Dry Hopping & Sanitation
 

Is it safe to dump pellet hops from a sealed package into your carboy? I had either bacteria or wild yeast cause my first dry-hopped beer to go sour and I'm re-evaluating my sanitation procedures. I've never heard of anyone doing anything to sanitize their hops before. Does Hopunion sterilize their hops before sealing them? I know hops have some antibacterial properties. Just wondering because I'm brewing another IPA today that will be dry-hopped with citra.

I, and a lot of folks do it all the time with no I'll affects. I suppose if you want to be absolutely sure you can soak in vodka. Not sure what that would do with the hop oils if anything at all.

I've always just dumped the hops in regardless of manufacturer. There's always the chance that you have that 1% of hops that caused your infection. But, I'd start looking other places first.

I have pulled hops straight of the vine and put them into secondary. No sanitation and I handled them with my dirty hands. There was no infection. Hops are very resistant to any beer spoiling organisms and I would not worry about that being a source of infection. If you bag your hops it might be worth sanitizing the bag, which is how I go about it.

I remember hearing on a brew strong episode that vacuum sealed pellet hops go through a heat treatment process that Pasteurizes them.

I would be more hesitant to dry hop with cones directly off the vine, as there are tons of wild yeast all over vegetation. The guys on brew strong mentioned it was best to use wet hops at the end of the boil for this reason. I've never tried wet hops either way, do cant comment from experience.

My experience disagrees. Like mentioned above, I've used hops right off the bines (not vines) many times and never had a problem. I probably dry hop 75% of the beers I make and I've never had an infection caused by dry hops in hundreds of batches.

By the time you dry-hop, beer is fairly infection-proof. It's 4-10% alcohol, hoppy, slightly acidic and relatively devoid of anything edible.

Interesting to hear...I defer to your personal experience.

Interesting to hear...I defer to your experience.

this^^^^^