Dry Hopping Help

wintermute2 · Sep 29, 2012

Hi all, this is my first post here, not counting my post in the Introduction section.

I'm in the process of brewing my first batch ever and I'm using an Ale Pail kit to do the work. I might have gone a little more complicated than I should have on my first batch when I bought one of my LBS's kits for making Rye PA. This kit involved a partial mash (which I think I handled very well) and dry hopping. After sitting in my primary fermenter for a week and hitting a stable final SG, I siphoned into my secondary (both have airlocks) and added the dry hops as per instructions. The instructions said to leave in the secondary until all the (pelletized) hops drop to the bottom. It's been three weeks like this and the majority of the hop sediment has dropped but I still have some (covering maybe 1/6th) on the surface. I assume that there'll still be hop junk in suspension as well that if I siphon now, it'll get into my bottling pail. Should I continue to wait?

pcollins · Sep 29, 2012

I would not wait. I would move on to the next step.

I usually only dry hop for a week or so but I NEVER have all the hops drop to the bottom. I cold crash after the dry hopping and most settles out so that I get very few in the keg but you'll likely be waiting a long time for it to all drop out.

duboman · Sep 29, 2012

3 weeks is a long time for dry hopping, I prefer 5-7 days and some will go up to 14. That being said, place a hop bag over the end of your racking cane as a filter and transfer to bottling bucket, works great!

dneubeck85 · Sep 29, 2012

I say bottle away. I went out and bought a stainless steel strainer that I use. For me, when I'm dry hopping I don't transfer at all. I strain before kegging and also before I transfer into my bottling bucket. Gets out as much of the gunk as it can

imrook · Sep 29, 2012

Wow, you're patient! My first batch got one week in the primary and another week in the bottle and was gone in a couple days. :drunk:

I don't dry hop that often, but 1) three weeks seems like a long time and 2) I always have hops floating in mine. Eventually, the aromatic hop oils will begin to dissipate and the hop aroma and flavor will lessen. Dry hopping always produces more cloudy beer because there's more stuff floating around in there. I don't think you need to wait any longer to bottle this batch. I will however recommend that you wait 2-3 weeks for the bottles to carb up properly. I used to drink all my beers too early. One of my friends would always complain that they were too flat. Once I started giving them 3 weeks at 70 degrees, they were nice and fizzy.

wintermute2 · Sep 29, 2012

Thanks everyone. One more quick question.

I bought 1 Step sanitizer from the LBS - according to the directions I don't have to rinse this stuff off. One thing I forgot to ask the Brew Dude is that is it sufficient to dunk my bottles in the sanitizer, shake dry, then fill? Or do I have to really let the stuff dry first before I fill? Thanks.