Dry Hopping gone wrong?

[Krusty_Duck_Brewing_Co]

Hey Brewers,
I just bottled a batch of pale that I was experimenting with to learn more of the process, either way i noticed some trace amounts of hops floating about. The only thing i did was add hop pellets to my batch. Is this common? Did I go about it wrong? and how can i prevent this in the future?

 

[unionrdr]

Tie a hop sack over the end of your auto siphon,or sock the hop pellets to begin with. I sock my dry hops to keep the mess down.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

it's fine. i never use a hop bag, usually use whole hops, but sometimes pellets. you just have to be careful and rack from the center of the beer to start. then adjust the siphon as needed to get all the beer and minimal hops material. even if some hops get transferred, it's not a problem, just try to keep it to a minimum.

 

[RM-MN]

When you try to bottle the hop particles will get stuck in the bottling wand if you use one. Then the valve on it will leak and finally the wand will get plugged. A paint strainer bag tied over the end of the siphon stopped that problem for me.

 

[Krusty_Duck_Brewing_Co]

I've seen my supplier carries a thing called a "hop ball" It claims to stop this, do these work well? or could you use a muslin bag to the same effect?

 

[unionrdr]

I thought about buying those myself at one time. But I read on here they get the hop pellets packet too tight when the 1oz of pellets expand. So the flow through wouldn't be very good. So I stuck with hop sacks.

 

[Krusty_Duck_Brewing_Co]

I had also read they were terrible for the boil but good for dry hopping, guess i'll have to investigate. I noticed the bottles i filled yesterday have hops floating around the top and such, should they pull to the bottom over the next 14 days of conditioning or will i have to filter the beer in some form to drink it?

 

[unionrdr]

I had that happen on a couple bottles once. They usually settle out. But may not compact on the bottom as well as the yeast.

 

[PJM]

If you are able to cold crash for a couple days before bottling that helps drop all the particles to the bottom. Then, with enough practice, you can rack to the bottling bucket without getting much junk in your bottles.

 

[Krusty_Duck_Brewing_Co]

I guess, worst case ill pour the beer through cheese cloth before drinking it.....but I do think I'm gonna try a hop ball, I only do around 2gal. batches, & only dry hopped with 1/2oz. of hops, so I don't see the ball being over packed in that use!

But thanks for all the replies!