Help - Lots of hops getting to keg from secondary fermenter

My last 2 brews were somewhat ruined by a lot of hops making their way in to the keg from secondary fermenter. I use a rather large amount of dry hop pellets (not in a hop bag) and use a siphon to transfer the beer from the secondary to keg. So much hop material has made it to the keg that it's pretty much ruined the beer as it's super bitter with hop material. Any suggestions on how to prevent hops from getting to keg?

 

Tie a sanitised bag around the end of the syphon thats going into the fermenter, that should filter out the hops.

 

Thanks for the advice. Is this what you do? Have you ever had this problem? How do you suggest sanitizing the bag?

 

I use a SS hop tube from Arbor Fabricating in my secondary for pellets and whole hops. It keeps all the gunk out if my beer.
Since I keg condition my beers I also have screens on my dip tubes that keep any yeast or incidental crud out if my beer.


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What kind of screens are you using? Those hop tubes look nice. I might have to snag one. I wonder if you lose any Hop impact by using them?

 

I have two different sizes for my BK's & ones designed for my BB 's for dry hopping. I haven't had any issues using whole or pellet hops losing hop flavor or aroma.
Chad at Arbor Fabricating is very helpful & will make what you need to your specs.
Make sure you clean out immediately after use. If you let the hops dry out they are more difficult to clean out.
Sometimes I use a B Brite soak if needed.


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When I dry hop, I always place the hops in a grain bag before I put it in the beer, there's no reason not to; just sanitize the bag, toss it in and away it goes. Once the dry hop is done, just toss the grain bag and remaining hops into the compost, simple.

 

I had this problem recently with a pale ale. All hop additions in the boil were added directly to the boil and dry hop pellets directly into the primary, so there was a LOT of hop debris in the fermenter. I bottle (no keg) and I got tons of hop debris into the bottles, causing foamy gushing. I used a paint strainer when transferring to the bottling bucket, and it did keep some debris out. But it was obviously not a fine enough mesh to prevent the finer material from passing through.

For the next batch, I went the complete opposite direction and used a very fine-mesh hop bag for all my hop additions. The bottles have very little hop debris, but I also didn't get the amount of hop flavor and aroma that I expected.

So, for my next batch I'm thinking I may try using the bags again but add extra hops to compensate for the lower rate of absorption caused by constraining the hops in the bags.

 

I believe you do lose hop impact by using bags. I would prefer not to use them if possible as I'd like to try to create an efficient brew with the least amount of money possible. I think I'm going to try a hop bag around the base of my siphon when I transfer next time. That way the hops should be able to fully impact the beer and I can keep the hops out of the keg.

 

fwiw, I use free-swimming pellets for dry hopping in carboys, sink them with a good cold crash, then do a CO2 push to kegs. I use a piece of nylon hop bag material rubber-banded over the end of my stainless racking tube - and with a stainless steel flat washer just small enough to fit through the carboy neck inside the nylon material - all sanitized, of course. The washer prevents the nylon from collapsing around the tube and keeps the beer flowing easily even with the largest pellet charge. Debris never makes it to a keg...

Cheers!

 

What is a CO2 push to keg? A picture of your setup with the washer and the nylon material would be awesome. That sounds like it would work well.

 

Whole hops + grain bag.

 

Ok, so I use the longer rig on the carboy holding beer, snap on a gas QD from one of my CO2 systems, then either attach the tubing with the black beer QD if I'm transferring to a keg, or the plain tubing to connect to the shorter rig if I'm racking to a clean carboy for "secondary" purposes (these days I only do this for my stouts, fwiw). The SS washer is ~1-1/8" OD and is inside a piece of nylon hop bag material roughly 4" square rubber banded to the end of the longer dip tube.

The "push" rig (longer) has worm clamps everywhere to conserve CO2. I found without them the cap would leak around the carboy neck and around the dip tube, and of course the gas connector itself.

I start out with everything connected and the long dip tube pulled up above the beer line. If I'm racking to a keg I lock the manual PRV open, turn on the CO2 at about a half psi, and let the system flush for awhile. Essentially the same if racking between carboys, just no QD or PRV involved.

Then I submerge the diptube in the beer to within an inch or so of the yellow marker to get the beer moving. Near the end of the transfer I'll slide the diptube down so the washer rests on top of the hops and trubby substrate and can draw the whole carboy virtually dry without issue - and leaving all the debris behind (not quite done with that last pic but getting there).

As I exclusively "slow carb" (aka "set and forget") there'll be a good two to three weeks minimum at dispensing temperature in my carbing/cold-holding fridge for any smaller bits to settle out on the bottom of the keg. Typically there's just a coating left, a couple of tablespoons at most...

Cheers!

 

I appreciate the time you took to share. This is great. I've never seen this before. I did attempt to use a washer and hop bag last weekend with poor results. Half way through the transfer the hop bag clogged up with debris. I had to pull the siphon out, remove the bag and transfer. I hope I didn't contaminate. I wonder if #1, your setup works better than mine because of the carbonation push vs. my siphon or #2 because your pulling the beer from about an inch above the hops & yeast cake and not grabbing beer from the bottom until the very end??? Either way, my first attempt was a failure at this with my siphon, hop bag & washer. I ended up filtering the beer through my filter system to another keg and ended up with a very clean product, so I made it all work out, but I've got to get this problem figured out. I'm almost always doing heavy dry hopping.

 

Wow. I missed this a year ago, and only discovered it today when linking the thread to a related one.

So, for the record, the much belated answer is: as I described, I place the dip tube so the washer is suspended about an inch about the substrate, run the beer almost down to it, then ease the dip tube lower to get the rest - while propping the carboy on a slant (left that last bit out before)...

Cheers!