Dry Hopping Technique

I am doing a dry hop for the first time so I racked the beer from my pail to the carboy then placed 2 oz hops (Liberty) in a hop bag. The hops are floating. I kind of expected them to sink. Is that OK?

I sometimes use sanitized plain shot glasses to weigh down the hop bag.
I have heard of other people using glass marbles.

Flowers or pellets? Pellets will eventually sink, flowers will float.

I just toss them in, too many in a bag, and some may not even get wet. I place a straining bag over the inlet of my siphon when I transfer to the bottling bucket to prevent the hops reaching the bottle.

Ntwkdsnr said:

I sometimes use sanitized plain shot glasses to weigh down the hop bag.
I have heard of other people using glass marbles.

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I really like the idea of shot glasses! They're something people probably have in their home already, you know they're food-safe (unlike whatever marbles you'd get at Michael's or Wal-Mart), and they're cheap. Super cool idea.

Anyway, all hops will eventually sink, but pellets will drop right away. I don't have much experience with whole cones, though. Pellets, your maximum extraction is achieved after 36-48 hours, so that's what I do, then cold crash and package.

daksin said:

Pellets, your maximum extraction is achieved after 36-48 hours.

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Where did you get that fact? I don't believe it. Do you have any evidence to support this?

I used whole dried hops most recently, they will not sink on their own in 7 days time.

Never tried the shot glass, seems heavy. I fear breaking my carboys as it is. A SS washer or nut works. I am sure the shot glass is nothing to worry about.

I have used the Shot glass technique. I can see the problem doing this method with a carboy but works great in a bucket.

Great thread! Awesome idea about the shot glass. In 2 weeks I'll be dry hopping in a keg and wondered how I would do it.

Calder said:

Where did you get that fact? I don't believe it. Do you have any evidence to support this?

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Think about it. The hops are totally pulverized which means a massive amount of surface area is exposed to the beer. When you dry hop, the beer already has a ton of alcohol in it, which is literally the perfect solvent for dissolving hop oils.

Anyway: Source. Now with more science!

The 24 hour number is achieved with agitation, but the release of CO2 and dissolution of hop pellets will provide more than enough motion in your puny 5 gallon batch to get fantastic aroma very quickly. Very little benefit is derived from leaving them longer than this. My big batches (where extraction efficiency is better) tend to get grassy in about a week of pellet dry hopping because of all the pulverized plant matter.

My personal experience is that aroma is hard to get unless the beer temp is at or above 70F. I had a serious lack of aroma in the 60s.

brewprint said:

Great thread! Awesome idea about the shot glass. In 2 weeks I'll be dry hopping in a keg and wondered how I would do it.

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Just remember, when you draw beer from the keg it draws from the bottom where your shot glass and hop bag will be... You may want to search other threads to find the best method to dry hop in the keg...

daksin said:

Think about it. The hops are totally pulverized which means a massive amount of surface area is exposed to the beer. When you dry hop, the beer already has a ton of alcohol in it, which is literally the perfect solvent for dissolving hop oils.

Anyway: Source. Now with more science!

The 24 hour number is achieved with agitation, but the release of CO2 and dissolution of hop pellets will provide more than enough motion in your puny 5 gallon batch to get fantastic aroma very quickly. Very little benefit is derived from leaving them longer than this. My big batches (where extraction efficiency is better) tend to get grassy in about a week of pellet dry hopping because of all the pulverized plant matter.

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That data is different than was found by hopsteiner. This says you are still extracting a lot up to 7 days, and continue to extract aas and linalool for a couple of weeks.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...vc7jVfZXyCgBaaBeQ&sig2=yFe1KgQIEN2xfulYxKbHlg

grainbill said:

Just remember, when you draw beer from the keg it draws from the bottom where your shot glass and hop bag will be... You may want to search other threads to find the best method to dry hop in the keg...

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My plan was to use a piece of floss or string and suspend the bag about half way down. Then remove after 5 days, refrigerate, then carb.

Calder said:

That data is different than was found by hopsteiner. This says you are still extracting a lot up to 7 days, and continue to extract aas and linalool for a couple of weeks.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...vc7jVfZXyCgBaaBeQ&sig2=yFe1KgQIEN2xfulYxKbHlg

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Link's not working now, but I'll check it later- thanks! I think probably what's happening is that for big breweries, total extraction is important just because of costs, but I'm personally more concerned about not extracting compounds that I don't want. Homebrew dry hop rates are, generally, larger than big breweries and that a short dry hop is fine for most folks using pellets. Just an opinion though- I'm a big believer that you should do what works best for you.

Edit: What a great whitepaper! If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like we're both kind of right, but I definitely wouldn't say these two papers contradict each other. Almost all extraction is done after 2 days, with a good bit more after 3 days, but any extraction that happens after that is really minimal, but you're right that extraction continues well into the second week. I may try doing a side by side of my usual 48 hour dry hop and a 72 hour just to see if I can tell a difference, but I'll stand by my assertion that there's not much benefit going longer than that.