Dry hopping for the first time and if this is the wrong way, I have already made that mistake. But I would like to know your method, pros/cons etc. Tried to find info on howtobrew.com but couldn't get any answers there. I threw 3 oz Centennial hop pellets into my secondary after racking the beer and now the hops are just floating on top. Should I have put them in a bag and put something heavy to sink 'em to the bottom or would this work alright to get the aroma? Should I give it a shake once in a while (probably a bad idea to have fermented beer sloshing, right?) Thank you.
you'll be fine. Just use a sanitized rubber band to attach a sanitized mesh bag to cover your sanitized racking cane/autosiphon when you rack into your bottling bucket.
I've done it in bags and not in bags. When the hops are floating freely without the bag, I've sometimes used the racking trick that MrOH suggests, and I've sometimes just siphoned without bothering. Sometimes when I put a bag over the racking cane, the flow gets clogged up, and if the problem persists, I give up and rack without the bag. If you end up racking without the bag, you will get bits of hop sediments in your beer, but that doesn't cause any major harm, IMO. but can make for an awkard moment when you serve the beer to a friend who is accustomed to filtered beer instead of homebrew.
A 5 gallon paint strainter over the racking cane is how I do it. Enough area that it doesn't clog, at least for me.
“I threw 3 oz Centennial hop pellets into my secondary …” I personally do not conduct a secondary for my ales; I am of the opinion that this is an unnecessary step. I dry hop in my primary bucket once signs of fermentation have stopped (i.e., the airlock stops bubbling). I then add the dry hops to a muslin bag which contains marbles to weigh down the bag. I sanitize the muslin bag and marbles by putting them in boiling water. I let the dry hops sit in my primary bucket for 7-14 days. When I siphon out of the primary to the bottling bucket there is zero worries about the siphon clogging. Cheers!
I exclusively use pellets to dry hop. You'll be surprised at how much of that hop material soaks up wort and sinks to the bottom of your fermenter, given seven to ten days. Decide then if you need to use a strainer.
On a kind of related note, how much cloudy/murky beer does everyone usually get from the beginning of a keg after dry hopping with pellets? I dry hopped with 4oz of pellets, and I'm still extremely murky (basically no light coming through) after almost a full gallon. However, my brewing partner is the one who kegged so I cannot comment on how that was done. We let the keg sit a week before tapping.
would need to know more about the beer to answer your question fully...but my dipas which usually have 3-6oz dry hops are usually pretty murky, similar to a bavarian hefe.
If you have temperature control, wouldn't crash cooling the fermenter for 3-4 days at close to freezing help the pellet residue settle?
