Hop bag usage...

I am used to tossing hop pellets into the kettle and watching them boil away. Now that I'm swtiching to brewing at home I gather that I need to either put the hops in little bags or perhaps filter them out ?

I was making up my final list of stuff to buy to get started again and saw that northernbrewer has muslin bags (meant to hold a few lbs of grain) for .50c or "hop bags" that were $4 each. Which bags should I use and do I need separate bags for each stage of hop addition?

Alternately should I just get a filter funnel and filter them out at that stage?

BoB

Go to Lowes and get the 5 gallon nylon paint strainers for $2. Washable, reusable.

Generally the 50c muslin bags are the hop bags, the $4 nylon reusable ones are for grain.

can someone explain to me (noob) .. are we talking dry hopping, or are you supposed to actually use bags during the boil? i've just been tossing them in the kettle.

MikeRobrew said:

can someone explain to me (noob) .. are we talking dry hopping, or are you supposed to actually use bags during the boil? i've just been tossing them in the kettle.

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Some people prefer a bag in the boil, other prefer no bag. It's really up to you. I usually free ball it.