Zombie Dirt Extract - Dry Hopping and Recipe Interpretation

[TheLumin8or]

Hi Everyone,

I'm 16 days into fermentation (Christmas Day brew) and have a question about timing for dry hopping. I'm planning on dry hopping with a sanitized nylon hop sack in my primary glass Big Mouth Bubbler and skipping the secondary after reading through posts here. Now my question is when to do it?

The recipe (https://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/ZombieDirt.pdf) says that fermentation ends after 1-2 weeks and I now have zero bubbling in the air lock and don't see any activity (bubbling) in the fermenter. Most of the krausen has dropped or stuck to the side, but there's still some islands on the surface. Not sure if this means it's ready or not. See pics below. Does this look about right?

The recipe then goes on to say "if you do not have a secondary fermenter you may skip the secondary fermentation and add an additional week to primary fermentation before bottling". So are they saying that I should throw the dry hops in now for a week and then transfer to the bottling bucket? It seems like some people say not to leave the dry hops in too long, so I don't want to throw them in too early or wait to long to do it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Jerryskids]

Fermentation should be done after 16 days....but you need to check with hydrometer. There are many ways to dry hop including during fermentation. Dry hop now for 5-7 days and you will be ready to bottle or keg at the end of that time.

 

[AZBeer]

If you want to know for sure, take a gravity reading a few days apart. If it's doesn't drop, fermentation is done. For IPAs I usually ferment for 2 weeks, then dry hop for 5-7 days, then cold-crash and fine. Unless it's a big double IPA, then I might let it go a little longer.

Sometimes I fish out the dry hop bag, some times I don't. I haven't seen any negatives from leaving it. People talk about grassy flavors, but I haven't run in to that. Not after 7ish days at least.

 

[TheLumin8or]

Thanks for your input! I just took a hydrometer reading of 1.014 and was satisfied with that number (around 6.04% ABV). The sample tasted great!

I put the hop bag in and will plan on letting it sit for the next 5-7 days as you both mentioned.

Any idea what the sediment still floating on top could be? There were a few "floaters" in the sample but nothing bitter or off-tasting...

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I wonder about the instructions on most of these kits. I used to follow those instructions to a 'T' back in the 90's, worried constantly about the fermentation. Now I brew on Saturday, active ferm is winding down by monday where I bump up the temp, I cold crash on Thursday and keg on Saturday. Literally one week from grain to keg. All of this can change quite a bit based on the yeast and how much you pitch.

That being said, I do 1.5L starters for my yeast and it goes nuts for those first 24 hours. For a big porter I did I gave it more time and racked to a secondary, but that was to do pseudo barrel aging.