Dry hopping

Is there a need to sanitize a hop bag for dry hopping? If so, how do I do it. Thanks

Yes you should. Stick it in a bucket of sanitizer solution.

+1


I would just soak it in a star-San solution and add the hops if that is the route you are going. Or you could do what I do (and quite a few others around here) and just toss the hops in an let them be free. Just personal preference.

tcory77 said:

+1


I would just soak it in a star-San solution and add the hops if that is the route you are going. Or you could do what I do (and quite a few others around here) and just toss the hops in an let them be free. Just personal preference.

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I thought about doing that also, but would the hops go into the siphon when I siphon it to bottling bucket? I don't have a strainer.

Dunking the bag in Star San is good enough. If you use a bag, your hops will float even if they are pellets (pellets usually sink after a few days, whereas whole hops will always float) unless you weigh them down with sanitized marbles or something.

(Note that it is highly debatable whether this matters, some people prefer them to sink and some people don't care what they do)

If you just throw pellets in they will sink and you can just rack away from them like a yeast cake - typically you can just avoid the them if you brewed enough beer to account for volume loss to the hops. If you used whole hops or if the pellets clog the siphon, tie the bag you were going to use to contain the hops around the inlet area of the siphon.