Dry hopping

[mwohlenhaus]

The recipe I'm following calls for dry hopping for 5 days along with flame out hops. Do I need to sanitize the hops, they are pellet. I will be just dumping them in the wort. I suspect that the 5 day hops would have enough alcohol in it to kill bacteria, but not sure about flameout

 

[peterj]

Hops have natural antibacterial properties and when you dry hop with them you are putting them into a very unfavorable environment (alcohol, low pH, low oxygen) for bacteria growth anyway. So you're right about the dry hop being fine.

As for the flameout hops, you're adding them to slightly cooler than boiling wort so they will be sanitized almost instantly by the heat.

 

[cannman]

No and no, but it would be a good idea to handle with care anyway. Hops are naturally resistant to spoilage microbes, in fact this is why they were used so heavily in beer when shipping across the seas back in the day (tada! IPA).

Hops at flame out should splash into a liquid hot enough to destroy extra baddies from the surface of the hops (and in side once they open up) and yes, the alcohol at 5 days priors should be plenty high to win the battle over other microbes that enter the brew.

Enjoy your beer!

 

[fermentology]

Throw them right in the fermenter. If there were issues then all dry-hopped IPAs would be infected.

 

[adamdillabo]

I've only done it once but I took a pair of stockings tied them half way and cut below the knot. Sanitized that put my hops and tied it off. Worked great for me and kept all hop matter out of the bottles.