Boiling Hops

I have been boiling my hops in a grain bag (medium size). Is there a better way to do it? I notice that the hops sometimes lay at the top of the boil...

I have once tried boiling the hops freely, no bag, and it was a mess trying to strain it all out prior to primary.

Thanks for any help.

I just dump them into the primary and let them settle to the bottom eventually

deremer said:

I just dump them into the primary and let them settle to the bottom eventually

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And leave them in through the ferment (1 week)? No off taste comes from that?

The only reason I am concerned is that I am doing the All Amarillo IPA recipe from this site. It is a total of 4 oz of hops. Seems like a lot to leave them in through the entire ferment. I might dry hop as well.

Try putting a couple of glass marbles in the bag with the hops. They'll sink the bag to the bottom. Don't use "steelies" - they can have oil, grease etc on them.

Mine do the same. Is it a problem that they lay atop the boil? I didn't figure it was a big deal.

Probably not? You might not get the full hop utilization that you would get with them fully immersed in your wort. Don't know enough to say for sure, and I haven't tried hopping in a bag to know if there's a difference or not.

Something that I just thought of - copper is supposed to be good for making beer. I wonder if you took ten or so clean US pennies - 1981 or older - and used them instead of the marbles. You'd get the weight, plus whatever benefits copper is supposed to have. I'll have to do some research.

use a nylon paint strainer in your funnel or bucket as you are transferring the cooled wort to the fermenter. It filters out all the funk and also help aerate the wort. They work great. Just sanitize it first.

chuck_m said:

Try putting a couple of glass marbles in the bag with the hops. They'll sink the bag to the bottom. Don't use "steelies" - they can have oil, grease etc on them.

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+1 I do the same thing. half dozen marbles and it sinks to the bottom. I leave the bag nice and loose so that the hops can float arround in the bag, but will not be at the sirface. I make sure that i stir arround so that i get wort flow through the bag during the boil

I also like that with the bag i can pull the hops out of the boil at flameout rather than sitting while i chill (espically if there was a late addition such as 10min)

I toss all mine in and then pour it through a sanitized kitchen strainer into the fermenter after cooling. I have to stop 2 or 3 times to dump the hops and other crud out of the strainer into the trash, but it's still pretty easy that way.

ChshreCat said:

I toss all mine in and then pour it through a sanitized kitchen strainer into the fermenter after cooling. I have to stop 2 or 3 times to dump the hops and other crud out of the strainer into the trash, but it's still pretty easy that way.

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I used to do that before moving up to 5 and 10g full boils... now it all has to come out the spigot.

I have strained it all out, and I have dumped it all in, and never noticed any changes.
Now I just use a racking cane, whatever is left behind gets dumped, whatever goes in the primary just settles to the bottom and gets covered by yeast very quickly.

^ I do the same thing. A little messy, but it seems to be the easiest for me.

Arkador said:

I used to do that before moving up to 5 and 10g full boils... now it all has to come out the spigot.

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Ya just need a bigger spigot