Best way to dry hop

Soon I will be brewing the Northern Brewer Double IPA Extract Kit. It calls for dry hopping in the secondary. Last 2x IPA I made, had leaf hops and I put them in a normal mesh bag supplied with extract kits. This allowed lots of leaf hop particles to escape and there were leaf hops particles suspended in the beer, which wasn't great. This kit uses pellet hops for dry hops, so I assume even if I used a mesh bag or just tossed them in, they would settle out during refrigeration unlike the leaf hops. Another thought I had was to use a tighter nylon bag.

So my questions are:
1) What is the best way to dry hop leaf hops?
2) What is the best way to dry hop pellet hops?

You'll find that there are almost as many opinions and practices on dry hopping as there are brewers! With pellets, I throw them in the secondary without a bag. Generally they dissolve and float near the top, in a layer. After dry hopping, I'm careful in racking the beer to leave behind the pellet debris.

I can say, with the upmost confidence; the best way to dry hop is USE MOAR HOOOOPSSS!!!

I use a bag for both but I didn't have your problem when I used leaf. Just cold crash the beer for 2-3 days before bottling and it will usually settle out. I also found that when it does escape, use a mesh over your siphon to trap as much as you can. Finally, I found that as I bottle, a lot of the particle actually sticks to the wall.

PS- Toss those bottles into the fridge for at least a week to make sure it settles out before you pour

Thanks all.

Calichusetts - It's not in every bottle that I get leaf particles, but I'm talking bottles that have been stored in the fridge for weeks. Either the leaf particles don't sink or they are so light that during pouring they get brought up unlike the normal cake at the bottle.

I've only dry hopped once so far. I just threw the pellets in. Then when racking to the keg, I cut a piece from a 1 gal. home depot paint strainer (sanitized and secured with a rubber band) over the end of my autosiphon that was in the beer and it didn't pull any hop material into the keg at all. I was keeping an eye on the tubing to make sure I didn't see any particles and that seemed to work really well. I got that idea from this site and that is what I'm planning on doing in the future as well.

Good idea!

1 gallon paint strainers there like 2 for a doller at the home depot! and I use them over and over fill with hops and glass marbles and drop in just sanitize the bag and marbles first!

I've only dryhopped once as well and I just threw the pellets in the carboy and racked on top of the pellets. When racking to the bottling bucket, I first tried a piece of sanitized panty hose over end of the autosiphon in the beer. I couldn't get a steady siphon going, so I switched to a hop bag and still couldn't get the siphon going. So I said screw it and just racked without trying to filter.

For my next dryhop I'll probably just put pellets in the carboy and when it's time to rack use a piece of panty hose or hop bag over the end of the siphon in the bottling bucket. I've read that as long as you have a good bit of panty hose (kind of like a balloon) hanging off the end of the hose that it works pretty well.

Throw them in a bag in your keg if your kegging.

Why waste all that awesome aroma in your fermenter when it could be locked in your keg.