First time dry hopping with whole leaf...

[chungking]

Well, thinking I knew what I was doing, I dumped an oz of centennial whole leaf hops into my primary, and my initial reaction was, " oh ****". One oz of whole leaf looks like a whole lot more then 1 oz of pellets. I have dry hopped with pellets before, but always used a bag. No bag this time. I gently stirred the hops in and closed the fermenter. Is this going to be a royal pain in the arse to rack? Any tips for racking?

 

[jonnyp1980]

I use whole hops 90% of the time. They don't sink and just rest on the top. I have never had a problem syphoning with whole leaf.

 

[KGB09]

Shouldn't be a problem to rack. Hopefully you waited till active fermentation was over and most of the yeast floculated. You might loose a lot of the aroma otherwise.

 

[chungking]

It was in primary for 2 weeks. Went from 1.050 to 1.012. Pretty sure it was stable.

Is using a bag with marble better then just letting them float loose?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

I recommend marbles plural. I dry hopped with leaf for the first time with my homegrown Centennials from last year. Thought I was being smart and put 5 marbles in the bag. Then quickly realized how big 1 oz of leaf hop winds up being. Getting the bag into and out of the carboy was an adventure and the hops merely laughed at 5 marbles and floated the entire time.
Don't know if I'll dry hop with leaf again. I'll probably use homegrowns for late additions so I can deal with them easier in the kettle.

 

[Yooper]

I never use a bag, and I wouldn't put marbles or stuff in it if I did. Just make sure that the hops are in contact with the beer, so if you use a bag don't bag it too tightly.

You don't have to stir in the hops, and risk oxidation. You can just gently add them. Then, as they absorb the beer and the beer permeates them, they will get moistened. They don't need to be sunk in the beer to do their work, and racking them is pretty easy.

I start a siphon in the middle of the beer, and lower the siphon as the beer level lowers. The autosiphon has a black tip on it that helps avoid sucking up hops debris.

I use hops from my own hops plants quite a bit, and have had great results! Here are a couple of photos:

 

[chungking]

Well, I dumped the hops in and gently stirred them in to even them out and make sure they all contacted the beer, then I shut the lid. Hopefully that won't cause oxidation...

 

[Krovitz]

I use a 1 gallon paint strainer from homedepot. Put it on your racking cane with an elastic, just make sure the bag is a little loose so it won't clog up. Works like a charm.