Dry hopping

[thdewitt]

OK, so I have a question that has probably been asked a million times before, but here goes anyway. I have a 2 chest freezers, kegging equipment, and just about every piece of equipment you may need for advanced brewing. Eventhough I have two SS conicals, I ferment in carboys because they fit in my freezer. So, my question is this. What is the best method of clearing your beer when dryhopping. I want to have as few steps as possible. I was hoping I could do it like this. Ferment in primary, add dry hops, cold crash in freezer in primary, rack to keg, drink. Because of the dryhops, do I need to rack to a secondary before or after cold crashing for clearer more consistent beer, or am I OK with the above method.

Thanks for the advice,
Tom

 

[schweaty]

Alot of folks around here like to transfer from primary to keg and then dry hop. There are stainless tea balls and other contraptions that can be tied to the tube in the keg. Not only do you dry hop in the keg but you're also crash cooling. Best of both worlds. If I had cornies I'd do the same thing but I'm still bottling. Maybe that will change after taxes arrive

 

[Yooper]

That's usually what I do (depending on the beer). I wait until primary is done, and I'm a week away from kegging. Then, I dry hop in the fermenter and keg a week or 10 days later. I occasionally dryhop in the keg as described above, but not very often. I'm always afraid a stray piece of hop particle will clog my dip tube. I haven't had it happen yet, though, and I've done it about 5-6 times.

 

[BullF-16]

I am trying something new for my batch of DFH 60 (thanks yooper). I fermented for 10 days in primary bucket then added leaf hops in a hop bag to the primary. After a week i plan on removing the bag of hops and transfering to carboy for about 10 days without the hops....then keg.

I tried the hops in the carboy (secondary) but each time i was losing about a half gallon at the bottom of the carboy due to all the hops. Leaving that much in the bottom is alcohol abuse!

Hopefully this is just as effective. I'll see.

 

[Big10Seaner]

I've just been taking the stainless tea balls, packing them with whole hops and just toss it in when I keg the beer. Haven't had any problems yet.

 

[Whisler85]

you could try a hopback- it basically filters the beer through a bed of hops

fermenter--> hopback--> keg

also, a guy i know uses a nylon bag full of either pellet or whole leaf hops and just puts it in the keg- i havent tried that yet, but i definitely need to improve my dry-hopping technique somehow

 

[HenryHill]

This is a freezer problem, not a dry hopping issue.