dry hopping

You don't. Just sanitize the hop bag/weights, if you are using those.

 

People have been dry hopping for centuries and they just don't seem to worry about sanitation. Amazing, no? It turns out, that hops have fairly strong antimicrobial properties. Plus, you are putting them in a liquid with a fairly low pH and and a fairly high alcohol content and a limited amount of simple carbohydrate substrate. So there are multiple hurdles that bugs have to overcome in order for them to take off and begin to change your beer. Still, given the diversity of microbial metabolisms out there in the biological world, I'm impressed by the way dryhopping regularly doesn't lead to infected messes.

 

The microbes are busy adapting to kill us, they don't worry about our beer… unless…

 

Everything stated is true. I was worried at first about this and never had an infection. One thing I did to ease myself though was buying hops that came in pre sealed bags as opposed to the ones at brew stores that come in large bags that require you weigh out the pellets. That way the amount of hands that touched it down to a minimum. However I think you will be fine.

 

I usually sterilize them in an alcohol-based solution that is weakly acidic.

 

It's oxidation that you want to worry about from dry hopping.

 

If you'd rather trust Palmer's word on it: "When you are dry hopping there is no reason to worry about adding unboiled hops to the fermenter. Infection from the hops just doesn't happen."

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-1.html

 

Amen.

 

And don't use a rock from your garden to weigh down a dryhop sack. You'll never get that thing sanitize.

This is true. Before I kegged my beer, I found that my hoppy beers headed south fast and I had to learn how to drink them faster, before that happens. Now that I keg, I can flush my keg with CO2 to minimize the oxygen. Unfortunately, I haven't "unlearned" the part about drinking my beers fast, so consequently, my kegs are empty.

 

...and don't forget your hands.

 

I forgot about garden rock dry hopping after pumpkin pie mashing and turkey pan coolships.

 

Classic rookie mistake...

 

This made me chuckle . . . I used a couple roasting pans and a wider kettle to attempt a spontaneous fermentation, setting them out in my front yard last May. I need to get it into a glass carboy (it's been in a bucket as primary the whole time). Smelled the airlock today, actually . . . lemony, hay and funk. Go Seattle bugs . . .

 

I've only done it a few times, but I've always gotten away with soaking my hops bags in starsan before adding the hops and trowing it all into the bucket.

 

I put my hop bag in star san too and then take it out, add hops, toss in carboy.

 

I boil my bag then toss hops in. I secondary in the keg so I tie the hops with flavorless unwaxed dental floss to the outside so I can remove them when needed.

 

Ditto. And thanks for the reminder. I need to pull a bag out of a pale ale tonight.

 

Not only did someone actually do this, they posted a photo of their infected wort and asked howcome . . .

Now if someone would only come up with Cascade-flavored dental floss . . . I see a big market out there . . .