hop pellets?

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Daznz

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When you guys put hop pellets in your boiling wort do you bag them
or just throw them in.. i just put mine in bag less ( first extract brew)
I ghess thay settle out.
Cheers Daza
 
Daznz said:
When you guys put hop pellets in your boiling wort do you bag them
or just throw them in.. i just put mine in bag less ( first extract brew)
I ghess thay settle out.
Cheers Daza
Basically it's up to you. Folks here will give you the pros and cons of both sides of the issue.

I just throw the pellets in and let the boil roll them around - the theory being that this increases the extraction of the bittering oils/resins/magic hop juice. Others bag them and throw them in. Both work.
 
just dont put Nelson Sauvin hops in a bag! (just kidding)...Some people bag 'em to keep 'em out of thier primary, but i dont...it would seem to be a big pain in the butt to do that, and the supposed deleterious effects of having them end up in the primary is debatable, and/or negligible at best...
 
Bjorn Borg said:
just dont put Nelson Sauvin hops in a bag! (just kidding)...Some people bag 'em to keep 'em out of thier primary, but i dont...it would seem to be a big pain in the butt to do that, and the supposed deleterious effects of having them end up in the primary is debatable, and/or negligible at best...

:D hahahaha dont put Nelson Sauvin hops in a bag! well i didnt so i was lucky ;)
Oh well its all done now smells good tastes good boy it will be good when it turns into beer
Thanks for ya help guys
Daza
 
I have a question about hop pellets too:

I got my first kit from UPS today, its LME w/ crushed grains from Northern Brewer and it came with hop pellets, and a 125 mL Wyeast Smack Pak (cool). I tossed the Smack Pak in the fridge for storage.

Should I put the hop pellets in the fridge too? I guess it probably wouldn't hurt them, but I don't know if it'll help them?
 
Yes keep them in the fridge. The hop oils deteriorate faster at room temperature. The freezer is best for long-term storage. The only time my hops spend not in the fridge is in the car ride home from the LHBS and when I take them out to brew.
 
For styles with a small amount of hops, I just throw them in. Everytime you siphon/rack, you have an opportunity to leave that trub behind, so it's no big deal.

But for an IPA or something, where you're adding a lot of hops over the course of the boil, I prefer to use bags. (Or else use whole hops if possible).

You do lose a little efficiency extracting the alpa acids and other desirable things from the hops when you use a bag. Beer Recipator or any of the commercial software programs will adjust hop amounts for you according to whether you're using a bag or not.
 
I have clogging problems with the torpedo tube when I use large amounts of pellet hops, so if I'm making an IPA or barleywine I bag them, otherwise no.
 
david_42 said:
I have clogging problems with the torpedo tube when I use large amounts of pellet hops, so if I'm making an IPA or barleywine I bag them, otherwise no.


I may have to bag my hops in my next IPA, I noticed a lot of Trub in my first one and the second I used an auto siphon and a strainer to keep most of the sediment out of the fermenter. I thought it would be sacreligious to bag hops:p .

Jason
 
I posted a similar question a little while ago with similar responses. I currently have on tap one beer that I used the bag for my hops and one that I didn't. They both taste great. It's hard to compare them as they are different beers. But, as long as I didn't drink one and say "this is horrible, I should have used the bag" or vice-versa, I consider it a success. I guess my rambling point is that both methods seemed to work fine for me.
 
I take my hop pellets and toss them out in the woods behind my brew shed. Then I use whole hops, which have none of the clogging problems, never make it into the fermenter, far better flavor, and act as a filter for break in the kettle when I drain it to my chiller.

I tried giving my wife rose pellets for our last anniversary and she wasn't impressed. Now I stick with the intact product for both hops and roses. Cheers :D
 
I don't bag, but I do use a filtered funnel when pouring my cooled wort into my primary. I have to use a spoon to scrape away some of the pellet paste that clogs the filter from time to time, but it's all sanitized so it's cool.
 
Some of us don't have access to a decent range of whole hops. Here in Australia, quarantine laws mean hops can only be imported in pellet form. I think the only whole hops my LHBS stocks are Pride of Ringwood.
 
I am relatively new to brewing, having only six brews under my belt. My first five, I just tossed the pellets right into the brew. I got a wild hair up my a** and decided to use a muslin bag for my last brew, which is still in the secondary right now. It had less trub when racking to secondary, which made racking a little easier, so I am interested to see what answers this post brings too.
 
I have been using a cheescloth sack for my hops, but I forgot them with my last brew and my lhbs is closed on mondays, so I had to go to target and pick up some nylon pantyhose. these actually work so good as hop bags, that I had virtually no sediment when i siphoned into my screened funnel. I didn't even have to scrape the screen a single time, whereas in the past it's taken 10-15 min to get the wort through the screen becuase of all the hop sludge.
 
the swirling definitely helps also. I only have a 4 gallon stock pot and I try to boil with as much water in it as possible to aid hop utilization, so I can't get a real good swirl going. But it does help.
 
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