Dummy Proof Dry Hopping

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BigDaddyBeard

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Still a noob and am on my 6th batch of either an IPA or Pale Ale that needs to be dry hopped. I typically rack into my carboy with the leaf hops already inside and let the transferring swirl them around. They still stay dry for another couple days before they seem full saturated. Am I getting the utmost utilization from them? I wish I could get in there to squeeze them, but not possible. How does everyone else dry hop?
 
My usual practice these days is to pressure transfer into a purged keg full of my dry hops, dry hop them for 3-5 days, if I'm doing a second round I'll pressure transfer to another purged keg full of hops, if not, I'll crash that keg and pressure transfer to a serving keg.
 
I wait until fermentation is done then I open up the carboy, dump a bunch of pellets in and seal it back up. It doesn't have to be complicated unless you want it to be.
 
I wait until fermentation is done then I open up the carboy, dump a bunch of pellets in and seal it back up. It doesn't have to be complicated unless you want it to be.

Do the pellets usually saturate and fall to the bottom after a period of time? My next batch will be the first dry hop IPA I've ever done. I'll do it in secondary (I secondary all my beers spare me the lecture!), I'd be worried about hop crud floating around when I bottle.
 
Do the pellets usually saturate and fall to the bottom after a period of time? My next batch will be the first dry hop IPA I've ever done. I'll do it in secondary (I secondary all my beers spare me the lecture!), I'd be worried about hop crud floating around when I bottle.

Yes, they settle out for the most part. I give the carboy a gentle swirl once or twice a day to help get them down. I've only had one dry-hopped beer give me trouble. 3 oz of Mosaic in an IPA about 6 months ago. They would not go down. It was the weirdest thing. Even then, bottling was fine, I had minimal amounts of hop particulate in the finished product.

And I won't lecture you.:) Secondary or don't....it's no skin off my ass.
 
Ok that's what I do when I have pellets, but I have 3 pounds of whole leaf in the freezer. Also I should have mentioned that I bottle not keg so I don't have the cool trickery of you keggers. I looked a little into "rousing" using co2. Anyone have any experience with it?
 
but I have 3 pounds of whole leaf in the freezer. Also I should have mentioned that I bottle not keg so I don't have the cool trickery of you keggers.

I bottle too. Cheers!

When dealing with whole leaf hops, I do one of two things:

1) If the beer went into a bucket for primary I fill up a sanitized nylon sack with hops and a weight, then gently drop it into the beer (after fermentation's complete).

2) If the beer went into a carboy for primary I dump the leaf hops into a sanitized 5 gal carboy, then rack the beer onto them.

I've never worried about rousing. But that's just me.
 
ICWiener said:
I bottle too. Cheers! When dealing with whole leaf hops, I do one of two things: 1) If the beer went into a bucket for primary I fill up a sanitized nylon sack with hops and a weight, then gently drop it into the beer (after fermentation's complete). 2) If the beer went into a carboy for primary I dump the leaf hops into a sanitized 5 gal carboy, then rack the beer onto them. I've never worried about rousing. But that's just me.
Ok I am not far off of what you are doing. Just chasing after that big hop flavor and am getting a bit closer every time. Maybe I will try rousing and see if it helps
 
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