Dry hopping with whole leaf

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TTodd

TTodd

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I transferred my beer to a carboy for secondary fermentation and am dry hopping with whole leaf hops (citra).

They are currently floating on top. I'm guessing that they will become saturated and then eventually be submerged. Is that what should happen? Or do I need to do something to get them to sink into the beer?
 
TTodd said:
I transferred my beer to a carboy for secondary fermentation and am dry hopping with whole leaf hops (citra).

They are currently floating on top. I'm guessing that they will become saturated and then eventually be submerged. Is that what should happen? Or do I need to do something to get them to sink into the beer?
Click to expand...

They don't usually sink. They just absorb some beer and still float on top. Just make sure the hops are in contact with the beer and don't worry about it. If you look at them, you'll see that they are actually wet and the beer can permeate them.
 
I did this once and it was a PITA, mostly to get the hops out of my carboy. They won't drop, they will likely stay on top. You can give a slight swirl to your carboy to try and encourage more to drop, but in the end you'll still be battling the hops.

When you go to rack to your bottling bucket, tie a santized hop bag to the end of your siphon. This will allow you to siphon better.
 
Another question on the dry hopping.....

So I have the whole leafs floating on top - they are nice and saturated. Since this is in secondary after 2 weeks of primary and all the fermentation is done - I'm assuming that I don't need an airlock and I can instead use one of these plugs with a flap that if for some reason there was a pressure buildup - it would allow it to escape through the tiny holes under the flap.

The reason I want to do this - is that I'm assuming that it would be good to swirl the beer around in there for better release of the hop flavoring into the beer. Is that a correct assumption - should I try to swirl it, or is that just unnecessary?

Thanks
 
TTodd said:
Another question on the dry hopping.....

So I have the whole leafs floating on top - they are nice and saturated. Since this is in secondary after 2 weeks of primary and all the fermentation is done - I'm assuming that I don't need an airlock and I can instead use one of these plugs with a flap that if for some reason there was a pressure buildup - it would allow it to escape through the tiny holes under the flap.

The reason I want to do this - is that I'm assuming that it would be good to swirl the beer around in there for better release of the hop flavoring into the beer. Is that a correct assumption - should I try to swirl it, or is that just unnecessary?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You should still use an airlock so gasses can escape but nothing gets in. Yes you can gently swirl the Carboy/bucket but as the hops saturate some will settle through the beer so IMO it's really not necessary to swirl.
 
Ah yes,the sterile female flower that weeps for her lover in tears of lupulins. Sounds kinda familiar doesn't it? Remember from where? ;). I've found that they don't sink for the most part. The mass,even saturated,doesn't seem to be enough to overcome surface tension of the beer.
But not to worry! Have you ever made sun tea & watched it the first couple minutes? The tea bags saturate,& the brown tea swirls & sinks down into the clear water column By convection. Same with lupulin oils in beer from floating hops,weather loose or in a hop sack.
 
Usually, when I use whole hops for dry hopping, I sanitize a muslin bag in boiling water and add a 1-2 oz. steel ball bearing that is sanitized to the bag with the hops. Tie it shut, drop it in my bucket, it sinks the hops and also keeps them out of the way when I am transfering the beer later.
 
I use muslin grain sacks for raw or "whole leaf" hops,as they have greater volume per the same weight as pellets. But I let them float after submeging them a couple times with my paddle to soak them. Works fine per convection.
 

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