Dry Hopping Techniques

I dry hopped my last batch in the secondary, using pellets added in the carboy. It smells great (I just bottled it), but it was a total mess!

What techniques does everyone recommend to avoid a hoppy mess in your brew?

Careful racking, filtering, and avoiding agitation of the carboy.

I dump pellets right into the fermentor, then on kegging/bottling day I rubber band a 1 inch square of tulle fabric (the fine mesh stuff used on wedding dresses etc) over the end of the racking tube as a filter. No hops end up in the keg, which is a good thing, since hop particles can clog up a keg fast. Ask me how I know. Works for me.

I've thought about creating a filter for the racking cane. Is there any concern about having that rubber band in your brew while you rack?

I just pull a fine mesh nylon bag over the siphon. Works really great for me.

i've used a grain bag and hop bag over my autosiphon. seems to work ok, although sometimes it will plug up or i seem to get extra air bubbles from time to time.

ProfessorBrew said:

I've thought about creating a filter for the racking cane. Is there any concern about having that rubber band in your brew while you rack?

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No problems here. I just band it on and sanitize the whole lot.

I dry hop a lot, usually 3 oz loose pellets per 5 gal batch. I don't use any filtering device and have no problems with clogged kegs or particles in the glass. Main thing is, while dry hopping, to place the carboy exactly where you will rack from. Some particles sink and some stay on the surface, but the middle is mostly clear. For what particles do make it to the keg, it's important not to move the keg a lot, too.

i use a 1 gallon paint strainer bag with a couple marbles in it and tie it off with a little piece of food grade string, i soak everything in starsan for about 10 minutes works great for me!

Kraftwerk said:

I dry hop a lot, usually 3 oz loose pellets per 5 gal batch. I don't use any filtering device and have no problems with clogged kegs or particles in the glass. Main thing is, while dry hopping, to place the carboy exactly where you will rack from. Some particles sink and some stay on the surface, but the middle is mostly clear. For what particles do make it to the keg, it's important not to move the keg a lot, too.

Click to expand...

I've tried this exact technique (often with 4 oz of dry hop pellets) and clogged too many kegs in the process. A tiny piece of filtering material is all it takes to keep my kegged IIPAs worry free and clear of debris (and it also lets me rack every precious drop of hoppy nectar from the fermentor without issue).

Very happy (hoppy) that is works for you and your draft beer!

I put my pellets in a hop bag and have very good success this way.

I have been searching for an answer to this dry hop question: when should I add my hops for dry hopping once I rack to my secondary? My recipe calls for a 3-4 week secondary fermentation and I only want to have the hops in for 7 days, so should I expose the wort to hops for the first 7 days of the 3-4 weeks or the last 7 days of the 3-4 weeks? Thanks!
Trying to dry hop: 1 oz Cascade (pellet), 1 oz Willamette (pellet), and maybe 3 oz whole Amarillo for the 7 days.

repeat post, sorry.

BerserkerPaul said:

I have been searching for an answer to this dry hop question: when should I add my hops for dry hopping once I rack to my secondary? My recipe calls for a 3-4 week secondary fermentation and I only want to have the hops in for 7 days, so should I expose the wort to hops for the first 7 days of the 3-4 weeks or the last 7 days of the 3-4 weeks? Thanks!
Trying to dry hop: 1 oz Cascade (pellet), 1 oz Willamette (pellet), and maybe 3 oz whole Amarillo for the 7 days.

Click to expand...

Last.

Alright, last week of secondary ferm, got it. I wasn't sure about it b/c I thought I could use a hop bag and then just pull it out (somehow) if it were the first week of the secondary ferm timeline.

BerserkerPaul said:

Alright, last week of secondary ferm, got it. I wasn't sure about it b/c I thought I could use a hop bag and then just pull it out (somehow) if it were the first week of the secondary ferm timeline.

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In theory, you could. Why would you want to though?

The aromatics that beer gets from hops are pretty volatile. The point of dry hopping is to get the aromatics into the beer as late as possible (before dry hopping this would be your flameout additions) so they don't have a chance to break down at all.

So sure, you could dry hop earlier in the process but it (partially) defeats the purpose.

According to this guy, primary is the place to do it. It's an intersting read with commercial techniques mentioned.
http://handsonbrewing.com/brewers-reference/process/dry-hopping-the-proper-way/

helibrewer said:

According to this guy, primary is the place to do it. It's an intersting read with commercial techniques mentioned.
http://handsonbrewing.com/brewers-reference/process/dry-hopping-the-proper-way/

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Thank you for posting this. Its contrary to everything I've read but it also may be correct.

Summary - dry hopping just after high krausen, allows the vigorous early yeast activity (first few days) to allow the action of fermentation to “scrub” some of the undesirable flavors from the hops and leave the fresh hop character that was desired.

The problem for me is I don't use a secondary, and see no reason to rack after 5-7 days.
If I were to do this method, I would place the hops in a hop bag.

I'd like to hear from others who have tried this, and compared it to "traditional" dry hopping towards the end of laggering.

Kraftwerk said:

I dry hop a lot, usually 3 oz loose pellets per 5 gal batch. I don't use any filtering device and have no problems with clogged kegs or particles in the glass. Main thing is, while dry hopping, to place the carboy exactly where you will rack from. Some particles sink and some stay on the surface, but the middle is mostly clear. For what particles do make it to the keg, it's important not to move the keg a lot, too.

Click to expand...

bigbeergeek said:

I've tried this exact technique (often with 4 oz of dry hop pellets) and clogged too many kegs in the process. A tiny piece of filtering material is all it takes to keep my kegged IIPAs worry free and clear of debris (and it also lets me rack every precious drop of hoppy nectar from the fermentor without issue).

Very happy (hoppy) that is works for you and your draft beer!

Click to expand...

So... I'm going to have to retract what I said earlier. Had some problems racking clear beer, and found the simplest way to fix the issue is attach a muslin bag to the beer output end of your siphon going into the keg. On my last batch I caught a ping-pong sized ball of leaf matter on its way to the keg. The beer came out pretty clear and most importantly free of plant materal.