Racking to Secondary and Hop Leaves

[gmcastil]

I've got an imperial IPA in the primary fermenter that I hopped during the boil with loose hops. When I transferred from the boil kettle to the carboy a lot of the hop leaves wound up in the primary - it clogged my auto-siphon, so I wound up needing to use the funnel instead.

I want to transfer to a secondary to dry-hop and to make it easier to bottle later without all the leaves in there.

My question is simple - I've got leaves and hops all over my primary fermenter. How do I transfer to the secondary without it getting clogged and running into problems? Is there a simple solution that I'm not seeing?

 

[tjacobsx22]

From now on maybe use a hop bag for whole leaf hops when you boil. Order the hop bag now and when it comes in put it over the end of the racking cane to act as a filter. Not sure what else you could do to keep the leaves off the end of the racking cane.

 

[scurry64]

Pour it from your primary into your secondary through a colander sitting inside a mesh strainer . . . after having sanitized everything, of course.

 

[two_one_seven]

Pour it from your primary into your secondary through a colander sitting inside a mesh strainer . . . after having sanitized everything, of course.

Don't do this. This will oxidize your beer and make it taste really bad.

 

[phenry]

I've got an imperial IPA in the primary fermenter that I hopped during the boil with loose hops. When I transferred from the boil kettle to the carboy a lot of the hop leaves wound up in the primary - it clogged my auto-siphon, so I wound up needing to use the funnel instead.

I want to transfer to a secondary to dry-hop and to make it easier to bottle later without all the leaves in there.

My question is simple - I've got leaves and hops all over my primary fermenter. How do I transfer to the secondary without it getting clogged and running into problems? Is there a simple solution that I'm not seeing?

You can wrap some nylon around the end of your autosiphon (end in your primary) to act as somewhat of a filter. Whenever I dry hop with leaf hops I start the siphon in the middle of the beer when racking to my bottling bucket, and making sure to stay off the trub and under the layer of hops. I've only had a siphon clog one time, but that was when I had 5 oz of leaf hops loose in my fermenter.

Do not pour your beer or let it splash in any way, you really want to avoid oxidation at this point.

 

[gmcastil]

Pour it from your primary into your secondary through a colander sitting inside a mesh strainer . . . after having sanitized everything, of course.

This is unwise - would easily lead to oxidation.

 

[gmcastil]

You can wrap some nylon around the end of your autosiphon (end in your primary) to act as somewhat of a filter. Whenever I dry hop with leaf hops I start the siphon in the middle of the beer when racking to my bottling bucket, and making sure to stay off the trub and under the layer of hops. I've only had a siphon clog one time, but that was when I had 5 oz of leaf hops loose in my fermenter.

I think I'll do something like this - I'll wrap a hop bag around the end of the auto-siphon before I stick it in the fermenter. This was my first time with loose hops and from now on, I'm going to use hop bags for them just like I do for hop pellets.

Do not pour your beer or let it splash in any way, you really want to avoid oxidation at this point.

Agreed. The only time I have ever used a funnel for transferring the wort was on this batch and that was only after it was cooled down and prior to pitching my yeast and aeration.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[Just-a-Guy]

You can wrap some nylon around the end of your autosiphon (end in your primary) to act as somewhat of a filter. Whenever I dry hop with leaf hops I start the siphon in the middle of the beer when racking to my bottling bucket, and making sure to stay off the trub and under the layer of hops. I've only had a siphon clog one time, but that was when I had 5 oz of leaf hops loose in my fermenter.

Do not pour your beer or let it splash in any way, you really want to avoid oxidation at this point.

5 ounces?! Wow. Is that commonly done? What kind of beer was it? I just bottled a stout that I dry-hopped with one ounce of Cascade and I thought it was a lot of hops in there. Can't imagine 5 ounces... Wouldn't most of it just sit on top of the beer anyway (most of my one ounce never touched the liquid)...?

Oh, to the OP, I took the advice here and used a mesh bag on my autosiphon last time, to avoid clogging from hop leaves, and it worked great.