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Dry hoping in secondary?

GoodBeer

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Beer Smith says to transfer to secondary in 4 days and add my dry hops.  It has been 4 days and the primary is still pretty active should I wait a little longer or transfer?

Tim
 
Thanks guys, That's what I thought but I'm still a green horn so I thought I better ask.
 
OK it has bee 15 days and it is still working.  So here is the deal I started out at 1.083 I had made a 1200 ml yeast starter 24 hrs on a stir plate and it fermented at high krausen for a few day and then it slowed a little.  At 8 days it was at 1.045 and now at 15 days it is at 1.033 it still has a nice layer of white foam on the surface and I am getting a bubble from the air lock about 5 to 6 seconds.  I have it in a controlled refrigerator, and the stick on thermometer says 68 degrees.


What do you think transfer it or leave it a few more days?

Cheers Tim
 
That's a big-ass beer. You definitely don't want to rack it early or you'll have problems. Four days is fine for 1.040 OG, but not for that monster you're brewing.

The only way to know for sure is to keep checking the gravity, and when it remains unchanged over a couple days you can be confident that activity has stopped.

I don't do that because it's inconvenient with glass carboys and I'm paranoid about risking infections.
I wait until all the foam is gone (little patches of bubbles is fine) and the beer darkens, indicating that most of the yeast has settled out.
 
Maine Homebrewer said:
That's a big-ass beer. You definitely don't want to rack it early or you'll have problems. Four days is fine for 1.040 OG, but not for that monster you're brewing.

The only way to know for sure is to keep checking the gravity, and when it remains unchanged over a couple days you can be confident that activity has stopped.

I totally agree with this. I rarely dry hop, but when I do I tend to get impatient. If you transfer too soon, you chance the beer ending up a higher FG than you intended. I've done this before and it's a real bummer. A Pale Ale finishing at 1.020 is not the best.

I'm curious; what did you brew with such a high SG that you're dry hopping? IIPA? Also, what yeast are you using?
 
OK thanks guys,

As it turns out I have not had much time to rack it anyway so all is good.  I just checked it and I am still getting bubbles and that is a good thing as I am off to work again tomorrow for the weekend.

What I brewed was an Extract batch from MoreBeer called "Rogue's I2PA - Extract Beer Kit" http://morebeer.com/view_product/18442//Rogues_I2PA_-_Extract_Beer_Kit

Cheers
 
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