Hops in my bottled Beer??!! Clogged siphon!!:(

I dry hopped my pale ale for the first time. I just threw them in the secondary, as many people said was cool.

When I racked to the bottleing bucket I had two problems.

First of all I used a grain steeping bag over the bottom of the racking cane to filter out all the hops particles floating around.

Problem #1, the siphon process was really slow and with a gallon of beer left it was basically stopped up. I tried to get as much beer to siphom through but the grain bag was clogged and the beer stopped flowing.

I have now bottled this beer and upon looking at the bottles three days after botlleing I can see some small particles, of what I can only assume are hops floating around; not settled at the bottom.


Will the beer be fine?

Should I not throw the hops in with out a mesh bag next time?

Thanks for any advice

Some Micro brews charge a premium to run your fresh draft beer through a hop bed. Consider it good beer.

I don't know what kind of hop filter bag you used, but I've had good luck with a paint strainer from Lowe's.

yea that is the picture that made me throw my hops in whole and then try to rack with a mesh grain steeping bag on the end. I am not blaming anyone but it did not work well for me.

Anyone know about the hops in the bottled beer.

Have you physically compared the muslin hop and grain bags that most HBS's carry and the nylon bags or paint straining bags that were seen in the photos?

The nylon bags are a stronger and more structured mesh than the muslin bags.
Also, did you have it tight to the bottom of the cane or just attach it at the top and let the bag kind of droop from the end? If you attached it to the cane tight on the end then it will always clog up as it collects debris, but if left loose and only connected at the top of the bag then there is more flex for the debris to fall off and more areas that the beer can come through the bag.

I am dry hopping an India Amber Ale right now and plan on the paint straining bag, lots cheaper at the paint department than at the HBS.

no worries....it's just "bottled hopped"

thanks for all the responses.

I did tie the mesh bag on with room to move at the bottom of the cane but it still clogged heavily.

My first two beers, put into a primary for 2 weks and then bottled....nice...easy...simple.

this third beer i had in the primary for 1.5 weeks, 2 weeks in a seconadary where i dry hoped, and then had issues when racking to the bottling bucket.


It was kind of a discouraging process. i might just stick with the easy method..

I just used the Lowes paint strainer bag to siphon my newest dry hopped brew from the carboy to the bottling bucket, and it worked like a charm. I did use whole hops for this but I had NO sediment come through. I just rubber banded the bag to the end of my auto-siphon and away I went, no clogging or anything.
You can get two of these at Lowe's for $2 and they are reuseable to boot.

well i guess it is all about the lowes paint strainer bags. I will have to try them.

Will i notice a big difference in hops sediment if i use whole hops???????????

I had more hops sediment with pellets- they disinigrated and made sediment. Whole hops were more of a mess- floating leaves all through it. Even with a hops bag, they escaped and made siphoning a bit more difficult. I definitely lost more beer when using the whole hops. Still, it's so worth it. Nothing as good as a good dryhopped IPA!

Yes, I did notice that the whole hops absorbed more beer and I had more of a volume loss than normal, but just like Yooper Chick said it really helps the IPA's.

Time is also something to consider.

Next time wait a bit longer and try to move it somewhere cooler. If you let gravity (added by cool temps) and time do their thing it will be easier to siphon.

like always, very good info from everyone.

Thanks

By the way I sample this beer after a wee in bottles and it tastes excellent, very hoppy. My most flavorfull beer to date!!

"sampled" and "week"

Glad it came out well for you then. Bottle conditioning at lower temps will fix a lot of problems that you may think you have after the bottling. This can drop yeast out and they will take the hop bits down with them too.