Siphoning after dry hopping

Just siphoned my SNPA clone from glass carboy to corny. I had it on 1 oz. whole-leaf Cascade hops for two weeks - my first dry-hop.

I didn't want hop debris in the keg, so I sanitized a small grain bag and wrapped it around the end of the racking cane as a pre-filter. Heh heh, I chortled, I'm so clever.

Except . . . not. The hops gathered around it and the siphon got slower and slower and then just stopped. I had to restart it three times by sucking, which sucked. Finally, I just pulled the mesh bag off and got a bunch of crap in the keg.

The finished product tastes great, but what a hassle. Is there a better way to rack from secondary to keg? If I get a carboy cap, can I just keep restarting the siphon that way until I'm done?

I would think (but don't know, as my first dry-hop is in situ as we speak) that hanging the grain bag in the mouth of the corny so that the beer passed through it enroute to the keg would catch most of the hop scraps while allowing the beer to pass around.

I'll be eager to hear from people with experience.

Just use the bag to put your hops in to dry hop. I dry hop in muslim bags and only a small amount gets small enough to get through the bag.

I tried that, but the bag full of hops wouldn't fit through the mouth of my carboy. Dumped the contents into carboy and looked to the future.

I've used hops bags and also dumped 'em in. I don't think there is much difference, really- still kind of a mess! I don't keg- so I carefully rack into my bottling bucket. I've lost quite a bit of beer in the process between the trub and the hops. But, it's so worth it! I tried using my racking cane above the trub and hops and under the floating hops and had a straining bag over my racking cane. The few that made it through all that got caught up in my bottling wand. No worries, really- just a little bit of a pain.

Wire tie the mesh bag to the end of the hose going into the corny, (a fine nylon mesh bag). I just did that on my cascade IPA yesterday and it worked perfectly, even with pellet hops. From my experience, nylon mesh bags are worth their weight in gold ... wait, I need a new idiom for mesh bags.

this is where a bucket for a secondary or a BB with a spigot comes in handy.


Dan

marshman said:

I tried that, but the bag full of hops wouldn't fit through the mouth of my carboy. Dumped the contents into carboy and looked to the future.

Click to expand...

Use two muslim bags....

The best way I've found (never had a problem) is to use a stainless steel scrubbie pad. Make sure it's stainless and not steel wool. Boil it and attatch to your racking cane, then put the diverter cap on and PRESTO! a flawless filter. Good luck

I just dry hopped for the first time. I used 1 oz. pellets, and they broke up right away. I rocked my secondary gently once in a while, and most of the hops sunk to the bottom, with some still floating on top. Not sure how large your grain bag was, but when I racked into my bottling bucket, I took a section of cheesecloth (maybe 8in x 8in, sanitized by putting in a bowl of water and microwaving) and wrapped it around the end of the racking cane, using a plastic "zip strip" to keep it there. It worked great - the surface area of the cheesecloth was enough that it didn't get clogged, at all. I was able to get pretty much all of the beer, and in the half dozen bottles I've had so far, I haven't noticed any "floaters". Of course, maybe this wouldn't have worked for you, since you were using whole hops. It sure was easy with the pellets. BTW, dry hopping is great!!!!

I dry hop with pellets and just dump them in. By day 10-12, they are usually sitting on the bottom of the carboy. I have no problem with racking a bunch of hop debris.

I only use whole hops, and all I do it tie a small (sanitized) muslin bag around the end of my autosiphon when I rack to the bottling bucket or keg.

I've yet to have flow issues or get hops coming through the siphon in doing so.

-D

Similar to WhatsOnTap said...

I use a copper 'Chore Boy' srubbing pad, sanitized of course, over the racking cane. No real problems, though *very* little stuff gets through.

Either that stuff settles out in the bottling bucket (I give it a good ten hours to settle after racking before I bottle, rack before work, bottle after), or it just magically vanishes somehow: no issues with the finished, bottled beer.

I've thought about putting a muslin bag on the racking cane first and then the copper scrubbing pad to ease my mind if nothing else, but I think the key is allowing the time for the beer to settle in the bottling bucket.

Yep, I just did a syphon with a paint strainer bag. Just rubber band it to the end of the auto-syphon and away you go! You get two of these in a pack for like $2 at Lowes and they are nylon and reuseable. No hop residue at all after using whole hops.

Use whole flowers( they float ) and an auto siphon with the cap on the end I never have a prob with slow siphons, works great!