When to put in the dry hops?

[BetterSense]

I understand people who leave their beer sit around for 3+ weeks in the fermenter and that's what I've been doing for beers that aren't dry-hopped. For dry hops, though, I'm confused if I should add the hops at the START of the aging period or at the END. When do you add dry hops?

1. After the krausen falls and the beer is approaching final gravity
2. As soon as the beer reaches final gravity for 3 days
3. After the beer has been settling out for a while (2-3 weeks) and clarified

Also, after dry hopping for a week or so, do you take the hops out and let the beer 'age' even more, or do you immediately bottle / keg?

 

[Billybrewer09]

I usually let my beers set for a couple weeks, and then decide when I'm going to bottle or keg. Then i add my dry hops a week before.

 

[chumpsteak]

Option 3.

Let the beer clear some so that the yeast don't drag all your hop oils to the bottom of the fermenter with them.

Rack to keg or bottle immediately after your dry hop.

I dry hop in primary so I cold crash for a few days to drop all the pellets before kegging.

 

[bottlebomber]

You really want the beer to clear before you dry hop.

 

[Golddiggie]

I've been dry hopping in serving keg. Simply put the whole hops (pellet too) into a nylon hop bag and put in once the keg is full of beer. I then put the keg into the brew fridge to chill/carbonate for two weeks and then pull a pint. The two weeks in keg, at serving temperatures, makes for a wonderful addition to the glass. Having the hops in the bag means you don't get any particles into the glass. :rockin:

I have tried dry hopping at room temp and by the time the beer was in glass a LOT of what I wanted had already faded. That's when I switched to dry hopping in serving keg. I also use 1oz of whole hops per 3 gallon keg of beer. So good it makes your tongue smack your brain.

 

[BetterSense]

Dry hopping in the keg sounds attractive if you plan to keg the whole batch. I usually bottle 1/2 of each batch and keg the rest.

Is dry-hopping and/or aging less effective at cold-crashing temperatures? Since I have to share my keezer and fermentation chamber, I have to drink warm beer the whole time my beer is fermenting. That's my main motivation for wanting to speed things up. If I can turn my keezer down to 40C as soon as my beer hits final gravity, then I don't care how long it takes to age and dry-hop.

 

[kaboom133]

I wait a week after my krausen falls so that my beer is mostly clear then I rack to a secondary on the dry hops. I usually give it a week in the secondary before I carefully either rack to a keg or bottling bucket. If you're careful and attentive during racking there are little to no particles in the beer.

 

[Golddiggie]

I kegged half of all of two batches before going to kegging all of each batch. Bottling half was more work, took more time (much longer) and took up more space than it was worth. I use 3 gallon kegs, so I can have four kegs in my brew fridge (a 10 cubic foot Whirlpool fridge, freezer on the top which holds my hops). I have three taps through the door, so I have one carbonating spot in there.

I'm fermenting in the basement, which is the perfect temperature set for my English yeast strains. One side is 56F and the other is 59F right now (the warmer is the finished room in the basement).

As far as what happens to hops in the keg, at serving temperatures... They hold their flavors/aromas for the entire keg (I'm not alone in this). That's mainly due to the lower temperature they're kept at. So, if you increase the temperature of what's in the keg, like for fermenting, they'll go nasty on you. IMO, you're better off getting either the beer out of the fermentation chamber, or get the fermenting beer out of the keezer. IMO/IME, trying to do both in one means it does neither really well.