dry hop, or not dry hop.

[greenxpaddy]

Of course brewers can do what they like. But hoppy and Malty is a very hard trick to pull off well. That's why generally it's one or the other

In fact I'm still not sure what I make of black ipa's

[Spud395]

We're looking at less than 5% Munich here, not exactly a malt bomb.
I add some munich to almost all my beers, I just love the stuff.

Oh and Black IPA is one of my favourite styles,everyone to their own I guess.

[greenxpaddy]

Not knocking it. Someone asked for an opinion. Where I have used Munich it is very noticeable. The malty sweetness can make some hops too much. I think it is pretty telling that German beers are not heavily hopped.

Of course like I said you can brew what you like! Just don't go asking for an opinion in that case.

[Deebee]

Ok so i decided.

i'll wash bottles this evening and bottle tomorrow.

I had searched for ages for Ahnatum, and have been planning to use them for an age. So i don' want to risk messing it up.

At the end of the day, if it turns out goos, i can always make it again with dry hops.

thanks for the input gentlemen.

[Fido97]

Leaving the beer in the primary fermenter for that perod of time is too long in my opinion. Good luck with it anyway.

[Kev888]

At one time I too worried about autolysis and infection and would always rack to secondary after about a week - most homebrewers did back then. Assuming you wait long enough, sanitise properly and don't aerate the beer when transferring, its probably ideal and won't cause any detriment - though if you mess up with sanitation or something then obviously the opposite applies.

However, opinion varies (a lot) on how long is too long in primary or even if it has any effect at all. So several years ago I experimented to see for myself; I could detect no difference at up to three weeks (I didn't really test much longer); since then I've done brew after brew with it in primary for at least two weeks or (whenever I dry hop) three weeks and 'never' had infections or autolysis tastes. So 'in practice' I'm now convinced that if there are benefits within that sort of timescale then they're too undetectable to be worth my time/effort/risk to rack; I certainly wouldn't worry for the odd occasion like in the OP.

Not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with the theory though, just the degree of its real-world implications. In fact more recently have I considered reducing time in primary again - I'm now trying to store beer for extended periods and subtleties (and especially things which could increase over time) are probably worth more effort to avoid.

Cheers
Kev

[Barley Water]

Don't confuse malty with sweet, not the same thing at all. Generally speaking, if your beer is coming across as sweet then likely you have an attenuation issue. Alt bier is a very good example of a beer that you want to be malty but should be pretty dry. Another very good example is Helles lager. Because there are relatively little in the way of hops to counteract a sweet beer, if you can't dry it out it just won't be as good as it could be. When I make German styles, I really try not to let the O.G. get too high otherwise you end up with a "Bock type" beer which may not be what you are trying to do. I personally don't care for sweet beers that are heavily hopped, I think it just makes the beer harder to drink but that is just my personal opinion.

[Fido97]

Kev888 its interesting what you say paticularly since you have experimented with the practice of leaving in the primary for extended periods. One thing I would add though - partly the rationale of transferring to a secondary after about 7 days (for me anyway) is that the you leave most of the sediment behind and therefore the beer clarifies in the secondary. Thus there is minimal sediment when its bottled and the finished product is improved. Cheers,

[orlando]

- partly the rationale of transferring to a secondary after about 7 days (for me anyway) is that the you leave most of the sediment behind and therefore the beer clarifies in the secondary.

This seems illogical to me. If flocculation increases after transferring, the time it takes for the beer to clear should increase not decrease. But transferring remixes the particles that were slowly drifting down (faster ones are already at the bottom). If anything this slows the clearing. Another factor is, it is not until a fermentation has come to, or close to, the end that the "clearing up" of unwanted flavours such as acetaldehyde & diacetyl can be performed, by removing yeast you discourage this part of the fermentation.

I see no positive argument for transfer until the yeast has completely done its job.

One other point about transferring is you should avoid harvesting the yeast of this phase because you are effectively selecting for the less flocculent yeast and least attenuative and so increase fermentation times & clearing problems of the next brew.

[Kev888]

partly the rationale of transferring to a secondary after about 7 days (for me anyway) is that the you leave most of the sediment behind and therefore the beer clarifies in the secondary. Thus there is minimal sediment when its bottled and the finished product is improved. Cheers,

Yes, thats a good point - I was mainly just thinking of the OP's circumstances there: I don't find theres any problem in not racking to secondary within a few weeks, but taken more widely I'm not saying you "shouldn't" rack if you have a reason or wish to 'provided' that the brewer is experienced enough for sanitation and oxidation to be genuinly minimal risks.

Cheers
Kev

[Fido97]

- partly the rationale of transferring to a secondary after about 7 days (for me anyway) is that the you leave most of the sediment behind and therefore the beer clarifies in the secondary.

This seems illogical to me. If flocculation increases after transferring, the time it takes for the beer to clear should increase not decrease. But transferring remixes the particles that were slowly drifting down (faster ones are already at the bottom). If anything this slows the clearing. Another factor is, it is not until a fermentation has come to, or close to, the end that the "clearing up" of unwanted flavours such as acetaldehyde & diacetyl can be performed, by removing yeast you discourage this part of the fermentation.

I see no positive argument for transfer until the yeast has completely done its job.

One other point about transferring is you should avoid harvesting the yeast of this phase because you are effectively selecting for the less flocculent yeast and least attenuative and so increase fermentation times & clearing problems of the next brew.

Think you've missed the point. I am talking about racking to a second vessel once the primary fermentation is completely done. I find if you do this there is less risk of stirring up the sediment from the main ferment at the point of bottling. Of course there is still going to be a bit of sediment but its much easier to manage. The end result leaves significantly less sediment in the bottles - for me this is the only reason for doing it. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear.

[orlando]

I do apologise, I did miss your point and agree entirely with your approach as this is what I have just started doing. My only tweak is that currently I transfer to a racking bucket with finings and leave for a minimum of 24 hours and then rack to either a primed keg or another bucket primed for bottling. The result is a clear beer with just a thin paint layer of yeast to achieve conditioning, which doesn't leave a lot of beer behind when serving.

[Barley Water]

What I have always done (for about 25 years) is move my beer out of the primary fermentor after about a week for ales and a couple of weeks for lagers into a secondary fermentor. I then let the beer sit around in secondary until I get around to kegging (or rarely bottling). If I am going to dry hop, I use pellets and generally dry hop in the secondary. Part of the reason I do this is because I want to get the beer off the trub and yeast to avoid the dreaded "autolysis" and other "off flavors" but the other reason I do it is because I always have (a pretty crappy reason in my opinion). I have read that many of the "Gods" in our hobby (like the great Jamil Z) are not bothering with a secondary, they go straight from the primary to the keg. Anyway, here is my question; can I wait a week for primary fermentation to at least slow down then just dump the dry hops in there? Will having all that yeast and trub in the primary mess up the dry hopping effort? The main reason I am thinking about doing this is because when I rack to the secondary, I will leave most of the hop material behind so that when I get around to moving the stuff to a keg I will have almost completely eliminated any hop material from the beer. I have had problems with hop gunk clogging up the poppets of my kegs in the past. I have a CAP in primary fermentation right now which I am going to dry hop with an ounce of Saaz before kegging (I get the stuff pretty bitter then I essentially hop burst and dry hop, this stuff is not wimpy American lager). Anyhow, what can I get away with here?