Dry hopping with leaf hops vs pellets

[moinkyschmoink]

So I decided to give whole leaf hops a try with an ipa I'm doing right now. I was really surprised how much was in the boil kettle when I finished the boil and it took a long time to drain. No big deal, hit my quotas. It has been 2 weeks in primary and I dry hopped the first week. This week when I went to do my second dry hop (using pellets this time), I open the buckets and it seems all of the dry hops are floating. I went ahead and threw in the pellets and they just sat on top. After closing the fermenters I gave them a little "swirl" trying not to slosh things around and oxygenate the beer, but hopefully get them wet so they sink.
So my questions are does anyone else dry hop using leaf hops? If so should they sink after a week?
Is it better to use all pellets to dry hop? I liked the idea of leaf hops in the boil because I can use a kettle screen to drain without it getting clogged, but is this a waste of time if I send it though a strainer anyway?
Are there any numbers of beer/wort loss comparing leaf hops to pellet in fermentation? Obviously leaf would suck up more but how much?

Thanks ahead of time if anyone has any answers.

 

[nanofreak]

They don't sink, but they do saturate and expell their oils into your beer. I prefer them to pellets, because they make less of a mess and are easy to rack out from under.

If I were to add a second addition like that, I would use a sanitized spoon to part the whole hops and let the pellets get wet, or to push the pellets under the leaf hops.

I think you are fine.