Question about Carboy with IIPA

[milo_leon]

Hello all,

I have a quick question about using a carboy. From what I've read, it's usually better to leave the beer in the primary rather than transferring to a carboy for secondary fermentation. My understanding is that you use the carboy if brewing sours or adding ingredients like cocoa, vanilla, oak chips, etc.

I plan to brew Northern Brewer's 115th Dream Hopbursted IIPA in a few weeks, and was going over the recipe. Instructions say to transfer from primary to secondary after two weeks and to leave in secondary for four to six weeks, before bottling. There is no additional process with the secondary, ie. dryhopping, so I was wondering what the benefit of leaving my beer in a secondary for so long before bottling?

 

[homebrewdad]

If you aren't dry hopping, you don't have to transfer to secondary at all.

 

[phuff7129]

I wouldn't worry about it. I have done both and seen no difference so I just leave mine in primary. For a double ipa I would leave it in primary for about a month. I have never heard of a double ipa that is not dryhopped. If it were my dipa I would dryhop it for 10 days in primary. Just my opinion. I am a huge fan of dryhops because I love my beer to smell good!

 

[homebrewdad]

I'm not an IPA guy, but I agree - I've never heard of one that wasn't dry hopped.

 

[kh54s10]

It is not true that it is better to not do a secondary. It is an option to skip the secondary. There are 2 main benefits: 1) it is less work. 2) there is less risk of infection. The less you handle the beer by not putting instruments into the beer lessens the chance of using a tool that is not totally sanitary. There are also ways to add items like dry hopping in the primary.

In your case I would use the secondary for the dry hopping and because of the length of time you will be aging the beer.

The benefits of long secondary is that it allows all the possibly harsh flavors to mesh and mellow.

The recipe does not call for any dry hopping. There is a lot of late addition hops for flavor and aroma in the recipe. I personally have done several IPA's without dry hopping.

 

[duboman]

Personally I would only do primary and IMO I cannot see a benefit to 4-6 weeks as it is preferable to drink IPAs, Pales and DIPAs fresh.

Assuming you pitch properly and ferment at the correct temperature I would let the beer ferment about 10 days and then check for FG and taste. If the beer tastes good and is at FG, give it an additional week to drop bright and package it. Let it then condition and carbonate in the bottle or keg. I'm not saying I'm right but that's what I would do

 

[phuff7129]

It is not true that it is better to not do a secondary. It is an option to skip the secondary. There are 2 main benefits: 1) it is less work. 2) there is less risk of infection. The less you handle the beer by not putting instruments into the beer lessens the chance of using a tool that is not totally sanitary. There are also ways to add items like dry hopping in the primary.

You just made the case for not doing a secondary. The primary/secondary debate has been done to death on this website so I will not start it again. If the beer will benefit from aging you can do it in the bottle or keg just as well as in a carboy. Dry hopping is entirely up to you. I think you will find most good examples of a DIPA will be dryhopped and quite generously so.

 

[milo_leon]

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. I am leaning toward a long primary (3 weeks+) instead of using my carboy. The sooner the beer is done, the sooner I can drink it!