Dry Hopping and floaters

My third brew is a Triple Hearted IPA which I racked to the secondary and let it set for a week. After which I noticed that it had lots of floaters that settled within the top 2 inches. This is the first time that I just dumped my hops into the boiling wort without first putting them in a bag. The floaters look to be hops but they don’t seem to be settling to the bottom. Yesterday after 1 week in the secondary I went ahead and dry hopped and this morning all of the hops are floating on the top about a ¼ inch thick.

Now I’m guessing that all is well but I was hoping to keg this next week but I’m not sure how to make sure that the hops don’t get racked into my keg where you know it will cause all manner of trouble with my valves.

On a side note when I pulled the airlock to dry hop, the aroma of the hops already in the beer was unbelievable. Waiting to taste this is going to be a killer.

Thanks all for your help and advise.

Try clamping a small muslin grain bag over the end of your racking cane or autosiphon. It'll slow your siphon down some, but that way you'll leave all that hops material behind in the carboy.

did you use pellets or whole hops? pellets should sink but the whole ones will stay in suspension. like suggested filter the rack using muslim bag. next time dry hop in a bag, a lot less mess.

rack it very carefully with your syphon. no really.
Some racking canes have this nifty widget on the botom of the cane to prevent shmenk from getting in.
One other option, is to rack it to another vessel for another 5-7 days then into a keg.

The hops that do escape to the keg wil settle out, and if in the event the hops get clogged in the line, may easliy be remedied by taking the gas input, and putting it on the output for second or two to blast the hops out of the line.
Make sense?

The muslin bag and a tertiary racking are both great ideas. I did a 90 min IPA w/ no muslin bag or anything and had hops in my keg. My point is I couldn't believe how big the size of hop pieces that made it into my glass were. You'd really have to get a lot of hops in the keg to completely clog the line. R.D.W.H.A.H.B.

I used pellet hops in both the boil as well as dry hopping. 1 oz of Centennial at 60, 30, 5 and then dry hopped after 1 week in the secondary. The floaters had all settled within 2 inches of the top of the beer and looked like very small leaves. They have settled out since dry hopping. Now I have a ¼ inch thick layer of hops laying on the top.

I guess I’ll take all of your advice and use a muslin bag over the end of my racking cane and then rack it to a tertiary for a week and then keg it.

I have very high hopes for this brew and if it turns out nearly as nice as the aroma it’s going to be glorious.

Once again I couldn’t do this without all of your help.

Thank You All

Put a sock on it!

A nylon knee-hi on the output of the siphon will catch everything. Tie an extra piece of string to it, so if it slips off the tube, you can still pull it out.