Dry Hopping...

I racked an amber ale to the secondary last night.

I also put 1oz of cascade hop pellets in a muslin bag and then put it in the bottom of the carboy and poured the beer on top,

Now the bag is just floating on top. I realize the bag is not going to hold in all the particles, but it will hold the majority.

My concern is that the bag is preventing them from spread out throughout the beer.

Should I let it be or should I take the ball of mush out of the bag?

I don't have anything to compare it to (other people can comment), because I've always done it without a bag. A bit if a PITA come rackin' time...but this can easily be overcome by tying a muslin bag over the end of your racking cane. Then again...you'd be surprised at how little the hops actually spread. They mostly just rise to the top and clump up there. So you can get away, this time, without messing with it.

Now that you have them in there I would just leave it be. I've done both free-floating as Evan! does and I've used a hop bag with some sanitized glass beads in it to keep it under the surface. I haven't noticed much difference between the two though the hop bag one is definitely easier to remove from the better bottle prior to racking.

Thanks folks. I figured since it was already in there I should leave it be and not tamper with it to much.

Don't mean to hijack the topic, but is there really any point to the little bag when you use hop pellets ? Everytime I use the little bag, the pellets end up disolving out into the wort anyway.

I was just wondering if there was a point to the little bag other than to use as something to package the hops in.

If the point is to strain the hop material out of the wort/beer then it seems basically useless to me.

EDIT: Uh Nevermind, I just noticed this topic
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=37131

Sorry.

Mutilated1 said:

Don't mean to hijack the topic, but is there really any point to the little bag when you use hop pellets ? Everytime I use the little bag, the pellets end up disolving out into the wort anyway...

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My nylon bag that I use contains the pellet hops, I've never had that particular problem.

I used a bag during my boil and it contained the hops a lot better than when i have just thrown them in the pot. when i threw them in the pot, they dissolved into fine matter.

however, i think the downside of the bag was that contained my hops so well that i'm worried they didn't get to boil around and get utilized fully.

rflem550 said:

I used a bag during my boil and it contained the hops a lot better than when i have just thrown them in the pot. when i threw them in the pot, they dissolved into fine matter.

however, i think the downside of the bag was that contained my hops so well that i'm worried they didn't get to boil around and get utilized fully.

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I never use a bag in the boil, I only use it for dry-hopping. I've never had a problem syphoning the beer out of the kettle after I whirlpool so I haven't worried about it.

Advantage of the bag:
Easy racking, less mess
Advantage of free hops:
Better utilization, easier to put into carboy.

If you use an oversized bag there is less of a problem of underutilization. However I have not found it to be much of a problem to rack a beer that has been free hopped with either pellets or whole hops. So I think I will just continue to throw the hops in to the fermenter.
I am thinking of using a suggestion I got from the Jamil show about putting the hops in the primary after 5 days and then racking to the secondary a week later to allow for better clearing. My dry hopped beers have always been a little cloudy.

Craig

CBBaron said:

...I am thinking of using a suggestion I got from the Jamil show about putting the hops in the primary after 5 days and then racking to the secondary a week later to allow for better clearing. My dry hopped beers have always been a little cloudy.

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That's an interesting idea. Was there any mention of losing any of the aroma when you rack to secondary? Or do you just increase your dry hop rate slightly to account for it?