First Time Dry Hopping Questions

I'm thinking of dry hopping for the first time, but I'm wondering if I should bother. The only hops I have on hand are pellet hops. I was thinking of wrapping them up in a cheescloth sack with a couple of marbles and dropping them in the secondary fermenter. However, from what I've been reading, it seems like you should always use whole hops when dry hopping. Is it worth bothering with pellet hops, or should I just skip this step?

Also, I'm curious about sanitation when dry hopping - it seems strange that I've been obsessing about sanitation at every step of the brewing process, and yet I'm planning on taking hops directly from my refrigerator and dropping them into my beer. I am missing something here?

Thanks!

The idea of dry hopping is to impart aroma which you will get with pellet or whole hops. What the difference will be is when you attempt to transfer the liquid to kegs or bottles. I have always just dumped them into the fermenter after active fermentation has slowed. My transfer method was always a racking cane with the plastic tip on the end. Sometimes dryhopping can be a hassle due to the broken pellets or whole hops cloging your racking tube. I have tried putting a cheese cloth on the end of the tube to act as a filter which works OK. If you do a good job of sanitation up front and have healthy yeast dry hopping is little concern since you have enough alcohol present to kill any nasties. I think the benefits far outweigh the concerns so give dry hopping a try.

I haven't had any trouble with dry hopping and contamination. I just toss them in, no bag. Pellets work ok. I'd sanitize the bag and marbles, though. Some people like to dip the hops in vodka, I guess you could bag the pellets and soak the whole assembly in 1/2 cup of 80 proof. Then add the whole thing to your secondary.

Whole or pellet, I just dump them into my secondary. Never had a problem; by that time, the alcohol as been produced and contamination, IMO, is not a concern. Pellets, I dump on top of the beer after siphoning. Whole, I dump in the seconday first, the siphon onto the hops.

i second rhoobarb. no worries. just add whole/pellet hops into the secondary, then rack on top of them. they'll settle out when your ready to bottle/keg.

I think I'll just go ahead and add the pellets without the bag as I transfer to the secondary. Thanks for all the advice!

Go for it, if anything, you will successfully dry hop, as well as see how pellets work for dry hopping. Keep us up to date!

I boil some water then let the pellets soak in that for a while to help extract the flavor oils and then dump it all into the carboy.

Less for sanitation than for flavor.

Denny's Brew said:

I boil some water then let the pellets soak in that for a while to help extract the flavor oils and then dump it all into the carboy.

Less for sanitation than for flavor.

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I do this too; it's supposed to improve the solubility of the 'goodies' in the hops.

I also dry hop in my primary, not my secondary. It still has a wonderful effect, and you leave any particulate stuff behind when you rack to the secondary - it's already done its job anyway.

DeRoux's Broux said:

i second rhoobarb. no worries. just add whole/pellet hops into the secondary, then rack on top of them. they'll settle out when your ready to bottle/keg.

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Sorry if this is a dumb question but I think I must be missing something!
Are you saying you hop your secondary and then rack to a carboy or someting and then bottle or do you just mean you hop your secondary and use a racking cane to bottle with?

It just seems like Shambolics way is much easier to achieve the same result.

i add the hops into the secondary, then rack the beer from the primary into the secondary on top of the hops. if you dry hop in the primary, you'll lose a bunch of the aroma from the fermentation and co2 carrying off the part you want to linger behind.

Oh ..OK Thanks for the heads up...Makes sence guess...Secondary Hopping it is then....

by the way, no dumb questions here. :~)

you can do it either way, you'll just get more aroma from adding hops to the secondary, but there will be more sediment (trub) left behind. try it both was and see which you like best. just a reason to brew more!

there is a good article on dry hopping in the latest 'zymurgy' basically just add pellets to the secondary. they well settle out after a few days, and after 2 weeks just rack into your bottle bucket and bottle as usuall.

p.s. this is a probably a stereo type ,but being your from australia and all, did you happen to see the Hingis match the other day where she made that russian chick cry?

all this dry hop has got me thinking. I think my newcastle clone might be a little too sweet right now. I just raked to secondary and was going to wait and see if the taste balanced out a bit. if it didn't i was going to make some hop tea with about 1/2 gallon of water and add it to the secondary. will dry hoping achieve the same effect or will the only difference be more trub. I only have 4.5 gallons in secondary since I haven't figured out a way to get that last 1/2 gallon out of my primary without taking all the dead yeast and trub with it(still a noob), so adding more trub is the last thing i need right now. By the way if someone can help with with that problem i'd be much oblidged. the only thing I've come up with is to adjust my recipe for a 5.75 gallon boil so that .25 is left in my boiling when I rack to primary and .5 is left in primary when i rack to secondary.

BadKarmaa said:

i was going to make some hop tea with about 1/2 gallon of water and add it to the secondary. will dry hoping achieve the same effect or will the only difference be more trub.

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Dry hopping will impart flavor and aroma to the beer, but no bitterness.

BadKarmaa said:

I only have 4.5 gallons in secondary since I haven't figured out a way to get that last 1/2 gallon out of my primary

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I shoot for 5.5 gallons in my primary...that gives you enough volume to take a few samples, leave all of the trub behind, and still fill your secondary all the way up to neck.

If I do this won't i end up with diluted beer unless I adjust the recipe? If I do have to adjust how do I do it accordingly?

Yeah, but it's a very minor dilution. But if you use promash or something simular it's very easy to scale the recipe.

BadKarmaa said:

If I do this won't i end up with diluted beer unless I adjust the recipe? If I do have to adjust how do I do it accordingly?

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I adjust the amounts of grains and DME/LME up by 10% to account for the difference, or you can put your recipe in Beer Recipator (or ProMash or Beersmith) and it will make the adjustments for you.