Dry Hopping

[molc]

Just on harvesting yeast, maybe look into overbuilding your starters instead? There's a lot less faffing needed and I find it more predictible. Also means I can throw the hops in and not worry about the yeast cake.

[Leann ull]

Just on harvesting yeast, maybe look into overbuilding your starters instead? There's a lot less faffing needed and I find it more predictible. Also means I can throw the hops in and not worry about the yeast cake.

+1
It also means that your yeast is purer and will not contain any potential off flavours from the fermentation process of your beer hops or adjuncts.

[Bubbles]

My original plan was to rack after a week and then 2 weeks in secondary with the last 4 days bagless dry hopping.

I'd recommend you don't do this. By removing the beer from the yeast cake you're eliminating the yeast's ability to clean up the by-products of fermentation. Also, racking will encourage more yeast to flocc out. You need to leave your beer on the yeast and let it do its job. No point in rushing things.

[Dr Jacoby]

My original plan was to rack after a week and then 2 weeks in secondary with the last 4 days bagless dry hopping.

I'd recommend you don't do this. By removing the beer from the yeast cake you're eliminating the yeast's ability to clean up the by-products of fermentation. Also, racking will encourage more yeast to flocc out. You need to leave your beer on the yeast and let it do its job. No point in rushing things.

+1

Maybe leave the beer in primary for two weeks and dry hop in the same vessel for 4 days. If you have the ability to control the temperature you can then cold crash to as close to 0C as possible to encourage everything to settle out and bottle or keg from there. 

[banjobrew]

My original plan was to rack after a week and then 2 weeks in secondary with the last 4 days bagless dry hopping.

I'd recommend you don't do this. By removing the beer from the yeast cake you're eliminating the yeast's ability to clean up the by-products of fermentation. Also, racking will encourage more yeast to flocc out. You need to leave your beer on the yeast and let it do its job. No point in rushing things.

+1

Maybe leave the beer in primary for two weeks and dry hop in the same vessel for 4 days. If you have the ability to control the temperature you can then cold crash to as close to 0C as possible to encourage everything to settle out and bottle or keg from there.

Rushing is definitely not something I plan on doing. I want to do what's best for the beer so all this is gold. John Palmer always recommends single stage fermentation and it's something I'd like to go back to but I just assumed if dry hopping that a secondary is needed. Don't know why now that I think of it. Might just pop the lid on the FV on day 17, throw in my hops and keg/bottle on day 21.

Fair points on the yeast harvesting. I just don't have a flask for making a yeast starter and thought this would've been the best alternative.

[craiclad]

Just on harvesting yeast, maybe look into overbuilding your starters instead? There's a lot less faffing needed and I find it more predictible. Also means I can throw the hops in and not worry about the yeast cake.

I always wanted to do this, but I don't have a stirplate so I have a hard time hitting recommended pitching rates as is with a 2L flask... Always worried about how much yeast being removed with high flocculant strains as well. What's your technique?

[molc]

Just on harvesting yeast, maybe look into overbuilding your starters instead? There's a lot less faffing needed and I find it more predictible. Also means I can throw the hops in and not worry about the yeast cake.

I always wanted to do this, but I don't have a stirplate so I have a hard time hitting recommended pitching rates as is with a 2L flask... Always worried about how much yeast being removed with high flocculant strains as well. What's your technique?

Stirplate and overbuild by 100B cells using a calculator. There's a good one that shows you how much liquid to hold back. Then mix well and pitch, keeping back the recommended a mount, which I then decant into a vial.

Other times, I just crash the starter in the fridge, remove most of the liquid and pour into a flask first, with the rest going into my beer.

[Leann ull]

Most yeasts fallout within 3-4 hours with exception of lagers, lie Molc I pour off nearly all wort so as not to dilute the beer.
If you crash cool you need to bring back to pitch temp to avoid thermal shock