Going To Dry Hop Next Brew

i got a san diego ipa recipe off the white labs web. it calls for dry hopping. was wondering what would be the benefits of dry hopping with leaf hops or pellets. i've seen pics of people just placing the leaf hops in without a bag.

i'm swinging towards using leaf hops since i've never used anything else except for pellet hops. it's also my first time dry hopping.

i'm picking up a used deep freeze this weekend, then i'm ording temp controls after that. it might be a couple of weeks before i get this rolling. i havn't brewed in a month, poo!

Just be aware that actual hops will soak up some wort. And I'd recommend putting them in a sock. All might not agree, but it sure makes cleanup a lot easier.

I was debating this before I dry hopped my first beer. I ended up with pellets, right in, sank to the bottom in a matter of days, great aroma. I have used whole flower hops in the kettle, they do soak up a lot of liquid. I am pretty much a pellet guy from now on (unless I grow my own).

I am whole leaf right in the fermenter type guy, just account for a little more loss in your recipe, like plan for 5.25 gallons going into the secondary rather than just 5. if you tryout some of the software out there they should be able to help you adjust recipes accordingly.

Cheers

I dry hopped my last batch. Just pulled a drink off the kegerator to taste it. It turned out decent. I have to admit that I read the recipe wrong and didnt add the finishing hops, so I just dry hopped the primary fermenter. I used whole leaf hops.

The only problem was racking to secondary. It clogged the stick a couple of times. Its worth trying, but I probably wouldnt do it again unless I found a recipe that specifically called for it.

I just dry hopped for the first time on my latest IPA. I PM'ed a few of the veterans here whose recipes and comments I've learned the most from to see what they do. I decided that I'd just throw and oz. of pellets right in for the final week in the secondary.

Worked great. I'd say about 90% of it had sunk out by the 7th day. I moved the carboy to the tabletop for racking to the bottling bucket the night before I was going to rack so that anything I kicked back up into suspension would have a little time to settle back down. When I racked I just clipped my tubing to a funnel/strainer. It caught the rest of the hop sludge.

The Alpha King Clone I just brewed today calls for an oz. of dry hopping as well. I plan on doing it the same way.

i also dry hopped my last batch. i used whole leaf hops and it turned out pretty well. they definitely absorb some of the wort so you do have to take that into consideration. as far as racking is concerned, i don't know the name of it, but i'm using the tube that allows you to start the syphon with a pump of the tube within a tube design, it's a pretty common contraption, came with the kit. anyways, that essentially filtered out most of the dry hops, a few small leaf particles got through, but not anything significant, most of that was left in the bottling bucket when i finished.

i would do it again, but the one thing i would change would be to do what was mentioned above, get a small wire strainer and run the beer through that as i racked it keep it all out. easy fix for the second go around.

PUD said:

i got a san diego ipa recipe off the white labs web. it calls for dry hopping. was wondering what would be the benefits of dry hopping with leaf hops or pellets. i've seen pics of people just placing the leaf hops in without a bag.

i'm swinging towards using leaf hops since i've never used anything else except for pellet hops. it's also my first time dry hopping.

i'm picking up a used deep freeze this weekend, then i'm ording temp controls after that. it might be a couple of weeks before i get this rolling. i havn't brewed in a month, poo!

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I have dry hopped with both pellets and whole..bagged and unbagged. If you like the hops, try each way out and see what you prefer.
:rockin:

I've dry hopped with whole hops and bagged as I'm a bit paranoid about excess gunk. Bad news is that a bag of hops floats. My first try, the sat in the top of the secondary for the 2 weeks. I don't think I got a lot of benefit from that effort. Second try, I tried putting a few marbles in to add weight. The bag sort of suspended just below the surface of the beer for the entire 2 weeks in secondary. Results were fabulous - a really nice hop aroma. One other thing to know about bagging, since the whole hops soak up a bit, the bag really expands. I use better bottles which have wider opening, but you might have trouble getting the bag out of a glass carboy.

I dry hop most of my brews... because I have no respect for style guidelines and am a bona fide hop head!

Whole hops (or plugs) right in the secondary. I have found that they fall into the solution faster if I rack onto them Vs. throw them into a full carboy.

sounds like i'll try the whole hops first. throwing them in my secondary before i rack. the recipe didn't specify.

I always use whole leaf hops in a muslin bag that i make up on my over lock sewing machine, It take's seconds to make and is realy cheep (I am from yorkshire after all!) just buy a yard of muslin from your local sewing shop.It will make a lot of hop bags for only a few pence. I fasten a bag of hops to a cleaned stainless spoon and throw it in the keg then rack on to it. I dont dry hop all my beer but it does give fantastic aroma!