Dry Hopping with Leaf Hops in a Carboy

It doesn't work too well. Next time I will definitely use pellets. I put a few boiled marbles and 1 1/2 oz cascade leaf hops into a bag with draw string and went to put them in the carboy, opps, this definitely isnt going to fit so I tried rolling the bag between my palms getting it into a sausage shape and cramming it in, still no luck so I stood there pulling the hops out and pushing them in with my fingers with what seemed like half of them falling on the top of the carboy then down into my waterbath. Now after 4 days most of them are just floating around dry on top of the wort.

Bottom line, if you're using a carboy, use pellets.

hops float. and why would you put them in a bag in the carboy. never heard of that.

Sounds like a glass carboy too... The PET ones have a larger opening, easier to get other things through it.

There are hop strainers that you can get that are cylindrical that might work for you as well. From what I recall reading, if you cold crash the beer and are careful, you should be able to get the leafs out of your beer.

kegtoe said:

hops float. and why would you put them in a bag in the carboy. never heard of that.

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To get them into the beer. The marbles takes care of the floating part. I know they call it dry hopping, but I'm pretty sure it works better if they actually get wet at some point As of now there is a layer of wet ones with a pile of dry ones sitting on top.

I never bag hops. Whole leaf or pellets. Just through them in the carboy. Don't worry, the hops will soak up the beer. I think I actually perfer whole hops for dryhopping.

When I dry hop with whole hops in the secondary, I take a funnel and a long handled spoon ( both sanitized of course ) and just push the hops through the funnel with the long skinny end of the spoon. I give the carboy one good circular swish to wet most of the hops and let it sit. I've ended up with a few great smelling beers doing it this way. Granted, it is a bit of a PITA when you have to rack into a bottling bucket or keg, because of the clogging, but it's always been worth it for me.