Hey ya’ll. My wife and I brewed NB’s Lakefront’s IBA all-grain, pro-series kit on March 30th. As of yesterday, the gravity hadn’t stabilized, which is fine. The recipe says to dry hop for 7 days. The kit came with pellet hops. Many of you have written that you dry hop in the secondary; others have written they dry hop in the primary. We can do either, and honestly, I think the beer would taste great.
Here’s the catch. My brother is very interested in the brewing process and wants to brew with us, but he isn’t available until June 8th. I want to show him the whole process including bottling.
We know brewing another beer in early May would be a great option and we’ll probably do that. But, say we didn’t. Could we dry hop in the primary after fermentation is complete. Then, after 7 days or so, rack to secondary and let it sit for 7 weeks until he comes down. Are there any issues we’d run into doing it this way?
If it were me I’d brew another beer(or 3) before he comes and use that as the demo. This one will have been sitting for 10 weeks by the time June 8th rolls around. If you decide to wait it out with this batch I would at least suggest waiting to dry hop until a week or so before you intend to bottle, there’s really no reason to add them any time soon if you won’t be bottling for a while. The aroma will fade over time so generally you want to try to dry hop just before packaging.
Just clear beer
No problem letting beer sit that long. The dry hop aroma will diminish over time so it won’t be as potent. You may consider moving to secondary and dryhopping a week before bottling just to keep the hop aroma prevalent.
7 weeks is a perfect amount of time to have 3 beers at different stages of their lives, and make a long weekend out of it!! Brewing, racking, bottling, and of course drinking what’s in your primary right now.
I would dry hop in primary after active fermentation has subsided and brew another batch to bottle for when he comes in. Brew a batch, bottle a batch, and have a great homebrew to enjoy when he is in.
Dry hop in primary AND secondary.
I did that in a British style barleywine that I brewed not too long ago. I dry hopped with WGV the last 13 days of primary and with first gold the last week of secondary. I tried one after three weeks in the bottle and was quite happy with it.
