I’m working on a Belgian IPA right now, hoping for a high alcohol beer with a lot of hoppy flavors. I’ve never done a secondary fermentation and am realizing that with all the ingredients we put into this beer, and our plan to dry hop, that it may be a good idea here. Our beer is currently in a 5 gal glass carboy, 2nd day of a very strong fermentation.
My issue is that the only other 5 gal carboy I have is plastic. I remember reading somewhere that secondary fermentation in a plastic carboy isn’t a great idea. Is that a myth? Thoughts on secondary fermentation in general?
You guys dry hop in primary? Have you ever fined in a primary? I can see where not racking might be of some advantage to avoid oxygenation, etc., so I’m just curious.
I dry hop in primary all the time. I rarely fine my beers, but when I do it it’s as I transfer to a keg. If I still bottled and wanted a brighter beer I’d see no issue with fining in primary.
I usually fine before I dry hop (if I am doing both). I have always done it in the secondary, though. If I am just kegging something at home that doesn’t need dry hopping, I just keg it out of the primary; however, sometimes I want to fine the beer and if that beer takes dry hopping, I do it after the fining (almost always gelatin in my case) so it doesn’t wash the oils out of the beer. Anyway, thanks for the thoughts.