Tips on dry hopping in Primary

It's what I do.

 

It sounds great ! If you're asking these type questions, I'm gathering you've brewed a few batches in your time. I always move my IPA's to a secondary because that's how I've always done it, and my beers are getting better and better with each batch. I change up my hop additions and timing before I bottle to see what is better.. The fun of Homebrewing right ? Remember when you made batches that tasted like dishwater ? I do, and it wasn't because I dry hopped in the primary. You can find solid arguments supporting each theory. Try it both ways. Split half the batch to a small carboy as a secondary and see which brew tastes better to you.. There's no wrong answer in this debate.

 

Sounds reasonable. You might experiment to see what you like best:
-adding dry hops before the yeast finish allegedly can alter their flavor profile in interesting ways.
-adding dry hops before the yeast finish can cause hop resins to floc with the yeast.
-adding dry hops at multiple times (before and after yeast floc) may help you get the best of both worlds. (Or just adding more dry hops before yeast floc should overwhelm the capacity of yeast to sorb to resins).
-duration of dry hops may change your perception of them.
-the above may vary with hop type and yeast type.

If you are not into massive beer experiments, start with the simplest approach and tweak until satisfied.

 

If you dry hop with pellets in the primary, which as a matter of fact I just did 10 min ago, using a 1 gal nylon paint strainer over your siphon come bottling time is key. I just boil in it water for 10 min, attach it to the siphon, and then set it in my bucket of sanitizer until I'm ready to use it. If you have the ability to cold crash, that also seems to help the pellets drop out of suspension and clarify the beer.

 

I've done this many times, with good results. Just try to avoid splashing as much as possible, which can be tough if your using a glass carboy with a narrow neck because you pretty much have to dump them in from there.

 

Another option is to place the hops in a muslin bag weighed down with sanitized marbles.

Cheers!

 

As a professional brewer, I've only ever dry-hopped in primary - if you will. But with a uni-tank you can pull off yeast and hops from the bottom, which eliminates the need for going to secondary. And as a home brewer I can tell you that whatever mesh you put over the siphon will not work - it will just clog - and then you've got problems! If it did work and the beer was able to get through it would take forever. Do yourself a favor and secondary it or use something like JackHorzempa suggested (although that's difficult to do as well)

 

Why do you state" "difficult to do as well"?

Cheers!

 

Ahh, just the whole thing of getting the hops in, then getting them out of the bag so you can remove it. It's not impossible, but it's far more effort than racking to secondary.

 

My primary fermenter is a plastic bucket. My process is opening the lid and then gently lowering the muslin bag into the beer.

I have also used this method for carboys. Pretty easy to get it into the carboy but removing it takes a little bit of work, I use a pair of scissors to cut the bag and then 'pour' out the marbles and spent hops.

I won't do an actual comparison of effort to a secondary approach other than stating that there are two potential downsides to using a secondary:

• One more step which can add unwanted microorganisms (potential for infection)
• Additional introduction to air (oxygen) which will increase the DO in the beer.

Cheers!

 

Depends on the bag, but generally most of the hop material would stay inside.

ETA: They don't dissolve in the technical sense of the word.

 

I solely use pellet hops for dry hopping. The hop material stays within the muslin bags that I use (purchased from Northern Brewer).

Cheers!

 

How do you sanitize the muslin bag before adding the pellets?

 

I boil the muslin bag and marbles.

Cheers!

 

+1 to boiling. I dip the bag (and in my case, stainless steel washers) in boiling water for maybe 30 seconds.

 

Curious to know if anyone has tried the Big Mouth Bubblers? Seems those would make dry hopping easier, especially if using the marbles in a bag method.