Dry Hopping....Got to be a better way

[ETCS]

For the first time, I decided to dry hop my Amber Ale...3 weeks in primary....racked to secondary...onto 1 oz Chinook and 1oz. Cascade, whole leaf hops. They were not in any muslin bag, cheese cloth etc, just loose in the carboy for 7 days....Here's the rub....I went to transfer to my keg today, what a mess. First I tried cheese cloth tied to my racking cane didn't work....tried a new stocking that my wife had in here drawer, just as bad. Long story short, I had about 1.5 gallons left in the carboy...I wound up using a funnel and paint stainer bag and poured the rest in the keg. Not aging it for any length of time, going to let it sit in the fridge over night and then the start force carb process.

Any suggestions?

 

[david_42]

Put the beer in the keg, the hops in the sock, and the sock in the keg. Pull the sock after a week and carbonate.

 

[ETCS]

Why are the simplest solutions the hardest to think of? Thanks for un-skipping my record.

 

[BierMuncher]

Yeah, heavy dry hopping, leaf hops and carboys are a tough combo.

I'll actually rack back to a bucket then use a 1-gallon paint strainer bag (Lowe's) to hold the hops with a few sanitized marbles to weigh them down.

 

[Seven]

For the first time, I decided to dry hop my Amber Ale...3 weeks in primary....racked to secondary...onto 1 oz Chinook and 1oz. Cascade, whole leaf hops. They were not in any muslin bag, cheese cloth etc, just loose in the carboy for 7 days....Here's the rub....I went to transfer to my keg today, what a mess. First I tried cheese cloth tied to my racking cane didn't work....tried a new stocking that my wife had in here drawer, just as bad. Long story short, I had about 1.5 gallons left in the carboy...I wound up using a funnel and paint stainer bag and poured the rest in the keg. Not aging it for any length of time, going to let it sit in the fridge over night and then the start force carb process.

Any suggestions?

I did this exact same thing when the hops in my Hopslam clone prevented a smooth transfer to the keg. I thought for sure it would be heavily oxidized or un-drinkable but the beer still turned out great.

 

[Gwitz]

The last time i dry hopped in a carboy i put some SS mesh around the end of my racking cane with a SS worm clamp. Sucked it out np.

 

[stubbornman]

Put the beer in the keg, the hops in the sock, and the sock in the keg. Pull the sock after a week, refill with fresh hops, chill and carbonate. Leave hops in until keg kicks.

fixed.

 

[Gwitz]

Ya, actually iv left hops in a the keg until it was kicked, works good.

 

[neko]

Pellets.

If that's not possible then listen to these other guys.

 

[OldWorld]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

 

[erockomania]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

I'm sure MOST won't agree with you on this

I do it all the time and do not get oxidized beer. In fact, there's actually only a very small percentage of a chance it will happen. The only way to get the type of aroma I like in my IPAs is by dry hopping. Impossible with late addition and/or flame out hopping.

Sorry, I know you were waiting for someone to call you out on that... I had to anyway.

 

[ETCS]

Thanks for all of the ADVICE everyone!!

@OldWorld - Do you stand at a Pulpit, or do you prefer a soapbox? Just curious.

 

[tdogg]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

what about all of the craft breweries that dry hop? surely you dont think they always use fresh hop cones?

 

[insubordinateK]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

I f@cking hate dry hopping as well, and I was convinced it is a waste of time. So I recently did a side by side experiment. I brewed a 5 gallon rye IPA and split into 2 - 3 gallon fermenters. I dry hopped one with 1 oz of Amarillo hop pellets and did nothing to the other. Everything else was identical.

Comparing both side by side out of the bottle, the dry hopped beer does have a noticeable increase in hop aroma; and consequently, it tastes better to me. This has convinced me that the effort IS worth it.

 

[jester5120]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

I've heard of people talk about mash hopping and dry hopping in the primary as pointless but never dry hopping altogether.

Late boil hop additions are far different than dry hopping. Both have their place tho. But in terms of being excessive you're going to use way more hops imo trying to use late additions to replicate the aroma of dry hopping. 1 oz at flameout will be drastically less aromatic than 1 oz dry hopped for a week

 

[trent]

OldWorld must have that name for a reason. Dry hopping is the best and easiest thing ever. I go 10-12 days grain to glass with 6-8oz of dry hop on a IIPA.

I put the hops into a sanitized 1 gal paint strainer, rack beer into keg, add 2oz corn sugar, drop dry hop bag into keg using dental floss, put on lid, pressurize, purge o2, beer carbs and dry hops after 5-7 days.

Entire keg goes into keezer, leave dry hops in and enjoy. Easiest thing ever.

 

[jester5120]

OldWorld just gets his inspiration from a different type of brewery. One that's not known for dry hopping but they are known for their triple hops brewing. I won't say which one it is but it rhymes with shmiller shlite.

