Maybe a bit unusual but I’m thinking of adjusting on the fly after following a black IPA/BIAP recipe to this point. It called for 7 days’ fermentation at 67º, 5 days’ dry hops at 72º, then a 2-day cold crash at 35º. I stay in primary using a cylindro-conical tank (The Catalyst) and don’t have a setup for cold crash although I can get the tank down to the high 50s by wrapping it with ice bags and a bungee 
Anyway, I’m a day into the dry hops but in reading find that a lot of home brewers think as many as 3 weeks before packaging produces a more cleanly fermented beer. Any reason I shouldn’t be able to pull out the hops bag, let it drain, seal up the fermenter and let it sit another few days to let the yeast better finish its job? Thanks!
I’m curious why you used a hop bag, when you can drain out hops and grub from the bottom, but if the schedule is something you want to follow, I’m sure you will be fine with your plan. Be sure to take a hydrometer reading once a day for three days to determine that the yeast are done.
I would leave the hops in the fermenter. I see no reason and removing them and would unnecessarily add O2 in the process.
I’m with Jeffy. Since you’ve already made a decision stick with it this time. Going back and undoing it can cause more harm than good. Try the other technique next time. See which you prefer.
Besides, for everything you read about one homebrewing technique being better than another, there will be two counterpoints saying the opposite is true.
+1
Like button!
+1 to BrewBama. There’s no shortage of knowledge and opinion on this stuff, that’s for sure. Tons of material out there. I’ve brewed for a couple of years and still feel like a rookie. But when you pull it off, it’s a lot of fun.
Re the bag, ynotbrusum, I could do that but thinking I’d lose the beer soaked into those hops. I know not to squeeze the bag. I drain the trub out the bottom, of course. I do sample and use the hydrometer but just twice during a brew, 2-3 days apart, to check FG and avoid bottle bombs. I’ve finally learned how to calculate water loss from the boil and trub (still working on hops water loss, since I often use a combo of pellets and the dried hops I’ve grown out back). But: Do you build in the volume you lose by taking 3 or 4 total samples (OG and the other 3)? I’m just trying to end up with 5 gallons of beer in the bottles from a 5-gallon recipe. Thoughts?
THIS^^^^^
I adjust all recipes to a starting volume of 5.5 gal. You might want to consider that in the future. In this case, leave the hops in there and just accept the loss of volume. It’s only beer…you can always make more.
Truth. Thanks.
Do you add more water to your 5.5 total to account for boil-off?
+1. I like to backwards plan all loss (which includes boil off) to end with 5.5 gal in the fermenter. That gives me .5 gal to play with for post fermentation losses.
+1 to leave the hops in there and ride it out. For hop driven styles I wouldn’t vote to let the fermenter sit for three weeks if fermentation has fizzled out earlier.
Sometimes I will dry hop a beer in the keg and leave them in until the keg kicks. I never get those weird flavors everybody talks about.
I’m wondering what is so magical about the 5 gallon number if you’re bottling. You wind up with whatever you wind up with, if it isn’t as much as you like, then next time increase your batch size. I normally go for the maximum my system can produce, which in most cases leaves me with ~6 1/2 to 7 gallons into the bottles. About the only times I go for smaller batch sizes are exbeeriments than I’m not real sure will be drinkable and beers that I know have a short shelf life. Really high gravity and barrel aged beers wind up with less in the bottle but that’s because of the limitations of mash tun capacity and the size of the barrel. Today I’m bottling a barrel aged Imperial Rye India Black Ale, after 11 months in the barrel a little over 5 gallons starting volume is reduced to a tad under 4 gallons.
And Denny, I’m concerned for your welfare as comments like that one about it only being beer surely must have put you high on the target list for a lightening bolt.
Same here
It’s a conclusion I’ve reached over 20+ years. I feel like homebrewers take beer WAY too seriously. It doesnt want to be taken seriously…it’s about fun.
me three. standard procedure over here.
Same here. I do it nearly every batch since I brew mostly pale and IPA’s.
To the OP - these guys commenting here are experienced homebrewers and their suggestions are valid. But closed loop transfers and trub dumping, hop settling and dumping, and minimal handling in exposed air environments are things you can learn over time and implement as you progress. Your fermenter handles all of these processes with available accessories. Look into it and do what you can and desire to do in terms of implementing the suggestions here.
Cheers and welcome to a great forum!
If it’s about fun - and I think it is - don’t lecture people with similar interests. With all due respect, I’m not trying to take homebrewing WAY too seriously. I’m keeping it simple w/gear and recipes and just learning the ins and outs. As you know, all the measurements matter. I’m just trying to learn to produce the beer the recipe says will result from generally following the directions but also learning parameters so I can adjust or come up with my own. There is nothing magical about 5 gallons. It doesn’t matter if it’s 5 gallons or 20 gallons. It simply occurred to me that if it’s a 5-gallon recipe and my final output is, say, 42 12-oz. bottles, am I actually producing a beer that’s stronger/hoppier/whatever than what the recipe writer intended?
And thanks, ynotbrusum, as well as for all the helpful comments.
The only magic in 5 gal for me is the kegs I use (they’re all 5 gal). Everything I do in the brewery is scaled to that 5 gal production target. I agree that if I bottled the keg capacity wouldn’t be such a hard target.