Dry Hopping in Carboy

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akervin

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What technique do you use to dry hop in a carboy. I'm concerned about retreaving the bag with the hops in it. Just wondering if anyone had some tips to suspending/or sinking the bag of hops.

Was thinking about putting a couple marbles in the bag, sanitized of course, and the tying one end in a knot and doubling up some sewing thread that's been boiled in water around the sack and up through the opening. Putting the airlock back on and suspending the sack in the middle of the beer.

Is this to much work? Should I just put the sack in and syphon the beer out and then get the sack of hops afterwards?
 
I'm no expert, I just dumped them in and filtered it all out when I transferred to the bottling bucket...
 
My concern is filtering may expose the beer to to much oxygen and cause oxidation during the bottling process.
 
Heck ive only done it by throwing them straight in. I let primary ferment out then i rack the beer to a secondary on top of the hops. I've even let the beer ferment out completely (3+ weeks to insure yeast flocculation) and dry hopped in the primary with good results. I just rack a few inches above the cake and everything is butter.
 
I dump in pellets. I soak a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in star San then place it over the racking/ auto siphon tube. Works great. Never had a problem.
 
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Like this, then stick it in the fermenting vessel.
 
I just throw them in the secondary. After 7 to 10 days, I put my secondary into a cooler (or in the garage depending on your climate) at about 32f for 48 hours or so to crash cool the beer. This sends the hops to the bottom with everything else and leaves a crystal clear beer to rack. This works great for me but I keg everything and don't worry about losing yeast. I don't know how this would effect the yeast for bottling, but I have seen where others here do this without any problems bottling.
 
I've only used whole hops to dry hop in a secondary carboy. Just hucked 'em in (no bag), and racked the brew right on top of 'em. They all float to the top. So I use a little Star-san on my SS spoon handle and gently push 'em down a little. Then let 'em sit until I'm ready to bottle.

I just rack right out of the secondary with an auto siphon into the bottling bucket. No strainer at all. All the hops and hop crud pretty much stay afloat on top. There is very little to no hop stuff in my bottling bucket or my bottles when done.

Only sucky part about whole hops for dry hopping is they tend to suck up a little beer with them. Cleaning them out of the carboy is EZPZ...

Gary
 
I went ahead and dry hopped straight in the carboy (pictures below). Now I gotta go get a filter in the form of a paint filter from the depot.

That's her sister in the back ground... Fuggles IPA. She's in week 2 getting ready to move her to conditioning for 4 weeks.

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this is generally my method of dry hopping.
HPIM0568.jpg
after a week, all those cones will be soaked and you can rack from underneath them, or if you're using a lot of hops, try a strainer bag over the end of the siphon. :mug:
 
What technique do you use to dry hop in a carboy. I'm concerned about retreaving the bag with the hops in it. Just wondering if anyone had some tips to suspending/or sinking the bag of hops.

Was thinking about putting a couple marbles in the bag, sanitized of course, and the tying one end in a knot and doubling up some sewing thread that's been boiled in water around the sack and up through the opening. Putting the airlock back on and suspending the sack in the middle of the beer.

Is this to much work? Should I just put the sack in and syphon the beer out and then get the sack of hops afterwards?

i put two marbles in with some pellets in a bag but it wasnt heavy enough to sink the bag but it does make it so its not completely floating at the top. just add more marbles
 
Hurgh. If carboys didn't look so great ferming I'd probably just use buckets - dry hopping is such a friggin' drag! I'm likely going to dryhop with pellets, which should minimize the mess… I hope.

Getting a hop sock through the neck of the carboy sounds like a nightmare.
 
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