Straining Hops

[scrump316]

I recently bought a homebrew kit, that came with a pilsner ingredient kit. The booklet that came with it said to, in a nutshell, boil the ingredients and add to cold water. There was no mention of straining the hops out before adding to the fermenter. I'm currently reading The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and it says in there that whenever you add hops, you need to strain them out before adding to the fermenter.

Which is correct? Is my beer going to taste like crap because I didn't strain the hops before adding to the fermenter?

I appreciate any help or feedback.

 

[Schumed]

I've made plenty of great beer without straining ... Most of the hop material will drop to the bottom if you don't filter... If you want to filter easiest thing to do is put the hops in a nylon bag of some kind...I personally use a hop spider ...easy $10 DIY project....either way you will make beer

 

[drainbamage]

You can get some off flavors if you let the beer sit on the hops for a long time (extended aging/conditioning), but it isn't a huge deal. The biggest thing is that you probably don't want all that stuff suspended in your beer when you drink it.

The good thing is that most of the hop gunk will accumulate in a ring around the top of the carboy or settle to the bottom as it ferments. Are you planning on lagering? If so, you can transfer it to another container for secondary fermentation. Make sure not to agitate the wort too much (so it stays settled), and try putting a nylon paint strainer bag on the end of your racking tube or auto-siphon. Make sure to sanitize the bag. That should filter out most of the hop flakes. If you aren't lagering, just filter it like that at bottling time.

 

[ian3588]

I have a question as well. How does one strain hops?

 

[drainbamage]

I have a question as well. How does one strain hops?

There are lots of ways. You can sweep a kitchen strainer through the wort at the end of the boil or pour the wort through the strainer when transferring from the brew kettle to the primary fermenter. You can also make a tool that you can boil the hops in so they aren't floating around loose in the wort the whole time (search "hop spider").

Later in the brewing process you can put a nylon bag strainer on the end of the racking tube or whatever you use to siphon the beer when bottling or transferring between containers. Paint strainer bags are cheap and work great! Plus, if you don't stir up your fermenter much, most of the hop snot will just fall to the bottom and you can just rack the good stuff from over it.

I usually strain a couple times for each batch: once by running the wort through a kitchen strainer when adding to the primary, and once by putting a strainer bag on the end of my auto-siphon when I transfer to secondary or bottle. You'll always have a little bit of hop sediment left (especially if using pellet hops), but that will get the vast majority of it.

 

[scrump316]

Thank you! I let the hops ferment with the beer for a week, then siphoned the beer to a bottling bucket. The bottled beer has now been aging for about 2 weeks. This is my first batch, so I'm hoping it turns out ok.

 

[Jeepinctbrewer]

Pour it all in, it will settle