Dryhopping in bag

[teegasus]

Hi! Tried to dryhop my extract brew with the hop pellets in a hopbag so that I would strain out most of the sediment from the hops, but there seems to be very weak hop aroma to the beer. Does the hops in a bag reduce the effect? Should I have just poured the hop pellets right into the brew?
Will the beer still be drinkable, like, will it taste good still you think?

 

[RM-MN]

I'm not sure about the effects from bagging the hop pellets as I just dump them into the fermenter and hope they settle out before I bottle. If they don't I use a paint strainer bag around the siphon to keep the out of the bottles.

Although I love a beer with good hop aroma I have left mine in the bottles too long and lost that aroma but still had a good beer. If your beer will stand on its own you don't really have to have the aroma.

 

[jalc6927]

Bagging hops is fine

I soak mine in star San before adding to the fermentation

 

[jcaggiano]

I have tried both bagging and loose. For batches with multiple dry hopping, I prefer to bag as I can remove the hop material to avoid vegetative qualities from the green portion. Really, it comes down to what I am doing (NEIPA, Pale Ale, West Coast IPA) that determines how I present the dry hops.

For a NEIPA which needs to be dry hopped several times, I will use a bag. The down side is that you will find not all of the hops have been optimized (hops still dry in the center of the bag). I am starting to play with multiple trub dumps and loose hops, but this means a dump valve, loss of yeast and worst of all: final volume!

For a pale ale which I only dry hop once I will just toss the dry hop in loose, let them settle out and bottle.

 

[hammy1983]

I'm not a pro by any means but I have found dry hopping with a bag is the easiest way. Add a weight to the bag and (sanitized of course) and it will be fully submerged for better results.

 

[chickypad]

I do think I got better results when I started tossing them in loose. It was a long time ago though and I haven't done any head to head. Try for yourself and see what you like better.

 

[CarolinaMatt]

I use a bag for mine. To help with getting all of the hops submerged I add a few sanitized marbles to the bag to weigh it down.

 

[cubalz]

Toss them in loose. You will get better results as well as less chance for contamination by the bag. It is easy to strain them out when kegging or bottling.

 

[mj1angier]

I have done it both ways. Maybe a little more hoppyness tossed in, but more of a pain to deal with after. The bag was good but it can compress down and make a hop ball dried in center. I just got a SS hop container last week and just pitched a NEIPA yesterday. I plan my first dry hop today. I hope the ridged sides will let the hops "move" around more.