Dry Hop question

[raven77]

I am currently fermenting a batch of LakeFront Brewing Fixed Gear Red ale from Northern Brewer. It stats to dry hop the last 7 days of fermentation in my secondary. I am using a glass carboy as my secondary. What is the best way to dry hop?? Just drop the hop pellets in and strain when adding to my bottling bucket or is there another way to do it that is easier?
Thanks for your advice
Cheers

 

[sroberts]

I've read where plenty of folks have tossed pellets into the carboy but I've not had good results with that method. I've done that twice and both times found too much hop "dust" remained in suspension. I didn't cold condition the first batch and it had a greenish color that eventually dropped out. The second batch was cold conditioned for a week at 35 deg, and that hastened the drop out of the hop powder but still left too much in suspension at bottling time. Both sets of bottles eventually had a dark trub layer where the hops *finally* settled. I won't dry hop with pellets again, unless I find a way to filter. Also I found both of these batches smelled a bit yeasty and I suspect the suspended hops prevented some of the yeast from settling.

 

[HeadyKilowatt]

On my last dry-hopped batch I just put the pellets in the carboy and racked on top of them. Then at bottling time, I tried lining my bucket with a sanitized 5-gallon paint strainer (an idea I got on HBT!), racked into the bucket as usual, then just removed the paint strainer and hop powder. Worked great! All the really fine stuff that the paint strainer didn't catch just settled out in the bottles.

 

[MW66]

I use those really large SS clam shell tea balls with pellet hops. Since I keg, I suspend them from the inside lid (morebeer.com has a special lid with a tab welded underneath to suspend them) and daisy chain them together if using more than 1 ounce (1 ounce per SS ball). Then, after the time is up, I pop open the lid, pull out the tea balls, switch it out to one of my normal lids, and place my keezer to carbonate and chill. To me, this is the easiest method that I have found.

 

[brycelarson]

I use those really large SS clam shell tea balls with pellet hops. Since I keg, I suspend them from the inside lid (morebeer.com has a special lid with a tab welded underneath to suspend them) and daisy chain them together if using more than 1 ounce (1 ounce per SS ball). Then, after the time is up, I pop open the lid, pull out the tea balls, switch it out to one of my normal lids, and place my keezer to carbonate and chill. To me, this is the easiest method that I have found.

that works well - but if you don't have a fancy lid you can use plain waxed dental floss to hang them. You just close the lid on it - it's too thin to cause a problem.

Just don't use mint.