Dry hopping floaters!

[roosmur]

I have just dry hopped some Stygian goldings leaf hops into a glass carboy directly (no hop bag) and I have noticed it is not sinking but just sitting on the top (in fact some of it is actually not even touching the beer). Will it sink as it gets waterlogged or have I done something wrong?

 

[Upthewazzu]

With leaf hops, it's best to put 'em in a bag with a marble so they sink and stay together.

 

[daksin]

They will eventually soak up some wort and sink, but some may stay floating. You should be fine either way.

 

[day_trippr]

If you didn't thoroughly flush the head space with CO2 - or introduce the dry hops before final gravity was reached - you should be careful about potentially causing an infection by allowing whole hops to float on the surface. It doesn't always result in a problem but I've seen a heck of a lot of "Is It Infected?" posts where there was sock load of cones sitting right in the middle of an obvious pellicle. So it seems like weighting the hop bag might be prudent...

Cheers!

 

[roosmur]

Thanks very much. First time dry hopping. I hope the beer isn't infected because it has been a perfect batch til now. Will use a hop bag weighted in future.



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[GCPHomebrew]

Don't use a hop bag. Then you will complain about infection from the bag. Use pellets and cold crash. The pellets soak up beer, causing a huge green covering. In the fridge they drop almost as soon as the beer is down to temp. I've cold crashed for 24 hours before with perfect results- ie no hops in my beer


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[GCPHomebrew]

Ps swirl the Carboy to get beer on the hops


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[fartinmartin]

Hops won't infect your beer ! It's a centuries old practise and proven.
I have done loads with sanitised hop bags, weighted and not waited, also done loads with loose whole and pellet hops. The biggest concern to me it the exposed bag material being in the damp environment exposed above the brew, but have never had an infection (hundreds of brews). It's quite common for the whole hops to float for a week or so. The pellet hops will also come to the surface for a few days, then sink. As the whole hops won't infect your brew, the safest is loose hops or loose pellets. The only difference the bag gives me is a slightly easier clean up at bottling.

Infection is from something in the whole brewing sanitation and environment control, not hops.