Dry Hopping and Yeast Washing

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Dave258

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It is almost time to dry hop my Ruination Clone. 2 oz of Cenntenial pellets, I will use a sanitized muslin bag. I have heard many people say it is ok to dry hop in primary, I want to wash and save the pac man yeast. Should I rack to secondary to dry hop and wash the yeast or will the bag contain most of the hops?
Thanks
 
Are you using a bucket? I tried dry hopping with a bag once in my primary fermenter, a carboy, and the yeast harvest was not that successful because the hop bags blocked a lot of the yeast from coming out.

I dry hop with pellets, tossed directly into the carboy, and find that rinsing the yeast does a good job of leaving behind hop pieces.
 
Not sure with pellets, as they'll probably dissolve to a lot finer material, but I usually dry hop with whole leaf hops and I've found two good ways to wash the yeast afterwards.

1) Use a strainer to skim the hops off the top of the finished beer before racking to bottling bucket. This leaves a little hop particulate left behind but it's easy to remove it during the washing.

2) Use a bag like you're suggesting, whole leaf hops will stay in the bag better than pellets, so you can just remove the bag, squeeze out the beer that was absorbed, and toss it aside.

I also believe that whole leaf hops are better for dry-hopping anyway, as they haven't been processed as much and all those lovely volatile oils are still intact.
 
Are you using a bucket? I tried dry hopping with a bag once in my primary fermenter, a carboy, and the yeast harvest was not that successful because the hop bags blocked a lot of the yeast from coming out.

I dry hop with pellets, tossed directly into the carboy, and find that rinsing the yeast does a good job of leaving behind hop pieces.

Yes, I have it in a Bucket. I figured with the hops in the bag, even if they sink to the bottom, I could pull the bag out after racking the beer.
I guess I'll just do it.
 
Hop resins coat yeast cell walls. High alcohol levels tire yeast out.

That's the "I'm on my phone" explanation, citations not included.
 
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