hop boiling in a muslin bag or just throw the pellets in?

What is everyone's opinion on this? Is their any real advantage either way? Besides not having hop particals floating around.

Definately easier to remove whole hops from the wort with a muslin bag. I brew more with pellet hops myself, and just throw them in.

I do both.. just depends on if I have enough bags on hand.

I brewed today..

5 muslin bags.. one large for fresh whole hops, 4 small bags for early and late hop additions using pellets.

Sure makes moving wort to the fermentor though my bucket funnel and strainer.

When i don't use muslin bags it takes me several strainer dumps to get 5 gal wort into the fermentor.

A Hop ball or Spider is another choice.

I have brewed with pellets and whole hops I throw them in then I poor my wort through a strainer (sterilized) into the fermenter to get any large pieces, but I have also just left them in and they I to the bottom and become part of the yeast cake during fermentation then when racking to secondary or into keg they get left behind. Some may tell ya different but it's up to you.

I always use a bag, it is gust easier and I like not having the hops in the wort after the boil. Good luck!!

From my experience yesterday where I ended up with 1/2 a basin of loose hops, I will be bagging going forward.

I always just tossed them in, pellets or whole hops. But all my beers were 1 - 4oz of hop beers. After my first IIPA with 8oz of hops in it, I'm rethinking that strategy.

I toss them in without a bag and strain the wort before dumping into the carboy. I'd be curious to know if they're not in the carboy if you're loosing some hop flavors.

Beernik said:

I always just tossed them in, pellets or whole hops. But all my beers were 1 - 4oz of hop beers. After my first IIPA with 8oz of hops in it, I'm rethinking that strategy.

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Pretty much this.

It depends. I'd say for beers without much hops, you are fine just throwing them in as they will settle in the fermentation bucket and in the fridge if they make it that far. But I did a DIPA with a pound of hops for 5 gallons and a bunch made it through to the bottles and got kicked up when opening. I've also found that leaf hops don't settle as well as pellet hops, so I would always put them in a bag to avoid carrying over the hop matter to the bottle.

I've used both in 2 sizes of muslin bags most of the time. But the last few brews,I dumped the pellets in loose. And I mean IPA's with some 8ozs of hops in them. Loosely added to the boil,I think the hop flavors have more of an "edge"...a bit more depth. Just a little fuller flavor to them. But with whole leaf hops,a large muslin bag would be easier. Otherwise,the pellet hop leftovers get strained out with my dual layer fine mesh strainer on top of the open fermenter. When it's all poured in,I use my sanitized Cooper's spoon to fold the gunk over & over to drain it down to a thick mass. then dump it.

I usually pour from the boil kettle into the bucket through a sanitized 5 gallon paint strainer bag. The bag fits over the top of the bucket so it doesn't fall in. Sanitize my hands, pull it out, and squeeze it.

I really like using my fine mesh nylon bag for hops (pellet). Keep all the vegetal matter out, and I can then just dump my work into a carboy (via funnel!)

Works for me! So does partial boil extract. I recommend a nylon hop bag!