Hop Dropper Sanitation Question

[Iowa Brewer]

Hi all,

Built myself a hop-dropper (see pic) and used it for a (attempted) no O2, 2-day dry hop, last night. Boy did THAT go wrong! Sprayed Star-san to sanitize, which caused the pellets to gum up and ended in a royal mess. Got the job done, but it wasn't pretty!

I have a 7-day hop coming up and want to do this right, but am a bit worried about dropping hops into my conical if I can't spray my sight-glass. I'm guessing folks just drop them in without sanitizing. Is that right? Or is there a sanitizing procedure I'm not thinking of?

As always, thanks!

 

[eric19312]

yes

I clean mine and then let it air dry well before using. Not really that much different from measuring your dry hops into a cup and then dumping from the cup into fermentor. Keeping these guys dry is pretty important for getting them to drop out of the sight glass.

 

[Iowa Brewer]

yes

I clean mine and then let it air dry well before using. Not really that much different from measuring your dry hops into a cup and then dumping from the cup into fermentor. Keeping these guys dry is pretty important for getting them to drop out of the sight glass.

Thanks, eric19312! Boy, did I learn that dry lesson the hard way!