Did I make a "dry hopping" mistake?

So I transferred from my primary to my secondary and dry hopped. The problem is I followed the instructions, put the hops needed in a muslin bag and dropped it in my secondary. Now after some more reading on this site and others I see that people are weighing down their muslin bags to get them down in the liquid. I didn't do this and am wondering if I have messed up? Should I try and make something to push the muslin bag down in the liquid?

It will be fine. Just give the secondary a gentle swirl a couple times a day to toss the muslin bag around gently.

You should be fine.

you'll be good!

It will be fine, especially if the bag is loose and the hops aren't packed tight. Just let it sit.

I just let the leaf hops float on top. Comes out great.

Thanks everyone, I dry hopped with pellet hops. They're not packed as I just tied a small knot at the end of the muslin bag. They've swelled to make it look like a softball at this point.

Ahhhh...pellets are not that good for dry hopping. Just give it a good dunking every now and then

johnnyboy1965 said:

Ahhhh...pellets are not that good for dry hopping. Just give it a good dunking every now and then

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Any time I have dry hopped with pellets the beer turned out delicious and I never did anything to intervene once I tossed them in. Have done them in a bag and also just tossed them directly into the beer!

johnnyboy1965 said:

Ahhhh...pellets are not that good for dry hopping. Just give it a good dunking every now and then

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And you're basing this on what? Russian River uses pellets to dry hop Pliny and I don't hear anyone complaining.

johnnyboy1965 said:

Ahhhh...pellets are not that good for dry hopping. Just give it a good dunking every now and then

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Complete BS. Pellet hops are just as good for dry hopping as anything else.

Complete BS. Pellet hops are just as good for dry hopping as anything else.

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There are chemicals in leaf hops that are not in pellet hops. But are those flavors important or the ones you are looking for? Obviously, Russian River doesn't care and many other commercial brewers are just looking for the hop flavor found in pellets (or have deemed the increased cost as not worth it for them). Others want flavors only leaf hops can give. Other great brewers cover all bases and use both at the same time. How hops bitter and flavor beer is still a very unknown thing. The people that funded brew science (Bud, Miller) didn't really have a need to research it since their beers were barely hopped. I'd like to hear if there is any new research on this.

i dry hop with pellet hops all the time, and it's always been fine. I admit that I don't have a BJCP nose and palate, but it has always turned out as expected. Even if leaf hops have chemicals that pellets don't, my nose and palate will never distinguish between the two.

pkeeler said:

There are chemicals in leaf hops that are not in pellet hops. But are those flavors important or the ones you are looking for?

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What are those exactly? They are hops, just processed. The pelletizing process actually bursts the lupulin and puts them at greater risk for oxidization depending on how they are stored and handled, but that goes for whole hops as well (Designing Great Beers, Ray Daniels). I am not saying you are wrong, just saying back it up with some citation.

FWIW, I (alond with thousands of other brewers, home and commercial) use pellet hops to dry hop all the time and it comes out great with fantastic hop aroma and increased bitterness. I really don't think Russian River is just being cheap by using pellets. You have your opinion, we have ours, no need to be pejorative.

Cheers