Hey everyone, I've brewed probably close to 100 different batches of beer in the past few years and until a couple weeks ago I have never brewed an IPA or messed with dry hopping. Well the IPA turned out excellent - maybe a little less bitter than I was hoping but I think I know how to fix it next time. Anyway, today I moved the beer to secondary and did my first dry hop and I did it a couple different ways. My ideal way was moving 5 of my 10 gallons to a keg which had a tab in it which I tied a nylon mesh bag too and threw my first of two dry hop additions to, then closed the lid purged of O2 w/ CO2 and threw it back in the fermentation fridge for 12 days. When there is 5 days left I will open the corny lid and bag and throw in the 2nd addition. Then after those 5 days i will remove the bag all together and carbonate the keg.
I unfortunately did not not have another bag set up to do this way so I put the beer in a 5 gallon carboy and threw the hops in loose. I actually soaked a mesh bag and put most of it in that carboy and poured my hops in before I put the beer in the carboy. however I thankfully had a moment of clarity and realized that when the hop bag expands from soaking up beer I'll never get it back out and cut the bag w/ a knife and retrieved my hops before throwing them in loose and filling w/ beer.
Questions: 1) How do I keep hop material from transfering to a keg from the carboy method. 2) I'm sure there are better ways to do a dry hopping than my clumsy methods. Could you please share them with me?
PS, I'm aware hops are aseptic but I'm just hoping to not overlook something and throw a well brewed beer down the drain because of a secondary fermentation oversight.
thanks for reading this rambling post!
I unfortunately did not not have another bag set up to do this way so I put the beer in a 5 gallon carboy and threw the hops in loose. I actually soaked a mesh bag and put most of it in that carboy and poured my hops in before I put the beer in the carboy. however I thankfully had a moment of clarity and realized that when the hop bag expands from soaking up beer I'll never get it back out and cut the bag w/ a knife and retrieved my hops before throwing them in loose and filling w/ beer.
Questions: 1) How do I keep hop material from transfering to a keg from the carboy method. 2) I'm sure there are better ways to do a dry hopping than my clumsy methods. Could you please share them with me?
PS, I'm aware hops are aseptic but I'm just hoping to not overlook something and throw a well brewed beer down the drain because of a secondary fermentation oversight.
thanks for reading this rambling post!
