Time to dry hop a IIPA?

[Beercules1]

Put the IIPA in on May 19th, OG was 1.091
Took a theif sample today and FG is 1.013 si I'm happy with that, and it tasted pretty damn good. I was thinking of giving it 8-10 more days to finish cleaning up, giving it a full 30 days. Should I dry hop it now? I was just going to toss 1 oz (5g batch) of Calypso in a sanitized hop bag into the primary. Don't usually go for the secondary thing unless I'm splitting batches.

 

[mamies]

If you're not going to secondary then why not. Toss them in and then bottle/keg as planned.

 

[TriggerFingers]

When the gravity is good, then dry hop it. 1.013 for a beer that big sounds done to me. For big hoppy beers, I tend to get them off the yeast and dry hop in a secondary (pretty much every other beer I leave in primary for month then bottle). Its your call (I have dry hopped IPA's in primary too). The reason to put them in the secondary is that the yeast tend to capture the hop oils or so I am told.

You may want to add another ounce or two to your dry hop, but that is only a suggestion. Everyone has their own DH schedule, but the one I like the best is first charge (say 1 oz of calypso)for 3-4 days, add second charge for 3-4 days on top of the first, then bottle on the last day. Should be super fresh and no grassiness.

 

[HopZombie99]

I tend to wait until fermentation is complete to dry hop. Not sure why... most likely habit! After 20ish days, your fermentation is prolly over. If you aren't going to do a secondary (and I never do) then may as well get the DH going now. I like TriggerFingers idea of adding more hops. I'm a bit of a hop head tho and I would be dry hopping with at least 3oz for a IIPA with the ABV that you got. You've got about a 10% brew there.

 

[daksin]

Definitely wait until the beer has dropped bright so you don't get yeast dropping out with your precious hop oils bound to them. This is usually 3-5 days after FG for me, but you should be able to tell by visual inspection.

 

[Yooper]

Definitely wait until the beer has dropped bright so you don't get yeast dropping out with your precious hop oils bound to them. This is usually 3-5 days after FG for me, but you should be able to tell by visual inspection.

Yep, that's the best time to do it. Alternatively, if the beer is in the fermenter for a week or two after it's done, then just dryhop for the last 5-7 days before packaging.

 

[NathPowe]

1oz dryhop for an IIPA?

 

[trent]

1oz isn't enough. 6oz minimum.

 

[jbaysurfer]

1oz isn't enough. 6oz minimum.

Agreed. Disagreed.

But I do believe: more is better for this style.

 

[ShinyBuddha]

With something that big I'd go for a minimum of 3oz. But more is good too

 

[TriggerFingers]

1oz isn't enough. 6oz minimum.

Agreed. I do 2.5 gallon batches mostly and with a DIPA I usually dry hop with 2 charges of 2 oz each (which for a standard 5 gallon batch would be about 8 oz--4+4). You could do less and maybe more than a half pound, but really any more than that you start to run into the law of diminishing returns. I'd rather use the extra hops to do a hop stand.