Has anyone ever done this? If so how did you go about it? I was thinking about adding some into the secondary, but I'm not sure what to put them in for removal. I feel like a muslin bag would not hold them. Do I even need to put them in something, or can I just add them to the beer and let them fall out? I don't strain my beers into the primary and after about a week or to all of the hops have fallen out with the yeast, so would it be different with dry hopping? Just asking before I possibly ruin a brown ale that could use some more hop flavor.
I prefer dry hopping with pellets. I usually just dump them right into primary (I hardly ever do a secondary). If it's only an ounce or so of hops, they should be fine when it comes time to bottle or keg. Just be extra careful not to disturb the trub when you rack.
I put my dry hops in after 7-10 days of fermentation. Leave it in primary as Max said above. Then drop in the dry hops for 6-12 days. If you have somewhere cold to put your carboy after that time, do so. It will help the hops drop to the bottom and clear up your beer. Usually my cold (50 degrees at night) San Francisco garage will do.
If you do plan on dry hopping with a crapload of hops, I'd say you're fine with a muslin bag. You can boil it before hand to kill any bugs that might be on it, then put it in the carboy.
I use pellets for dry hopping all the time. Just tie a grain back over the end of your siphon hose outlet with a cable tie or something and leave it loose and you are good to go! All the hops the make it into the siphon/hose will get caught in the sack.
Doesn't that aerate the beer when racking? I've dry hopped with pellets w/o any sort of bag and I had a miserable time bottling. Personally I like using a large paint strainer or muslin bag to keep the hops in when dry hopping.
I toss the pellets in the secondary, and rack on it. Let it sit for 1-3 weeks, depending on what I want to do/recipe, and then I cold crash for atleast 2 days in my keezer. Rack it off to a keg, or bottling bucket from there, and everything has settled and it's very clear and clean. No issues, and no need to bag, sanitize, or any of that stuff.
No bag here...with a cold crash and bag over the end of my autosiphon when racking, I have no issues. Nothing...NOTHING...worse than trying to get a swollen hop bag out of the neck of a better bottle.
Nope, it hangs in the bottom of the keg and the beer flows out easily thru it leaving the hops behind. No areation/foaming/splashing whatsoever.
