Dry Hopping Advice

Would be less hassle to rack to secondary bucket and dry hop. I don't see why more people don't just ferment in buckets. You can top crop yeast, dry hop, etc.. without hassle.

 

Why worry about removing the hops afterwards? I would add the hops in a mesh bag with a stainless steel bolt to weigh them down. Once dryhopping it done just rack the finished beer to a keg/bottling bucket and leave the hops behind in the primary.

 

This. Leaf hops aren't a whole lot different if you're using a bucket. Just bag them, weigh them, and hop it. Don't over-analyze.

 

In my limited experience dry hopping with whole leaf hops, they tend to float so I toss them in primary without a bag. If you have an auto siphon, it is very easy to pull wort from just above the yeast cake (well below the floating leaf hops) and bottle/keg.

 

I have also done it this way, as well as weighing a hop bag in secondary. If doing it this way with the hops and yeast cake in primary, I will cover my auto-siphon with a sanitized nylon hop bag and transfer directly to priming/bottling bucket. Clean and clear beer every time...

 

Attach a nylon hop bag to the end of the syphon hose that's going into the bottling bucket and the bag will catch the hop particles. I do this with all my heavily dry hoped beers and it works great. Dont forget to sanatize the bag and band used to attach it. Cheers

 

I do that with every beer transfer. Regardless of whats in it. Less particles, less haze, better beers!

 

You can get stainless steel rice balls that work well too, easy to sterilise too

 

How big are they? And will they fit through a corny keg lid opening?

 

caveat with things like this...i used something similar, it was somewhat small so I kind of needed to stuff the hops in. What ended up happening was the exterior hop pellets expanded and actually created a seal. After 7-10 days or so, the exterior hops were moist and the interior hops were bone dry. So make sure you get something oversized. The one I used was actually a tube, not a ball.

 

We have a username Hanglow telling us about the sterility of his stainless steel balls , with VikeMan asking if the will fit in his corny?

My word, this thread has taken a definite turn .

Hey OP, just put the hops in a bag. When it comes time to bottle just tug that sack out of there and give it a gentle squeeze to release the, uh, juice. Good luck.

 

Oh yeah I only dry hop in a bucket,

The one I have is 18cm in diameter iirc , although I'm sure they go bigger

So probably not ideal for large amounts of dryhopping.

 

is this thread produced by Jackie Treehorn?

 

I've only dry-hopped with whole leaf hops once, but: I found it much, much easier to get them out of the carboy than to get them in there in the first place. So (and sorry for the thread hijack), if anyone has any advice there... I still have 14 oz. of Centennial leaves

 

i would use a large funnel and a plunger of sorts to push the leaf hops through the funnel into the carboy prior to racking. If you can, flush the carboy with CO2 prior to racking the beer onto the hops.

 

I go with the "ef-it" approach. Dump hops directly into the fermenter and worry about it a few days later. You can use a paint strainer bag to wrap your siphon with and siphon that way to keep big particles out of the keg or bottle.

 

That's all well and good. Until my strainer bag got stuck in the carboy and I muscled it out. Hop particulate everywhere...

 

did you add the hops before or after racking the beer? Sounds like you added after racking the beer to the carboy. If so, try adding hops prior to racking. And if you can flush the carboy with CO2, you shouldn't be concerned much with some splashing to make sure the hops get doused.