Dry hopping - I learned a lesson

So - I won't be just dropping hop pellets into secondary again to dry hop. I used a muslin bag over the auto siphon and it kept clogging. Next time I think I am going to use whole hops in the bag in the secondary so I don't have that problem again.

Now I also see another reason people love growing their own and using whole cones.

What is your secondary FV? I am going to assume it is a bucket. You can put your pellets in a large stainless tea ball, but a muslin bag works for whole hops.

I learned the exact same lesson. Now I use whole hops in cheesecloth and it goes in the keg.

Dunerunner said:

What is your secondary FV? I am going to assume it is a bucket. You can put your pellets in a large stainless tea ball, but a muslin bag works for whole hops.

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5 gal glass carboy, hence the bag an whole hops or hop leaves.

jkaylor said:

I learned the exact same lesson. Now I use whole hops in cheesecloth and it goes in the keg.

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Out of curiosity - do you use 1 oz whole to 1oz pellets? I see some ratios for fresh hops, but not dried whole cones.

just use a hop bag with some sterilized marbles for weight

Same as well. I dry hopped my IPA with 3oz of pellet hops and with a paint strainer bag over my racking cane it continuiosly clogged and took forever to transport. My next dry hop will be in a hop bag with marbles as well.

I dry hop with loose pellets.

I find if I cold-crash after dry-hopping, I can easily rack off without getting more than a tablespoon of floaties.
Putting a nylon paint-strainer around the outflow-end of my siphon gets those.

Either way, you're going to get a hop-bag dirty.

I dryhop all the time with loose pellets without issue. I would never bag them, or say that leaf hops would be easier to use for the dryhop. It's all in the process... not the pellets fault. Many brewers have found ways to make it work for them.

bobbrews said:

I dryhop all the time with loose pellets without issue. I would never bag them, or say that leaf hops would be easier to use for the dryhop. It's all in the process... not the pellets fault. Many brewers have found ways to make it work for them.

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I do the same. I do use sanitized paint strainer bags over the pickup end of the siphon. I haven't ever had a clog. The big paint strainer bags have plenty of surface area.

I use loose hop pellets with the cold crash method. The hop particles fall to the bottom and I rack the clear beer off the top. You've just got to pay attention to where your siphon suction is and not let it go into the trub and hops at the bottom of the fermentation vessel.

i always use hop pellets now.

whenever i used more than 1 oz of leaf hops for dry-hopping, the majority of the hops didn't come into contact with my beer. they also took a really long time to sink.

when using pellets, they dissolve easily and create a lot more contact with my beer. because of this, i feel that i get a MUCH stronger aroma presence when dry hopping with pellets.

FYI - Cold crashing doesn't drop out hops. Cold crashing drops out yeast.

Time and gravity drops out both. But you have to be careful not to stir the trub up again afterward.

Yeah, I wasn't expecting to have as much trouble as I did. Once I started siphoning it seemed like the hops started falling and mixing into suspension. I may just have to try it a couple different ways to see what I can get to work best.

Here's what works for me when racking a pellet dry-hopped beer into a bottling bucket:

I line the bottling bucket with a jumbo size grain bag like this:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=1058

I sanitize the bag by boiling it, put it into the sanitized bucket, fold the excess over the top and secure it with a bungee cord wrapped around the bucket. After racking into the bucket, I just lift out the bag containing the hop residue and drop it into another bucket right next to the bottling bucket (to avoid dripping wort all over the floor). Works very well.

DeafSmith said:

Here's what works for me when racking a pellet dry-hopped beer into a bottling bucket:

I line the bottling bucket with a jumbo size grain bag like this:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=1058

I sanitize the bag by boiling it, put it into the sanitized bucket, fold the excess over the top and secure it with a bungee cord wrapped around the bucket. After racking into the bucket, I just lift out the bag containing the hop residue and drop it into another bucket right next to the bottling bucket (to avoid dripping wort all over the floor). Works very well.

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I like the idea, but would that aerate the beer, since the bag wouldn't reach the bottom of the bucket?

d3track said:

I like the idea, but would that aerate the beer, since the bag wouldn't reach the bottom of the bucket?

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The bag I use does reach to the bottom of the bucket. I just lay the end of the hose all the way down in the bottom and it doesn't aerate any more than not using the bag.

My first brew I transferred to my carboy for secondary and I had to dry hop the beer with whole leaf hops. What I learned is that I will never transfer a brew that needs dry hopped to a carboy for secondary. My auto siphon was clogging like crazy and I lost at least a 1/2 gallon of beer because of this. Since then I have just kept the beer in the fermenting bucket and wait until 7-10 days before bottling and throw in the whole leaf hops in a sanitized muslin bag into the bucket and it was much less of a headache when it came time to transfer the beer to the bottling bucket.