Hop pellet help

jksports90 · Jul 2, 2014

I just bottled by "Robust Porter" and have about another 2 weeks until try able and my "Summer Solstice" is almost done fermenting. As I look back I wondered if I should have had my hop pellets in a mash bag during the boil? First time brewing...well technically second but open for any tips/input on this matter. Thanks!

DocScott · Jul 2, 2014

Shouldn't make a difference. I just throw the pellets into the boil. The hop debris will settle and be left behind with the trub. Worst case (which isn't bad) is that it will transfer to your primary and will settle out after primary finishes.

Nightstrife · Jul 2, 2014

+1^

That's what I do, just throw them in. Now I do use a sanitized bag with a sanitized ping pong ball for dry hopping in my primary cus I save the yeast

Macdonald87 · Jul 3, 2014

+2. I get to sick of using the bags and particles escaping regardless. I got a screen on the bottom of my kettle to help filter which is a bonus.

unionrdr · Jul 3, 2014

I used muslin hop sacks in the boil the first couple of years to keep excess gunk down. But I found that tossing the hops in the kettle loose gives a bit more edge to the flavors & aromas. But I did start whirlpooling & using a dual layer fine mesh strainer on top of the fermenters when pouring the chilled wort. It also helps aerate the wort better as well.

andy6026 · Jul 3, 2014

ok, third attempt at an answer… (two login failures)

What ought to be the cause of any concern, IMHO, is hop debris clogging your bottling wand or getting into the bottles at the bottling stage. This concern can be mitigated by taking various steps along the way to minimize how much hop debris gets carried along with each transfer. We tend to go from the kettle, to the primary, sometimes to secondary, to bottling bucket to bottles. Hop debris won't affect the taste of the beer or final product, unless it finds its way along that path into the bottles. For me, the biggest concerns are that your bottling wand will get jammed up in the bottling stage, and more importantly, that any getting into the bottles will cause 'bottle gushers' when you open a bottle that has hop debris in it.

IMHO the absolute best method, as its easy as hell and extremely efficient, is to cold crash the primary fermenter after fermentation is complete. Do it for a few days. If you're not familiar, the term "cold crash" means to put the vessel in the fridge and let it get cold (35-40F range). This will compress the trub and hop debris to the bottom and significantly reduce how much trub and hop debris gets accidentally transferred to the bottling bucket. However, it obviously requires a fridge that you can dedicate to home brewing.

If you don't have a fridge, then the next best method (IMHO) is to add the extra step of transferring to secondary fermenter after it's done fermenting in the primary. This extra step will also minimize how much hop debris accidentally ends up in the bottling bucket and in the bottles. However, the trade off here is that it's more work, and you increase your odds of oxidation and introducing infection (however minimally).

So, the short of it is this:

If you have a fridge you can dedicate to home brew, then cold crash your primary for a couple of days before transferring to the bottling bucket. If you don't then don't bother using a secondary this time. If you do notice in these few batches that your bottling wand is getting clogged, OR that you end up with some bottle gushers from hop debris in the bottles, then next time try adding the extra step of transferring to secondary and see if that works for you.

unionrdr · Jul 3, 2014

This is why I added the fine mesh strainer to clean the wort going into primary & eliminated the secondary. A little more time at the beginning means less crud to deal with later. I typically get about 3/8" of trub & yeast by bottling day. I consistently get 53-55/ 12oz bottles from a 5 gallon batch.