Burst Muslin Bag

So other than my VERY experimental brew, I decided to brew something a bit more conventional. Brewing a straight laced Irish Red Ale, my muslin bag somehow broke open during the boil. As a result the Amarillo Hop Pellets went straight into the wort and quickly dissolved (sort of) into the wort. I continued as normal (with finishing hops, then transferring to fermenter). Not having had this happen before I am a bit curious as to how this might taste. I'm sure I could get some of it out during the racking, but wasn't so sure what the overall taste might be. Wondered if anyone else had this happen.

I go back and forth between using a hop bag and chucking the hops directly into the boil. There is nothing wrong with either. After you chill, whirlpool vigorously, lid and let sit for 20 minutes. The trub (hot/cold break and hop matter) will form a cone in the middle of the brew pot. That makes it easy to avoid racking most of the gunk into a primary.


Edit: were you brewing at 3am?

I don't use anything to contain hops in the boil, but I do strain into the fermenter. Some folks dump everything into the fermenter. It's all good, the hops will settle out. I don't even think you'd notice a difference if you made the recipe again and removed the hops.

I've never used a hops bag, and my hops go right into the boil. So far, so good!

Don't worry- they'll all settle to the bottom with the spent yeast and other stuff that makes up the trub. After primary, you can rack right off of it and it'll be fine!

Edcculus said:

Edit: were you brewing at 3am?

Click to expand...

Well no, I was at work where I brew...well....petroleum by-products via fermentations. I had a quite lengthy break waiting for my vessels to stop sterilizing (going from 121* C to 25*C in 150 L can take awhile). Anyhow, I hadn't really worked with the pellets before and thought that I might write it in and see.

As an update on my genetically modified yeast....

Done fermenting in 4 days (I'll probably allow it to sit at least another 4 to 6 days). Projected Alcohol content is at ~9.5%. I was actually shooting for a bit more, but I don't think there was enough fermentables in the wort.

Thanks for the tips guys and gals!