I was hoping to get some pointers from those of you who brew a lot of WCIPA as far as how you like to dry hop them. I can definitely see the benefits of dry hopping in primary while some fermentation is still active as far as it being a great way to avoid oxidation. However, I'm not necessarily after the biotransformation. I don't typically care for super fruit-forward IPAs. To my personal taste, these citrus bomb IPAs I'm finding a lot these days (even the clear ones) have a pithy quality to them that I just don't jibe with. For lack of a better term, I like my dry hops to taste and smell "hoppy" rather than like orange/grapefruit juice. With that in mind, my instinct would be to do a closed transfer to a secondary purged keg (I ferment in kegs btw) and dry hop the more "traditional" way. But, now there's all this concern about hop creep and a secondary fermentation happening, creating diacetyl issues.
So here I am not quite sure which route to take. If I did go the route of dry hopping post-fermentation, does anybody have suggestions as far as temperature, duration, and hopping rates that have worked well? Or is there a window for dry hopping in primary where there's enough fermentation left to scavenge oxygen and avoid hop creep, but also not producing too much of a juicy quality?
Edit: I suppose hop varietal selection makes an impact as well.
Or am I just worrying about a non-issue?
Cheers!
So here I am not quite sure which route to take. If I did go the route of dry hopping post-fermentation, does anybody have suggestions as far as temperature, duration, and hopping rates that have worked well? Or is there a window for dry hopping in primary where there's enough fermentation left to scavenge oxygen and avoid hop creep, but also not producing too much of a juicy quality?
Edit: I suppose hop varietal selection makes an impact as well.
Or am I just worrying about a non-issue?
Cheers!