Hop bag or just throw in?

Greetings-
Doing a full boil extract american ipa today. 4 oz total-1 oz being whole hops. Would it be better to hang a steep bag on side of kettle and throw hops in there or just dump them in to the kettle? Thanks in advance.

Jeff

I just throw them all in. Strain thru paint strainer after wort is cooled.

I've brewed two IPA's. One with a bag, one without. The one I brewed without the bag I made a lower volume due to the extra trub in both the kettle and fermeter, but the beer is much, much tastier.

I'm going to continue without a bag for the time being.

I've done both... I prefer the bag. if you leave the hops very loose in the bag, I cannot see much diffrence than just throwing them as far as getting everything out of them....I have read though that you want them very loose in the bag. for example if you are tossing a large amount at once, use 2 bags.

You don't need a bag and I'm going to bet $10 that using a bag will lose you some flavor.
If you were a hop pellet stuck in a bag, you couldn't make many friends besides the ones that came up to the bag. Now if you were set free, you could go anywhere around the playground.

Just throw them right in the beer and use a 5 gallon paint strainer for when you pour into the fermentor. Straining is a waste of time for beer that uses 3 ounces or less. Any more than that and it helps a LOT to eliminate trub. It's hard to full grasp how much room 6 ounces takes up, even after you squeeze out all the water. I wouldn't be surprised if it took up 1 gallon of space when sitting at the bottom of the fermentor.

Enough rambling... just throw the hops in the boil and get a 5 gallon paint strainer for when you pour the cooled wort into the fermentor. Sanitize your hands (or rubber gloves) because you will have to squeeze the strainer bag.

I use a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in the boil. Not noticed anything going wrong ie the beer has all turned out as it should. Not having any trub in the bottom of the keggle has been wonderful. It has also cut the trub in the carboy quite significantly.

Just throw it in man!

I get nylon knee-high socks from walmart for 33 cents a pair. They come in a plastic egg like what you get out of a bubble gum machine. 1 sock can be cut into 3 1oz hop bags. I hand wash them before using. I just throw the whole hop bag into the pot. It goes up and down and all around. They also swell up really big so I'm sure they are getting lots of contact with the wort. I also grab them with the stir paddle and wipe the scum off of the pot while the boil is on. I've found hop bags help to keep some trubb out of the fermenter. This makes yeast washing easier and cleaning the fermenter easier. I use glass carboys and better bottles. I'm happy with it and plan to continue using them.

I prefer to not use a bag, the boil of the wort stirs around the whole hops and helps with the isomerization of the hop oils. I'm willing to accept a little extra trub for some better hop characteristics in my brew.

shelly_belly said:

I get nylon knee-high socks from walmart for 33 cents a pair. They come in a plastic egg like what you get out of a bubble gum machine. 1 sock can be cut into 3 1oz hop bags. I hand wash them before using. I just throw the whole hop bag into the pot. It goes up and down and all around. They also swell up really big so I'm sure they are getting lots of contact with the wort. I also grab them with the stir paddle and wipe the scum off of the pot while the boil is on. I've found hop bags help to keep some trubb out of the fermenter. This makes yeast washing easier and cleaning the fermenter easier. I use glass carboys and better bottles. I'm happy with it and plan to continue using them.

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IDK why you're paying 33 cents a pair when you can grab 4 pairs for a buck. :cross:

At least at my Walmart you can.

But I dont get so hardcore to make multiple bags out of a knee high.

Like you, I totally prefer this method. Just tie em loose!!!

I too just toss them in. The only time I lost any substantial amount to excess trub was with a double IPA with a buttload of hop pellets. The next time I brewed that recipe I just racked into the fermenter to the normal volume not giving a care as to the trub. The trub settles out just fine and the beer is just as good.

I do not worry about it, but I cold crash before racking to keg with a mesh bag on the input end of the siphon. Since I started doing no-chill and have had to adjust the hop schedule accordingly (5 minutes and under become dry hop, 20 minutes become upon transferring the hot wort to Winpak), I know that I am going to have plenty of hop debris regardless.