craigb12 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Hi, i've got a batch of ipa brewing right now, and, when it stops fermenting, im thinking about dry hopping this in the primary fermenter. Maybe with some chinook and cascade. For the sake of comparison, i'm thinking about bottling half of the brew for carbonation when fermentation finishes, then tossing a bag of dry hops into the primary and leaving it for another week. This should let me taste the difference between the plain and dry hopped versions. Has anyone dry hopped in the primary before? Any tips or advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slurtis Staggersalot Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Craig, if I were you I would just bottle the whole batch of IPA that you've got going just the way it is. Then I'd put down another batch straight away and dry hop it from the start of fermentation. I'd age both batches as long as I could before getting into them and get my comparison that way. IPA really benefits from an extended amount of bottle time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johng12 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Hi there, i have dry hopped both before fermentation and after in the primary. During fermentation i havn't seen much difference in the beer after bottling meaning taste or aeroma. But dry hopping after the brew finished is quite different much more evident in the beer. I dry hopped for 7 days after the fermentation and on results i think it may be a few days too much. Time will tell as the beer ages. I haven't used the hops you have mentioned but various others,for comparision thats not a bad idea at least its the same beer basically. I may try that one as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb12 Posted January 30, 2011 Author Share Posted January 30, 2011 That's pretty interesting John. I read somewhere that adding the hops about 4 days into the fermentation, when it's just about finished, is not such a bad idea. This seems to be because the hops have some air (and therefore oxygen) trapped in them; so, adding them while the yeast is still active means that this oxygen will be removed. Apparently, adding the hops when the fermentation has completed means that the oxygen is left in the beer - which isnt a massive problem - but it means the beer will go stale a bit quicker than usual. If i'm thinking about splitting the batch into two halves, bottling one and dry hopping the other, it means that i'll need to add the hops after fermentation. So, its good to know that it seemed to work well for you. You didn't notice it going stale or anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johng12 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 No worries with it going stale craig it will be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biermoasta Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I dry hopped my brew with Liberty hops 4 days into fermentation. That was now about 4 days ago, took a hydrometer sample today and the aroma was beautiful. [love] If the hops are added at the start of fermentation I think the aroma can be driven off by the fermentation process. I added mine when the gravity was 1.017 and the final gravity is now 1.012, I only have one fermenter so just dropped the loose pellets straight into primary, they appear to have now settled to the bottom of the brew, and hopefully wont cause too much problem when bottling. [joyful] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonardC2 Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Great discussion! I was wondering about this myself. So, 3-4 days into fermentation seams to be good. Thatb way the co2 lost by opening the fermentor would get replaced,reducing the likelihood of contamination. Just a day or 2 past the end of fermentation might be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb12 Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Any CO2 produced during the primary fermentation can help force some of the dry-hop aroma out of the air lock; for that reason, adding the dry-hop ingredients at the beginning of primary fermentation doesn't get the best out of them. Even when added half way through the primary (which ive been told is good for scrubbing the oxygen out of the hops) means that some of the aroma will be lost with the CO2 through the airlock. To combat this, ive heard one guy saying that he puts about 20% extra dry-hops in when he's doing it with the primary batch. Seems to make sense to me. This'll be my first time doing it, so i'll let you know how it goes. I saw one video on youtube ( ) where a guy tries adding dry hops straight into the bottles. He does a sort of 'before and after' video... turns out to be a disaster. Has anyone else tried a weird and wonderful way of adding flavour to their batch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewie Rivers Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 I have just opened a dutch ale which had 15gm Cascade hops@10mins and I can taste the hops but not much aroma. The next is a Dutch ale with 24gm hersbruker dry hopped in primary fermentor after 4 days and left for 10 days. This is still ageing so will advise results when it is opened. Could not notice any big aromas on bottling but this may change with age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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