Dry hopping with pellets

I dry hopped my Gumball Head clone with pellet hops. It's been about 10 days. The beer looks good but there is a lot of suspended matter from the pellet hops. Any concern that they didn't do their job?

 

Never dry hopped with pellet hops but what I've read you should have used a hop bag. If you didn't yes you'll have some troubles there.

 

I've dryhopped with and without the baggie; I prefer without. Why would you think that seeing a lot of suspended hop particulate would imply that they *didn't* do their job though? Getting all the hoppy goodness distributed through the liquid is precisely why I refrain from bagging them.

The right place and time for a hop bag is on the end of your siphon when you're racking off/bottling. That way the particulate stays with the trub and you still get awesome extraction from the hops. Sounds like you're in good shape.

 

A hop bag will do no good, just search plenty of discussions on this. Cold crash then bottle/keg.

 

Make sure that if you dry hop with pellets not in a bag that you do, as mentioned, and put a bag on the end of the siphon. I've had hop pellet matter clog a dip tube/keg post before and it was not fun.

 

I respectfully dissagree with the ones who claim dry hopping with a bag will do no good. I love the flavor and aroma dry hopping gives the beer and I use this method a lot. I dry hop with pellet hops and a muslin bag weighted with big glass marbles to sink the bag. I tie floss to the bag so I can control how far down the bag suspends into the fermenter. I get a lot of hop flavor and aroma, and none of the mess associated with using pellet hops - it DOES work. Just make sure you do not put more than 1 ounce in or you will have a hard time pulling the bag back out of the carboy once those pellet hops expand.

Dan

 

Hop bags do no good,WTF?! I use them all the time,& the only thing that gets through the material is the fine dusty stuff. And technically,there's not a lot of difference between hop bags & pitching them loose,save for the mess.

 

We seem to have drifted from the OP's question...

I dry hop with pellet hops. I get suspended material. It settles. The beer is good.

B

 

Not drifting at all,they are related aspects. You dry hop without sacks,you get bigger mess. Same amount of flavor/aroma with out as with. Use bag,less mess. Me not so lazy.

 

No problems with pellets. Start you siphon in the middle of the beer, slowly moving it down as the beer level drops. You can avoid almost all the hop material this way. It's how I do it and I rarely, if ever, see a sign of loose dry hops in a finished beer.
As for the bag, tried that, and man was it an adventure getting the swollen bag of hops back out of my carboy.