Question bout dry hopping

I put my hops into a carboy, then I took the beer from fermenter & put into carboy. Should it look like this:

Yup perfectly normal

Good!!! I thought I did something wrong!!! Lol!!! It doesn't look like 5 gallons to me though. Did the hops suck up the beer? How long should I dry hop? Did it on Monday.

unionrdr said:

I usually dry hop 7 days. And yes,they do soak up some beer. If you'd have put them in a muslin grain sack,you could've squeezed them by pulling the sack out.

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Thanks for the help!!! I'll use a muslin sack next time!!!

BrewMonkster said:

Thanks for the help!!! I'll use a muslin sack next time!!!

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One more question, how do I go about getting the 5 gallons?

I plan my brewing process to include an estimate of the quantity that will be absorbed by the whole leaf hops. (Pellet hops do not absorb as much but have other disadvantages). There fore the amount of water and grain I use and the amount that goes into the boil kettle and the amount that goes into the fermenter is planned out so that I get 5 gallons when all is said and done. Being an all grain brewer I have control over the process and since I designed and built my own equipment based on the process I use. Also I have measured and taken notes over two years of tweaking the equipment and process.

There is a thread : https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/leaf-hops-what-do-they-absorb-101226/ that does a little analysis of hop absorption rates.


Edit that is not the right thread ... still looking for it:
Experience and research is about the best advice I can offer...

Good Luck

EDIT: here is the correct link: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/leaf-hop-absorption-measured-241469/

BrewMonkster said:

One more question, how do I go about getting the 5 gallons?

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If your bucket (or whatever you primary in) is big enough, plan on going into primary with an extra quarter or half-gallon, so you can rack a full five gallons of clear beer to secondary and still leave the yeast/trub/etc behind.

That, or just don't sweat it -- unless you're multiple gallons short, your beer will have more than enough dissolved CO2 to displace all the normal air left in the headspace of the carboy, and four and a half gallons is still a ton of beer.

Thanks for all the great advice!!! For my next batch, I'm gonna order from Rebel Brewing, their extract kits say they start with 5.5 gallons so in the end, you end up with 5 gallons. Anybody ordered from them? http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/