Dry Hop Question

I dry hoped my American Pale Ale a week ago using hop pellets. I want to bottle but the hops have broken up and are floating on the surface completly covering it. Should I mix up the beer in hopes the hops fall to the bottom or just wait to see if they will fall on their own? I need to bottle soon so it will be done by my Christmas party. My concern is getting sediment into my bottles. Also has anyone tired putting a filter(coffee filter or pantyhose) on the end of the racking cane?

Don't put it(pantyhose or fine mesh grain bag) on the input end of the racking cane. Place it on the output end that goes in the bottling bucket. Also don't pull it up tight to the hose end as this will just clog up shortly into the process. Fasten the top of your strainer bag to the hose letting the excess lay in the bottling bucket. That way it won't clog the hose and when you are done any particles that got sucked in will be trapped in the grain/hop bag.

I use a sanitized grain bag at the end of siphon, works like a charm, remember to sanitize.

Yeah, pellets suck.

I don't have any problems dry hopping with pellets. There are two things you can do that I can think of right now. 1. cold crash the beer and the pellets should fall out. 2. Gently swirl the carboy every hour or so and it should fall out in 24-48 hours. I have done both and it has worked for me. Generally speaking though, if I wait 10-14 days I don't have this problem. Personally, I would not want to strain at this point in the process because it could add oxygen. I've never done it, but that would be my concern.

what do you guys prefer to sanitize the nylon, boil it for an hour, just put in starsan or both?

i found that good siphoning into a secondary fermenter can get rid of 95% of the dry hops then when you siphon again it will be prettymuch hops free

SquirrelMaster said:

what do you guys prefer to sanitize the nylon, boil it for an hour, just put in starsan or both?

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Boiling it for 5 minutes ought to do it.

gnuworldorder said:

i found that good siphoning into a secondary fermenter can get rid of 95% of the dry hops then when you siphon again it will be prettymuch hops free

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Its already in the secondary. I would transfering it to the bottling bucket. Would straining the beer niw introduce to much O2 into the beer(like RJwhite suggested) or would I be ok to do it at this point?

straining the beer won't add O2 to the beer because the bag and the hose are submerged just like you would normally do when siphoning to a secondary or bottling bucket.

+1 on the advice to cold crash if you can. It helps settle things out and compacts the trub a bit so less gets sucked up via the racking cane in my expeience.

I'm still new to this I'm assuming cold crash means putting the carboy in cold water. If so will using an ice bath work and how cold do I want to get the beer? Thanks to all for the advice and tips

I've never done it in an ice bath (maybe somebody else can chime in on that one).

Typically, you put the carboy in a fridge (normal fridge temps) for 2-5 days to cool it and help the floaties settle out. The cloudier the beer, the longer you can cold crash.

When you're ready to bottle, just siphon it cold into your bottling bucket and proceed as normal.

All of the abovementioned methods can work well, with cold-crashing the easiest and safest in terms of sanitation. I have switched over to hop plugs for dry hopping (when I can get them) for this very reason. The larger leaves are easier to siphon around. If using pellets in the future, consider using a sanitized hop bag when you add them to the beer. If you are bottling, you can do fairly well siphoning from under the hop layer if you are careful. What little does get through to the bottling bucket will either float or sink, but even less will get into the bottles. Then, when the yeast settles out it will trap most of the hop bits in the sediment at the bottom, and you find only rare hop bits make it into the glass.

I use hop pellets to dry hop my beers too and they always sink by the time I go to bottle, so perhaps just do as others have said and just swirl a tad and wait for them to sink. I don't like using hop socks for dry hopping, even the ones i get from my LHBS that are designed for dry hopping in a carboy. The hops swell up and it is an absolute b**ch to get the hop sock out.

I think you guys are overcomplicating this. I never use those pantyhose/bags/whatever, and my beer is perfectly clear. I dry hop all the time, with both pellets and leaf hops.

When you rack, put the racking cane about 1/2 way down into the fermenter, and start the siphon there. You're above the trub, and below the floating hops sludge. As the level of the beer lowers, lower the racking cane until you're just above the trub. That's it. No straining, filtering, using bags, clogged siphon, etc. It's easy as can be.