Is Secondary Necessary if I Want to Dry Hop?

[natelindner]

Hi all,

I currently have a batch of American Amber Ale in primary fermentation. I want to dry hop it this weekend. I know a lot of people rack to secondary and then dry hop but how necessary is this? I am only making a gallon and am a novice brewer so I don't want to lose yield or risk infection. Is it ok to dry hop in the primary fermenter once fermentation has pretty much ended?

 

[norsk]

I dry hop in the primary all the time... no worries...

 

[Revvy]

Many of us dry hop in primary. You just ad them at the start of the last week of your time. SInce I leave my beer in primary for a month I DH at the start of day 21

 

[Xpertskir]

I dry hop in the primary all the time... no worries...

This

But it doesn't mean that the beer gets made any faster and you have to wait until FG is reached and ideally a conditioning period after that prior to adding dry hops.

 

[te-wa]

i had the same question a couple weeks back. reading several threads, it seems you'll get best results by reaching final G, then cold crash for a few days before adding hops. i plan doing this soon with a dipa, after hops are added allow time to come back up to 72-75 and bottle. this will be perfect for a 3 or 4 day dry hop, imo.
this forum is great!

 

[winvarin]

Many of us dry hop in primary. You just ad them at the start of the last week of your time. SInce I leave my beer in primary for a month I DH at the start of day 21

I was wondering about just this thing yesterday. I also go 3-4 weeks in primary then straight into the keg. I have 2 five-gallon carboys going right now from the same batch.

I bought an ounce more hops than I had accounted for in my recipe and was going to split it between the batches as dry hops. My LHBS usually carries pellets, but had several varieties of whole hops this time.

Using leaf hops, would you bag them or just toss whole into the primary? I usually bag pellets for dry hopping to avoid particulate matter when I package. But the cones held up pretty well during the boil. I am guessing they would survive a few days loose in the primary and not cause the same transfer issues I see with pellets.

 

[Brewsmack]

Many of us dry hop in primary. You just ad them at the start of the last week of your time. SInce I leave my beer in primary for a month I DH at the start of day 21

Im assuming its straight to the bottle after the month? if so, Do you achieve the same clarity that way, as opposed to going with a secondary? Use finings?

 

[Xpertskir]

Im assuming its straight to the bottle after the month? if so, Do you achieve the same clarity that way, as opposed to going with a secondary? Use finings?

"getting the beer off the yeast" does little for clarity

Time, temp, and gravity is the real driver of clarity.

In 5 gallon I use half a tablet of whirfloc, leave it in the primary for 3-4 weeks, typically with a large dry hop addition for 7-10 days before packaging. I then cold crash to 34 for 2-3 days and keg or bottle. My clarity is very good.


Using a highly flocculant yeast is also a huge help for clarity, such as WLP007, my personal fav. Even with "stubborn" yeast like dennys fav, I can still get great clarity using my process.

 

[Shooter]

Count me in as a primary dry-hopper!! After the first week primary fermentation is usually done. I let it sit another week in case the yeast want to clean anything up and/or start settling out and then I throw in the dry hop for a final week.