Ok, so I just made a batch of Mr. Beer's American Devil IPA about five days ago, followed standard prodedure and everything. Lets say I wanted to dry hop with some cascade hops. Would it be possible to do this? Do I just simply add about 1/2 and ounce or so in the final stages of fermentation. I'm totally new and this is my first time brewing but I want shake it up a bit and experiment. Any help appreciated.
Sure, you could wait until fermentation is nearly complete, then add the hops in a sanitized hop bag. Then remove them after 7 days or so.
Place pellet hops in sanitized hop bag, insert into secondary fermenter, then rack beer from primary to secondary. Oops, just noticed you're using Mr. Beer. I'm not sure if your kit contains a hydrometer, but if it does, do some checks to verify primary fermentation is complete (around a week after pitching), then just add the hop bag into your fermentation vessel very carefully and let them sit for 7-14 days.
Do I have to add them at a specific time for it to work or could I add them say 12-14 days after intial fermentation?
Well, dry hopping is normally done during secondary, which is after the first stage of vigorous fermentation. Using your hydrometer, you can check to see if there were changes in gravity over a period of time. When you see little to no change, then you know primary is complete. I've not looked into what kind of gear Mr. Beer provides, but assuming you have no hydrometer, I suppose you'll be pretty safe to dry hop 8 or 9 days after pitching.
If you are buying cascade hops separately, you will more than likely have to buy 1oz. I would use it all in this case unless you plan on brewing up another batch. No sense wasting it.
Just don't literally "shake it up"! There are all sorts of dry hopping methods, and pretty much all of them work, but one thing to avoid is splashing or agitating the beer when you add the hops. As you probably know, this can introduce oxygen that can cause staling and off flavors. You can add the hops more or less any time after the vigorous stage of primary fermentation is over--opinions vary as to what is optimal, but I'd say you shoudl probably add the dry hops about a week before you plan to bottle. It's good to use a bag of some sort--I use paint bags from the hardware store--and it's good to put something heavy in the bag so it sinks, like maybe a sanitized spoon. And drop it all in there gently!
Cascade hops... mmmmmmmmmm Do the sanitized paint bag (gently) thing with an ounce for a week. I don't see how you can go wrong dry hopping an IPA with cascade.
Ok excuse my newbyness here but just to recap, because I want to do this right, all I have to do is simply add the sanitized sack of hop pellets (and some sort of sanitized weight to make it sink, marbles maybe?) to the mr. beer fermenting tank gently after primary fermentation until I decide to bottle? Will opening the tank spoil the beer as is said in the mr beer instructions? And could I simply add hop pellets to the tank without the muslin bag? Thanks for the responses.
Yes, opening the fermenter may introduce undesirables (wild yeast, bacteria, etc) to your beer, but as long as you make sure everything that comes in contact with your beer is clean and sanitized, you reduce the risk of unwanted infection. As for adding the pellets to the tank without a bag, you can do that, but you'll have a more difficult time at the bottling stage. Using a bag will enable you to impart the desired effect from the hops without having to deal with the mess at the end.
You could add pellets without a bag, but then you might have a hard time keeping them out of your finished beer. Also, it's the bag (and weights if used) that need to be sanitized, not the hops themselves. Opening the tank won't spoil the beer. Just be careful to disturb the beer (and the CO2 blanket on top of your beer) as little as possible.
As far as removing the sack, do I just leave it in there when bottling the beer, or does it need to be removed before bottling?
Don't mess with the hops (bag or not) after you put them in. I've added straight hops pellets to beer for dry hopping and the beer was fine. BUT - there was some hops gunk in the finished beer. Tasted fine though. Better though to sanitize a bag then add the hops that way, your beer will have fewer floaties. Just bottle from your Mr Beer keg according to directions. Get as little oxygen in there as possible, both at dry hopping and at bottling (that means decanting to the bottle from the spigot with minimal bubbles and splashing, using sanitary methods).
To the OP... - Ignore the MrB instructions about bottling after one week. Let you wort ferment for two full weeks to ensure it's done. - Then...add ~1/2 oz. of your Cascade pellets in a sanitized muslin hop sac or small paint strainer bag to the fermentor. Leave room for the pellets to expand. Counter-weight the bag with sanitized marbles or something made from stainless steel. - After one week's time...use a sanitized long-handled metal spoon to fish out the hop sac. Squeeze the bag gently with clean and sanitized fingers. No splashing! - Bottle-prime using two Domino Dots (or 1 tsp. table sugar) in each 1-L PET. It's much less than MrB recommends which...IIRC...is 2.5 tsp / L. That much sugar is way too fookin'fizzy. - Warm condition for two full weeks. - Your AD IPA will reach its peak flavor after ~6 weeks in the bottle.
Great, thanks for the help. Is 1 tsp. sugar sufficient enought for carbonation? I m afraid that if I dont follow the instructions the final product wont turn out good. But what do know.
I brew all-grain 2.45G batches in MrB's LBKs and bottle in 1-L PETs. 1 tsp table sugar delivers ~2 volumes of C02 which I think you'll find delivers good carbonation without scouring your taste buds. It won't be even close to under-carbed. If you think it's too low...bottle some at the 2 tsp. / L and some at a higher rate...then decide which you prefer.
Another Newbie here, and I and wanted to jump in on the questions here. I just dry-hopped yesterday. I transferred from a plastic bucket to a 5 gal carboy. But I couldn't really fit the musilin bag into the glass carboy, so I just dumped the Falconer's 7Cs hop pellets into the bottom of the carboy, and then made the transfer on top. Right now there is a layer of hop gunk covering the top of the beer in the secondary. I plan to leave it in there about a week (it was in the primary for 10 days), and then transfer to bottle. My question is, when I transfer to the bottling bucket, should I put a musilin bag over the tip of the auto-siphon to try and filter out the hop gunk? Any problems associated with this method?
I probably would. And it works. I have used a piece of nylon stocking before, which may work better (smaller holes).
