Hop pellet absorption/priming sugar question

[Pelican521]

Hi all, I'm wondering if someone here has an answer to this by experience.

I dryhopped my IPA with 5 oz of pellets (4 muslin bags w/1.25 oz in each), and I'm trying to estimate how much beer will be absorbed by the pellets/bags in order to calculate how much priming sugar to use.

I'm thinking I could just pull the bags, but if they sink my the time I bottle, I won't be able to.

Any ideas on how much loss or how much priming sugar I'll need off the top of your head?

Thanks in advance!

 

[MrHadack]

Did you dry hop in your bottling bucket or a secondary that you plan to drain into a bottling bucket?

 

[TopherM]

It's not going to be enough to significantly change the priming sugar addition. You are talking 2-5% less priming sugar than calculated on the full volume, so if you really are worried about it, calculate your priming sugar on the entire volume, then multiply by 0.95.

 

[petrolSpice]

Tie strings onto the bags so you can pull them out after dry hopping. You can also let them drain to get most of the liquid out of them. I do this in my carboy, and when I pull the bag out through the neck of the carboy it squeezes out most of the liquid from the hops.

 

[peterj]

I always transfer to the bottling bucket first to get an accurate volume so I know how much priming sugar to use. Then I quickly add the sugar to just boiled water, mix it, cool it a little bit, and gently stir it into the beer.

 

[duboman]

It's not going to be enough to significantly change the priming sugar addition. You are talking 2-5% less priming sugar than calculated on the full volume, so if you really are worried about it, calculate your priming sugar on the entire volume, then multiply by 0.95.

+1 to Topher for actually answering the question!


Sent from the Commune

 

[peterj]

Oh I just remembered there's a setting for this in brewer's friend. I think the setting is for kettle hops but it should be the same. It says hop absorption is "Generally 0.15 qt/oz, or 0.005 L/g. Will be much less if you squeeze the hops bags."

 

[Pelican521]

thanks for the replies. I didn't transfer to a secondary, just did everything in the bucket (first time ever doing this in over a year and a half of brewing). I'll still have to transfer to my bottling bucket.

I think I'll start by calculating with 5 gallons and tweak slightly from there...

Northern Brewer is showing to use 5.3 oz of DME, Brewers Friend is showing to use 5.8. Does that seem like a lot?

 

[KepowOb]

Sounds about right for DME, since it's not 100% fermentable. You can use regular sugar (Sucrose), or corn sugar if you'd like instead... you won't need quite as much and get the same results.