JimGossett
Active Member
Perhaps someone else has already done this... but I thought I'd share a dryhopping technique I've just tried successfully.
One problem with dryhopping in a secondary carboy is the rather voluminous amount of sludge that results. Too much of the beer ends up in this sludge, and I hate to see my yield of finished product so reduced.
Just finished brewing a super-hoppy beer that required dryhopping with 3oz of pellets for one week, followed by another load of 2oz for a second week. That would normally create a lot of beer-stealing sludge!
So, I took a nylon knee-stocking; disinfected it in SaniClean; let it drip-dry; then added the hop pellets to it. I tied two knots in the open top, with a small space between them, and tied a 12- to 18-inch length of dental floss to the stocking between the knots (the knots prevent the floss from slipping off the stocking). I then added the hop-filled stocking to the carboy, toe-first, leaving the dental floss to drape out of the neck. Dental floss is so thin that it doesn't prevent a seal between a rubber stopper and the glass carboy neck. Replaced the stopper/airlock. I then tied a finger-loop in the end of the floss that draped out of the neck, in case I wanted to hold onto the floss when later removing the stopper at extraction-time. I swirled the carboy, which still evolved a significant quantity of CO2, to displace air that had entered the headspace while opened during stocking insertion. [If the brew had been less effervescent, I would have purged the headspace with CO2 before replacing stopper/airlock.]
The knee-stocking swelled up enormously -- and floated. I swirl-mixed the carboy every time I happened to walk by. If you could find something small but heavy enough, you could probably prevent flotation and sink the stocking. However, I did try this later with three marbles and that wasn't enough weight to sink the stocking. I'm not sure it's a big deal, so long as you swirl occasionally.
To look at the swollen stocking, you'd never imagine you'd be able to extract it later through the comparatively narrow neck of the carboy -- but you can, even with 3 oz of pellets in it, though it's not easy. But the difficulty of extraction is the beauty of this technique: the process of pulling the swollen stocking out through the narrow neck of the carboy very effectively compresses the hop sludge and extracts the beer contained in it. The result is a very dry hop residue, and minimal beer loss.
One problem with dryhopping in a secondary carboy is the rather voluminous amount of sludge that results. Too much of the beer ends up in this sludge, and I hate to see my yield of finished product so reduced.
Just finished brewing a super-hoppy beer that required dryhopping with 3oz of pellets for one week, followed by another load of 2oz for a second week. That would normally create a lot of beer-stealing sludge!
So, I took a nylon knee-stocking; disinfected it in SaniClean; let it drip-dry; then added the hop pellets to it. I tied two knots in the open top, with a small space between them, and tied a 12- to 18-inch length of dental floss to the stocking between the knots (the knots prevent the floss from slipping off the stocking). I then added the hop-filled stocking to the carboy, toe-first, leaving the dental floss to drape out of the neck. Dental floss is so thin that it doesn't prevent a seal between a rubber stopper and the glass carboy neck. Replaced the stopper/airlock. I then tied a finger-loop in the end of the floss that draped out of the neck, in case I wanted to hold onto the floss when later removing the stopper at extraction-time. I swirled the carboy, which still evolved a significant quantity of CO2, to displace air that had entered the headspace while opened during stocking insertion. [If the brew had been less effervescent, I would have purged the headspace with CO2 before replacing stopper/airlock.]
The knee-stocking swelled up enormously -- and floated. I swirl-mixed the carboy every time I happened to walk by. If you could find something small but heavy enough, you could probably prevent flotation and sink the stocking. However, I did try this later with three marbles and that wasn't enough weight to sink the stocking. I'm not sure it's a big deal, so long as you swirl occasionally.
To look at the swollen stocking, you'd never imagine you'd be able to extract it later through the comparatively narrow neck of the carboy -- but you can, even with 3 oz of pellets in it, though it's not easy. But the difficulty of extraction is the beauty of this technique: the process of pulling the swollen stocking out through the narrow neck of the carboy very effectively compresses the hop sludge and extracts the beer contained in it. The result is a very dry hop residue, and minimal beer loss.