Dry hop pellets particles floating in beer

I dry hopped an ounce of hop pellets for two weeks. Following suggestion of others, I just dropped them into my beer. Now it's time to rack and bottle. To my horror, there are lots and lots of hop particles floating in the beer.

Before coming up with an action plan I decided to rack it into the bottling bucket... a few homebrews aided that suggestion.

Is there anything I can do to filter out the hop particles, sink them to the bottom or otherwise clarify my beer???

They will sink over time and if you have a spring tipped bottle filler, the hop bits usually get stuck in the spring. If some get through, it's just proof that your beer is dry hopped.

They will sink in the bottling bucket over time? Good to know about the bottle filler. Hadn't thought of that.

Well if you are bottling right now, not necessarily.

If you just leave the fermenter alone they sink and then you just try to avoid as much hop material as you can when racking.

Yeah, I already transferred to the bottling bucket. :/

i just dry hopped an IPA for the first time and even if some gets through while bottling it should settle out nicely with the yeast as it conditions.

I just cracked my first one which had quite a bit of hop gunk because it was the last one bottled and only a few bits of hop particles stayed afloat but it was barely noticeable when poured.

The other thing i read was you can wrap your autosiphon with some cheese clothe to try and filter it as you rack to the bottling bucket.

Thanks. I ended up going through with the bottling because I didn't see many particles coming through my bottling wand. We'll see how it turns out.

Even though you have already transferred, here is a suggestion for next time: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/question-whole-hops-fermenter-123597/ POST #6

It is a filtration device that I believe would be helpful for a bunch of things.

Its not a big deal.I was thinking about dry hopping in the bottles.Add a pellet or 2 to the bottle when bottling.

If you're really careful about racking, minimal hop particles will come through.

I have been zip tying a sanitized nylon hop bag loosely over the end of the siphon tube, bottle bucket end. It will catch any bits that make it into the siphon.

Whole hops is another story. I lost about a gallon of beer when I dryhopped with whole cones and no bag. Siphon clogged with a gallon left, beer got stirred up into a big yeasty-hop soup when I tried to restart it. Pellets settle out much better.

smizak said:

If you're really careful about racking, minimal hop particles will come through.

Click to expand...

I don't understand what you mean here. I saw this on other posts as well. I siphoned the beer from fermenter to bottling bucket like I normally would. I can't think of how I would rack it more carefully?

Careful racking means to make sure that you're not disturbing the sediment at the bottom of your fermenter when you siphon it over to your bottling bucket. Since you were dealing with hops still floating around, it wouldn't have made a difference in your situation.

Ah, got it! Thanks.

Do they sink eventually? I'd been dry hopping for 2 weeks.

My experience with pellets is that they *mostly* settle to the bottom, and some stray stuff stays on top, floating. Very little compared to the amount that settles out to the bottom. Some pellets sink completely, probably due to differences in manufacturing.

What I mean by careful racking is keeping the siphon tip under the top stuff and not stirring around the bottom either. I have found that 90% of the hop material floating on top will cling to the sides of the fermenter as the volume of liquid drops. I imagine surface tension has something to do with it getting pushed there. If there is some left over when the liquid approaches the bottom(and the top of the siphon) there are usually little islands of hop free liquid to carefully and slowly move the siphon to. I just racked an IPA dry hopped with 2 oz of Amarillo pellets and I had very little hop material in the bucket at the end.