Successful Dry Hopping Techniques?

Using the bag is fine, be sure you can fish it out of the carboy after it's swelling with hops, or if you can but the bag up after you've emptied the beer.

4oz is... a big much, IMO to waste on dry hopping it. I'd say 2oz is fine for an average IPA, unless you really lack hop aroma from a lackluster hop schedule. Save the hops unless you want to burn them anyways.

I wouldn't add any extra yeast.. Thats just wasting yeast, will add a bunch of crap to the beer to not make it clear better.

Dry hop it for however long you want. I'd suggest a week with 2 ounces. Bottle it, and give it 3 weeks before you go wild on it. At 2 weeks, you can open and see whatcha think. It'll only get better.

Well that's what I was looking for. Someone to give me some advice about whether or not my final plan was a good one. When I went to the brew supply store here in Fort Collins the guy who was working there said that since it has been 6 months since I brewed it that my yeast was probably dead and that I should add the yeast when I add my sugar and then bottle it. ??? I just took his advice and that's why I posted my plan here since I had such a wide array of advice and ideas from my research on the web. If you think it's not going to help in any way or if it may be harmful then I won't do that. I'm going to wait just one more day to see if anyone can tell me why adding yeast when I bottle it would be a good idea or if anyone else thinks it would be a bad idea.

My revised plan, rack it, add 2 oz of cascade hops (Not 4) in a bag. wait 1 week, bottle it, wait one week taste it, wait another week and taste it, wait another week and taste it etc. Thanks again for any advice. I really do appreciate your opinions and ideas etc. Really really truly happy that I decided to go here before scrapping the whole thing. Cheers!

Sounds good. But just wait two weeks for it to carb if you are bottling. Otherwise, you be the judge.

Here is how I do it on my 7 BBL system It shouldn't be any different on yours.
1. I prepare my conditioning/serving tank by sanitizing it, adding a layer of CO2 which will keep the beer away from O2 when I transfer, and I tie my pellet hops in a nylon paint strainer bag to a racking arm.
2. I transfer my beer out of the fermenter to the server. (It takes about 6 days to ferment which includes a 24 hour diacytal rest and crash chill.
3. I let the beer condition out for about 5 days then carbonate and serve. It is usually gone within three weeks.
If I was home brewing I would go from my fermenter (carboy or whatever) to a corny keg. I wold tie the hop bag to the product tube. After 4 days I would carbonate by pressure and rocking the keg, then either serve or bottle.
Cheers,
Tom

After reading this whole thread, I feel I should give my 2 cents. I primary ferment. However long it takes to reach my final gravity. Rack to a CO2 purged secondary carboy. Then cold condition for atleast 2 days. Remove from fridge and either keg with dry hops in a bag or dryhop in secondary without a bag if I am bottling. I normally use whole cones and don't have problems with hop floaties. If I'm using pellets in the dryhop I just leave the autosyphon above the hop bed at the bottom of the fermenter. As far as how long, I am still undecided. I have had great results with a 5 day dryhop at 68 degrees or a 14 day. The 5 day seems more crisp/bright aroma and flavor while the 2 week seemed to have a more saturated aroma and flavor that lasted longer. And I always brew 6 gallons to fill a 5 gallon keg. Quality not quantity. If you do get chunky in a transfer let it settle a bit before bottling. And let that last bit go.

Im lazy, i just throw 2oz of hops in the keg when its carbing.

Then 7-14 days whenever i feel its ready and have a chance i pull it out.

Ok so I am thinking of the 3 in mesh ball that could attach to the dip tube. How much sediment is there from this going into the beer?

Based of Indie Hops research that all essential aroma compounds are extracted within 24 hours, I never dry hop for more then three days, although on my hop bomb IPAs I'll do a 36 hour dry hop, then bottle. Keep it fresh

bellmtbbq said:

Based of Indie Hops research that all essential aroma compounds are extracted within 24 hours, I never dry hop for more then three days, although on my hop bomb IPAs I'll do a 36 hour dry hop, then bottle. Keep it fresh

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Link to this information please. I generally dry hop for 5 days. I have found that longer leads to a loss of aroma, but if 3 days is optimal, I'm game. Would like to see the evidence.

I am going to dry hop with leaf, and was wondering about sanitation. Do I just throw them in there? It won't infect my beer? I was thinking about at least steaming them. If not boiling for a few sec. And then dumping. Is this necessary?

I just. Take them from the bag, weigh them in a clean vessel and drop them in a sanitized mesh bag. I tie off the bag and drop it in the beer. Never had a problem.

I just dry hopped a pale ale with pellets....I thought I read somewhere that 3 days was long enough or you might get some bad flavors or unwanted flavors.

BUT....I read here that many let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks after dropping in pellets.

Bad flavors or better settling?? Thanks for any further thoughts.

I've always heard longer makes it grassy and i like my beers fresh and hoppy. I do 3-5 days and just try to be clean in my racking.


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I'm a week away from dry hopping with 3 oz of Citra and was debating on just sprinkling the pellets through the carboy opening in the primary and not doing a secondary. Has anyone done this and/or is it really that bad to not secondary if dry hopping?

copper2hopper said:

I'm a week away from dry hopping with 3 oz of Citra and was debating on just sprinkling the pellets through the carboy opening in the primary and not doing a secondary. Has anyone done this and/or is it really that bad to not secondary if dry hopping?

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I've done this with no ill effects, especially if only 1 dry hop is called for in my recipe.

If I need multiple dry hoppings then I usually crash chill to drop yeast then transfer to keg, let warm up/sit at room temp and insert a sanitized SS cylinder with the hops in it connected to dental floss. After 4 days I pull the floss out of the keg, dump hops, resanitize, insert new hops and dental floss, insert back into keg and purge. I repeat that as necessary.

I've been dry hopping for seven days now and there's a noticeable amount of activity going on in the carboy with the hop particles. I will be bottling tomorrow and plan on doing paint strainer on the end of the tube in the bottling bucket method for racking. I'm just curios though....is that noticeable activity normal??? Or does that mean something bad?

copper2hopper said:

I've been dry hopping for seven days now and there's a noticeable amount of activity going on in the carboy with the hop particles. I will be bottling tomorrow and plan on doing paint strainer on the end of the tube in the bottling bucket method for racking. I'm just curios though....is that noticeable activity normal??? Or does that mean something bad?

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I know you've already checked your gravity once, but do it again. If it's changed since the last time then one would have to conclude the yeast is still working.

BTW, our ZDs are about on the same schedule. I'm gonna pull my dry hops today (used a paint strainer bag), cold crash this week and then keg next weekend.

Gravity remained damn near the same as it was 8 days ago so it was all good and that noticeable activity didn't hurt anything. 1.010 to a 1.009. Bottling went well and ended up with exactly 8 6-packs. Can't wait to crack one next weekend

copper2hopper said:

I've been dry hopping for seven days now and there's a noticeable amount of activity going on in the carboy with the hop particles. I will be bottling tomorrow and plan on doing paint strainer on the end of the tube in the bottling bucket method for racking. I'm just curios though....is that noticeable activity normal??? Or does that mean something bad?

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It's normal in my experience. The addition of hop particles creates nucleation sites and what you're seeing is the carbon dioxide coming out of solution. I don't cold crash, but doing so increases the capacity for the liquid to hold onto the CO2, so it stops coming out of solution and allows the hops to sink. I think the mesh bag on the end of the hose works great!