I am going to dry hop 3oz (after fermentation) and I already have at least 2 inches of hop trub in my primary. I know the consensus here is to dry hop in primary as you only risk oxidization moving to a secondary. My question is since I already have so much hop trub and I am adding almost as many hops as I did when I boiled, should I rack to secondary before adding 3 more oz?
I don't think it will make much difference. I am one who also believes you should not use a secondary unless it is absolutely necessary. Alot less cleaning involved using only one vessel.
No need for secondary. Wrap a sanitized paint bag strainer around the bottom of your siphon when you transfer to bottling bucket if you're worried about hops debris
+1 vote for primary and letting the dry hops sit on top of the trub hops. Just be careful when you rack to bottling bucket/keg. It's thick stuff and clogs a racking cane very easily. Move your fermenter into racking position at least a few hours before racking.
If using an autosiphon, you can take an old cage from a C&C bottle, and it will fit (with some bending) over the siphon tip. Then a hop bag goes over that and gets rubber-banded into place. The cage keeps the hop bag spread out and away from the autosiphon tip so that it doesn't get plastered down with hop particles and/or sucked into the siphon tip.
I'm still a huge fan of using a secondary for dry hopping. I would rather risk the small chance of oxidation than the small chance of infecttion from putting a rubber band (read: almost impossible to sanitize something so pourus) in my beer.
Good call on the rubber band...I recall now that I changed my process after thinking about that, twisted a paper clip around it the last time I did it.
How do you attach a hop bag to the end of the siphon and keep it sanitized other than using a paper clip?
The hop bags I use have a drawstring. You just tie the sanitized bag onto the syphon. I have done this many times. No issues. Cheers!
