think. Cold dry hopping has shown in some tests to be more effective. It's what I usually do and I seem to get good results. I cold crash my beer to around 3C then dry hop for 24-48 hours.

But if it's your first time dry hopping you'll be fine if you follow those instructions too. What many will say is that oxygen exposure plays the biggest role, so the least amount of time with an open fermenter is more important than how long or what temp you dry hop at.

 

[BrewerofBeers]

Your lager yeast will ferment more slowly due to the lower temperature. It will take extra time to finish and so you will want to wait more time to dry hop. Could be a few extra days or even double the time of the ale.

And to jump with Velnerj's point about oxygen, that's one reason why it's good to dry hop with just a bit of CO2 production happening to kick out the oxygen from the headspace if you don't do so yourself.

 

[fluketamer]

this is great info guys thanks i usually dar around day ten. if i dry hop the lager on day 7 can i just leave them in there then through the diacetyl rest on day 10 up to day 14 when i plan to keg.