 

[scottland]

I suggest not dry hopping at all. Dry hopping is a great way to oxidize your homebrew. Unless you have fresh oily whole leaf cones picked the same day you are wasting your time. Many will disagree with me but I really don't care.

I suggest using a heavy aroma hop addition to the end of boil if you want good aroma...Boiling out the hops in small steps is better than adding a bunch of oxidized hops to the carboy or fermenting vessel.

Dry hopping is really pointless unless you've got the fresh cones to work with. Otherwise...just bitter in the boil and add aroma hops to the end of boil or near end.

I know...many won't agree...Thats fine...I don't care. Keep on oxidizing your beer. It's up to you. It's all subjective. I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

I'm going to be honest with you.

A. I whole-heartedly disagree with you.
B. Any hop-head will disagree with you
C. Any pro brewer that's ever brewed a hoppy style will disagree with you
D. Off-topic, but it seems like I've seen a boat load of posts from you lately where it just seems like you are stirring the pot by arguing against popular convention.

I'll make you a deal. Let's enter a BJCP competition. You brew an Imperial IPA or American IPA, I'll brew an Imperial IPA or American IPA, don't dry hop yours, and we'll see who scores better(especially in the aroma category).

Just because you don't care for a given technique doesn't discredit it. And the whole oxidation argument? Pfff, if you aren't purging your kegs with CO2, you're introducing exponentlly more oxygen than dry hopping. I don't see you posting in every thread about kegging telling people to gas their kegs prior to racking their beer...

 

[day_trippr]

{Set Mode = Ignore The Troll}

Cheers!

 

[rockfish42]

I think Americans are too obsessed with adding more of everything.

I think dry hopping isn't originally an American technique

 

[tdogg]

BTW, how does dry hopping oxidize beer? i have honestly never heard that before.

 

[trent]

BTW, how does dry hopping oxidize beer? i have honestly never heard that before.

It doesn't.

Don't let this old-man spread rumors.

 

[android]

the only thing i hate about dry hopping is that it takes more time to get into the glass!

 

[bigbeergeek]

Oh oldworld -- what boring beer you must brew.

 

[davepeds]

Pellets.

If that's not possible then listen to these other guys.

Wait - nobody's commented on this, so I must assume my question is super stupid. So, I'll blame it on someone else:
My wife was wondering whether or not one should somehow boil or sanitize hop pellets or cones when dry hopping. Is there not a chance of causing infection when dropping unsanitized anything into the beer?

Please, set my poor wife straight...

 

[Howie]

BTW, how does dry hopping oxidize beer? i have honestly never heard that before.

Tasty McDole from the BN says it does introduce some oxygen. He says likes to dry hop at the end of primary so the remaining active yeast can scrub the oxygen. I mean, it makes sense that it would add some oxygen, but I wouldn't think it's a huge deal

I'd imagine a lot of the bigger packaging breweries probably have plans in place to minimize oxygen introduction via hops.

I'd think that you could add hops to your keg, flush with CO2, then rack the beer in under pressure.

 

[day_trippr]

I wonder what "scrubbing" mechanism McDole is referring to at the end of primary. I thought yeast only consume oxygen when they're replicating, which at the end of primary cycle seems unlikely to be occurring. If he's referring to evolving CO2 pushing oxygen out of the fermenter, perhaps that would be the case, though there isn't a whole lot of CO2 being produced when the batch is truly at the end of primary fermentation.

In any case, seems to me any significant oxygen would only be introduced if dry hopping with cones. Pellets are pretty tightly compressed so I don't think there's anywhere near as much oxygen, ounce for ounce, compared with cones...

Cheers!

 

[Keith_Mahoney]

Wait - nobody's commented on this, so I must assume my question is super stupid. So, I'll blame it on someone else:
My wife was wondering whether or not one should somehow boil or sanitize hop pellets or cones when dry hopping. Is there not a chance of causing infection when dropping unsanitized anything into the beer?

Please, set my poor wife straight...

Don't worry about it. Hops are a natural antibiotic and antimicrobial. There shouldn't be anything (naturally) on them which can hurt your beer. Half the beers I make are dry hopped and I have never had a problem but I also dry hop in the keg at 41 degrees so I wouldn't exactly have an infection take over anyway.

 

[cyclonite]

Don't worry about it. Hops are a natural antibiotic and antimicrobial. There shouldn't be anything (naturally) on them which can hurt your beer. Half the beers I make are dry hopped and I have never had a problem but I also dry hop in the keg at 41 degrees so I wouldn't exactly have an infection take over anyway.

Additionally, by the time you dry hop (after fermentation), the alcohol in the beer (and lack of much residual sugar) makes it hard for an infection to take hold.