Question concerning my dry hopping with pellets

[Mrakis]

I have been dry hopping with amarillo pellets in my secondary for 2 weeks now. I was planning on bottling/kegging (depends on if i get the kegging equipment) this weekend. I just tossed the pellets on top, so there has been about an inch of green foam on the top of my batch for the entire two weeks. Some of it has subsided, but i was thinking it would have all dropped by now.
My question is, if i throw my secondary in the garage (freakin freezing in there) the day before i bottle/keg, will the temperature cause the remaining hop (foam) to drop? This way, i can rack with the least amount of sediment as possible. I don’t want to wait too much longer, as I have read that dry hopping for longer than 14 days can cause grassy off flavors. Also, should i use a muslin bag as a filter on my auto syphon to further reduce any hop particles from being racked into the keg/bottling bucket?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Schuey102000]

I just dry hopped an IPA, it's been in the secondary for about 3 days and I have the same foam. If it's still around when I rack to the bottling bucket I think I'm just going to syphon it the best I can without worrying too much. I would imagine after a couple weeks the sediment would have all settled at the bottom, so you should be ok if you dont disturb it too much.

 

[step]

As long as it won't actually freeze in your garage I would put it in there today and give until this weekend to clear.

 

[RM-MN]

Go to the hardware store and buy a paint strainer bag. Use a rubber band to hole it around your siphon tube, sanitize it, and let that strain out the hop particles. Works great.

 

[Mrakis]

Dumb question, but do i put the paint strainer bag on the inflow portion, or the outflow portion of my auto siphon

 

[wiescins]

Dumb question, but do i put the paint strainer bag on the inflow portion, or the outflow portion of my auto siphon

outflow with excess space so that hop particles don't clog the tubing.

 

[robbywil]

In my experience if you still have hops floating on top after 5 days of dry hopping, simply swirling the carboy should do the trick followed by a day at cold temps to clear out the remainder. Usually the hops are saturated enough to sink but probably have a thin layer of CO2 from fermentation keeping them afloat. Swirl the carboy, let it sit for a couple hours then swirl again if anything else makes it to the top. I wouldn't worry to much about oxygenating the beer when swirling as the headspace should be primarily co2. Good luck!

 

[BrewinHooligan]

I have also heard of people placing the strainer in the bottling bucket prior to racking into the bucket with priming solution and then removing the bag with the particles before bottling to reduce the chance of the strainer bag clogging the siphone or causing oxidation. I plan to go this route with the batch I am fermenting now, but if you are kegging I have heard lots of people use the strainer on the siphon with much success.

 

[Yooper]

Some of those pellets will never fall. That's ok- just rack from between them and the bottom. I never use bags for dryhopping or straining. I just start my siphon in the middle, under the floaters and above the trub line. Then I just lower my racking cane as the level of the beer drops. It works great!

 

[zapbryann]

Yooper does it again, comes in and eases my worries!

 

[BrewinHooligan]

^+1! Yooper's wisdom is priceless.

I just tossed the pellets into my fermenter a few days ago after my kreusen had dropped and it came back shortly after. The following question will show you how much of a noob I am, bit is this common with dry hopping?

 

[Yooper]

^+1! Yooper's wisdom is priceless.

I just tossed the pellets into my fermenter a few days ago after my kreusen had dropped and it came back shortly after. The following question will show you how much of a noob I am, bit is this common with dry hopping?

Not really common, but not terribly uncommon. What that means is just that the beer wasn't completely done and adding the dryhops gave it some nucleation points so a krausen formed again. Normally, I dryhop in primary after fermentation is completely finished as I only dryhop for about a week, usually 5-7 days. So I add the dryhops a week before I"m going to package the beer. Since the beer is done by then, I never get a krausen to reform, but I do get some bubbling in the airlock.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

Well according to the hydrometer I had reached FG, but apparently it wasn't as accurate as I had hoped or I read wrong... It isn't much and I hope the CO2 from additional fermentation doesn't push all the aroma out. This is a learning experience for me and I will be more patient next time. Thank you!

 

[DeBAD]

Some of those pellets will never fall. That's ok- just rack from between them and the bottom. I never use bags for dryhopping or straining. I just start my siphon in the middle, under the floaters and above the trub line. Then I just lower my racking cane as the level of the beer drops. It works great!

Without knowing the exact science, logically this sounds the best to me. I understand why one would be inclined to avoid as much stuff floating around as possible when transferring to the bottling bucket. However seems logical if you clean the beer TOO well, you sacrifice the beer's ability to condition properly in the bottles. Am I right?

 

[Yooper]

Without knowing the exact science, logically this sounds the best to me. I understand why one would be inclined to avoid as much stuff floating around as possible when transferring to the bottling bucket. However seems logical if you clean the beer TOO well, you sacrifice the beer's ability to condition properly in the bottles. Am I right?

No, I don't think that's it. Yeast, which would be responsible for any conditioning, are microscopic and filtering or transferring wouldn't affect them at all.