Dry Hop Sludge

After three weeks in the primary its time to bottle my (I)IPA.
I assume this will be fine even though the airlock is bubbling since i now have an SG of 1011, which is kinda on the low side..

However, I heavily dry hopped this thing.. and there is a fairly massive yeast cake too, which isnt too compact (used some cheap coopers ale yeast).
Since this complicated my bottling slightly, I was thinking of getting a strainer, sanitize it and try to get rid of some of the floating hops. Is this a good idea, or would this aerate/expose my beer too much?


(on a side note, when the (I)IPA is bottled, I'm gonna try a christmas brew, and asked a few questions in this thread )

I think you should rack it as normal. If you use a strainer it will surely aerate your finished beer, thus expediting oxidation.

However, if you are talking about straining whole hops that are floating from a bucket, rather than a carboy, I think you would be fine to do this. Just make sure your sanitation is top notch because at this stage any bacteria will likely hurt your finished product.

All in all, normal racking with the strainer tip affixed to your racking cane should be sufficient to strain your beer without doing any of the "strainer" actions you mentioned. Just my 2 cents, I'm by no means an expert.

Are you bottling right out of the Primary? No 'bottling' bucket?

yes, right out of it with a racking cane/siphon thing..

i have a fairly low budget/ limited space going on (being a student), but it has turned out nice before.. I just never used THIS much hops.. probably 2 oz cascade and 2 oz pilgrim.

If you had another bucket it would help you a lot. Nothing special, just a clean and sanitized 5 gallon bucket from the hardware store would do. Rack into that then bottle.

This is one case where I think a secondary would be really beneficial. Rack off the yeast cake into secondary for a week to let everything settle back down, then to a bottling bucket or back into primary to batch prime.

I believe( just my opinion) you get more beer to the bottles this way also. I just cram the racking cane tip right down into the trub and of course I pick up some trub but I leave virtually NO beer behind.. then when I rack from secondary to bottling bucket I do the same thing and this time I get NO trub and all of the beer.

You can put a hops or other strainer bag over the tip of the racking cane. That won't help vs. the yeast, but it will vs. the hops. *shrug*

Alright, so it sounds like I should just get another bucket then..

Would it be a good idea to get another regular fermentation bucket, drill a hole, mount a spigot in it and have a bottling bucket/secondary in one?
I know this reduces the benefit of the secondary some, but its better than nothing, right?

I've seen a lot of you guys here hating on unsanitized table sugar for priming in bottles, and a bottling bucket would enable me to do priming properly.

Would it be a good idea to get another regular fermentation bucket, drill a hole, mount a spigot in it and have a bottling bucket/secondary in one?

Click to expand...

It is good to have one with a spigot that can be used as a bottling bucket or fermenter.

Thanks! I now have some ideas on how to handle this!