What's up with my dry hop?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

orkojoker

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2012
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
Location
Clarion
I've got a two-gallon batch of a pale-ish ale dry hopping in a carboy and I'm looking for a bit of advice on how to proceed. Had it in primary for about 8 days before racking to secondary on top of a half ounce of loose Cascade pellets. It was my first attempt at dry hopping, so I was a little curious upon finding a layer of hop debris floating at/near the top of the beer.

About 6 or 7 days later about 40% of the debris had dropped from the surface. Some of it was hanging out just below the surface and some seemed to have dropped to the bottom. Hoping to bottle in the next few days, I moved the carboy to the basement where it's significantly colder. Within a two days, about 99% of the surface of the beer was clear of debris. I moved the carboy upstairs again to its original location to warm it up prior to bottling. Now a day later, the debris has resurfaced and has formed another layer on top of the beer.

My question is - how long should I wait for this stuff to settle to the bottom? Is it typical to have a layer on top like this after a week and a half? Obviously bagging the hops would have helped with the debris, but it's a little too late for that now.

Any advice? Thanks in advance.
 
So you cold-crashed and then warmed it back up before bottling? That defeats the purpose. You should cold-crash and then bottle while everything is at the bottom.

It's hard to decipher your length of time. How long has your beer been fermenting (both primary and secondary combined)? I like to keep my beers in primary for 2-3weeks and then dry hop in primary for another week.

You can use a paint strainer on the bottom of your racking cane to keep the hop debris out of your bottling bucket.
 
Keep your carboy cold. That will keep the hops from resurfacing as the temp rises, and will help to clear up your beer as well. If you can get down to 35 degrees or so, even better than basement temps. A cheap way to do that is use an old cooler and put ice water in it and then put the carboy in there too. Id let the beer cool for a few days. You will be able to tell as it clears up. You will notice a layer of hop debris and then you will see a light tan to white layer. That will be the yeast that is knocked out of suspension. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the advice. I figured once the stuff got settled to the bottom it would stay there. Live and learn. It's been a little over two weeks total. Primary for about 8 days, then we had a power outage and the house was down to about 50 degrees for about 24 hours. Figured that would put the kibosh on any active fermentation and I didn't want it sitting in the Mr. Beer, which is what it was in. Knew I was going to dry hop it, so I figured it would be a good time to do it.
 
Back
Top