Fermenting/Hops question

[rjanson]

I'm trying to simplify things a bit in order to get a repeatable brewing process down. One of the things I'm doing is skipping racking to secondary and fermenting entirely in the primary.

The plan was to ferment for 3 weeks in primary before bottling, but i realize now I'll be out of town until week 4 of fermentation. From what I can tell this is not an issue.

My questions are:

Is 4-5 weeks in the fermenter going to be detrimental, vs 3 weeks?

If the suggested dry hopping is 7 days, should I wait until after I get home to add the hops, then wait 7 days and bottle? Or can I add before I go, giving it 2+ weeks of hops?

When using a hop sock, do you add the hops and drop the sock into the fermenter, or do you suspend the sock in the fermenter, which I'm imagining might allow more wort to flow/extract more hoppiness?

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Four to five weeks in the fermenter is fine. Dry hop when you get home. Dry hopping for too long can give you a grassy flavor. I usually put a sanitized stainless spoon in my dry hopping bag so it sinks. It actually probably doesn't matter much. The beer will soak in fine either way.

 

[rjanson]

Four to five weeks in the fermenter is fine. Dry hop when you get home. Dry hopping for too long can give you a grassy flavor. I usually put a sanitized stainless spoon in my dry hopping bag so it sinks. It actually probably doesn't matter much. The beer will soak in fine either way.

Beautiful, thanks.