Issues with dry hops

You should bag them and add weights. Add this to your what not to do next time list. My list is very long.

 

Do you have the ability to cold crash? Like a fermentation chamber or a cool garage?

Cold temps will drop hops for easy hop-free transfers.

If not, you can either bag your hops or add a "filter", such as a paint strainer bag to one end of your siphon (entrance or exit, but try to reduce any oxygenation either way).

 

Weights can be odd pieces of stainless steel that you've cleans and sanitized.

 

Spoons work.

 

I use large SS bolts and nuts. Boil them then sanitize.

 

I've always just thrown my hops straight in commando. No problems.

 

Are you siphoning the sludge off the bottom of your fermenter? I siphon from above the crap.

 

The problem is racking/siphoning, not the hops floating. A fine mesh nylon bag for the hops and a spigot on your fermenter will easily solve the problem and result in less O2 ingress into your beer.

 

So you dry hopped with whole leaf?

 

I did that once. ONCE. It got so bad that I actually 'racked' the keg into another keg and left the leaves in the bottom.

Since then, only mesh bag with stainless washers. WAY cleaner.

 

Warning on using steel washers — make sure they are stainless — I made the rediculous mistake of using zinc plated washers in a brew I did last year and the plating partially dissolved in the beer and it was a dump. Also - SS washers aren’t cheap. I bought a bag of 1K clear glass marbles for $20 on Amazon shortly after my zinc fiasco and have been using them since w good result..just make sure not to try sanitizing in boiling water.....

 

I use marbles as well.

 

This goes for anything you put in or near your beer. I had a friend use a regular hose clamp to hold a bag of hops to a dip tube. I kept telling him his IPA tasted like rusty nails. He said I was an asshole, but the next day he started tasting the nails too. It took about a week in the beer for the hose clamp to turn into a rusty mess.

 

Did he retract the part about you being an asshole ?

 

I have boiled marbles. Put them in the water, turn on the heat, boil, turn off the heat, cover the pan, let cool, put in the beer. Works fine if you avoid big temperature shocks.

Edit - I have enough Stainless parts that I use them now, as it is quicker without the cooling step.