Dry Hopping W/ Pellets in secondary?

Last night I transferred my pale ale into my secondary after a week in the primary. I was wondering about a few things. First, I added the hops(pellets) for my dry hop then siphoned the beer right on top. I noticed a thick green coating(dissolved hops) floating on the top. Will this sink after a few days? I should try to avoid siphoning this into my bottling bucket right?

You might find it easier to carsh cool your secondary in the fridge. It will cause most off the pellets to sink to the bottom and really make it easier to siphon to your bottling bucket.

Was your fermentation done? If the ferment was still active, the CO2 production could carry the hop aroma right out through the airlock.

After a week or so of secondary, those hops will have sunken to the bottom.

Cheers!

Fermentation was done. What does cold crash mean?

Cold crash means lowering the temperature of your fermenter to near freezing. This is used to clarify your brew by causing the yeast to drop out of suspension. I ferment in carboys and primary for a month. If I want/need to crash cool, I simply place the carboy in the 'man fridge' for a couple of days before I rack. Just remember to replace the air lock with some sanitized aluminum foil. If you leave the air lock on, the pressure difference as the beer chills will suck the solution from the air lock into the fermenter. No worried though because since your brew has turned into flat beer, it has a layer of CO2 on top and doesn't need the airlock.

Give it time and it will all settle out. How does cold crashing affect carbonation if you bottle? Is enough yeast left in suspension to carb up?

Yeah, I've bottled after a cold crash with no issues other than maybe an extra week to carb up.

Does anyone advocate boiling the hops prior to adding them?

I've read a lot of conflicting things in regards to this. It seems the opinion here on the forms is just throw em in. The alcohol, lack of oxygen, and minimal probability for the hops to contain harmful bacteria are reason enough not to boil.

Also, why not hop bag the hops, put them in the secondary, then rack on the bag? Does this subtract from the hopping affect? Do the hops disintegrate anyways and get outside of the bag?

Don't boil the hops.... just add them to the beer as is...
Don't even worry about a bag... they will all settle out especially if you cold crash...

When should I put the carboy in the fridge? It has been 3 days in the secondary and was gonna bottle after a full week in the secondary. Also will this affect the carbonation in the beer?

dabull25 said:

When should I put the carboy in the fridge? It has been 3 days in the secondary and was gonna bottle after a full week in the secondary. Also will this affect the carbonation in the beer?

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I don't cold crash, but if you do it you'll want to wait about a week for the dryhops to give up their flavor/aroma before you stick it in the fridge. Dryhopping is much much slower at fridge temps.

If you cold crash or not won't affect bottle carbing.

Don't boil the hops. Hops are sanitary coming out of the bag. Don't drop them on the floor before putting them in the fermenter....... but I've never had anything get infected from dry hopping.

They will sink with or without cold crashing. I do 5 day pellet dry hop additions (meaning 5 days prior to bottling) and they sink. There may some little hop floaties but they're noting to worry about.....

I have cold crashed 2 or 3 beers and didn't notice much difference so I haven't cold crashed since.

I usually dry hop for a week and then crash cool. It will not effect the carbonation. As far as boiling the hops...no. That will defeat the purpose of dry hopping. The beer is less susceptible to infection now that it has alcohol and hops are well known for their preservative powers.

3 days for a cool crash sound good after 7 days on the dry hop?

I add my pellets to secondary in a muslin sack... lots of hop flavor and no green residue