Will cold crashing pull/settle dry hop?

[dierythmus]

Many beers I make call for dry hopping for ~7 days. In my experience, I still have a significant layer of hops on the surface of my fermenter after that time. I know cold crashing will pull down yeast, but will it do anything to the top layer of hops? If not, should I just rack to the keg from underneath the layer? Should I give it a shake to get the hops to the bottom? What's the best way to do this?

 

[Yooper]

I dryhop about 5-7 days before packaging, and I dryhop the beer once it's clear, because yeast will pull down some hops oils when it flocculates.

Anyway, I've never had hops debris totally fall, so I just rack the beer starting from the middle. I put the racking cane under the floating hops, and above the trub, and lower the racking cane as the level of the beer falls.

I'm pretty proficient with racking, as I"m an old winemaker, but if others have trouble sometimes they use a sanitized hops bag over the racking cane to avoid sucking up hops debris and clogging their siphon but that actually clogs easier for me than not using a bag.

 

[RmikeVT]

I find that giving the carboy a gentle twist back and forth helps them fall down. I do this everyday, if I can, after I dry hop. When you rack your beer just rack between the trub layer and the hop layer on the top. It takes a little more attention than a normal racking, but minimizes hop particles going into the keg. You'll probably lose a half gallon or so more than normal, but I think this is expected when dry hopping.

I also use gelatin when I keg to help clear the beer, and between the gelatin and cold crashing I get most of the trub/yeast/hops to dump out in the first pint or two from the keg.

 

[dierythmus]

I also use gelatin when I keg to help clear the beer, and between the gelatin and cold crashing I get most of the trub/yeast/hops to dump out in the first pint or two from the keg.

Do you cold crash before you rack to the keg?

How much gelatin do you use and what exactly is the process for adding it?

 

[RmikeVT]

Do you cold crash before you rack to the keg?

How much gelatin do you use and what exactly is the process for adding it?

I don't cold crash before kegging. Here is my process for beers Im going to fine.


1. Keg Beer
2. Put Keg of Beer in Kegerator
3. Wait 24 hours (or until beer is cold)
4. I dump a packet of knox gelatin (grocery store) into 8oz cold tap water - half a pack would probably be fine for 5g.
5. Wait 15 mins
6. Stir up and raise temp to 160 (this will pasteurize the water and allow the gelatin to go into solution). I used to do on my stove top but recently I have been doing in microwave, using 15 sec intervals and taking temp until I reach 160ish.
8. Stir up and get gelatin into solution.
9. Dump into keg and swirl keg around a little bit
10. Put lid on crank gas up to 30psi to force carb
11. After 36 hours @ 30psi beer is usually carbonated and I turn down gas.
12. At 48 hours (get home from work), I pull off a pint or two of gnarly beer and dump down the drain, if you dry hopped you will notice hop particles in the gunky beer. After that I have semi-clear beer that is very drinkable. At 72 hours, most beers are very clear/sparkling as long as everything went well in brew process (good hot break, cold break and whirlfloc in boil). Of course dry hopped IPA's tend to have hop haze.

 

[hio3791]

I don't cold crash before kegging. Here is my process for beers Im going to fine.


1. Keg Beer
2. Put Keg of Beer in Kegerator
3. Wait 24 hours (or until beer is cold)
4. I dump a packet of knox gelatin (grocery store) into 8oz cold tap water - half a pack would probably be fine for 5g.
5. Wait 15 mins
6. Stir up and raise temp to 160 (this will pasteurize the water and allow the gelatin to go into solution). I used to do on my stove top but recently I have been doing in microwave, using 15 sec intervals and taking temp until I reach 160ish.
8. Stir up and get gelatin into solution.
9. Dump into keg and swirl keg around a little bit
10. Put lid on crank gas up to 30psi to force carb
11. After 36 hours @ 30psi beer is usually carbonated and I turn down gas.
12. At 48 hours (get home from work), I pull off a pint or two of gnarly beer and dump down the drain, if you dry hopped you will notice hop particles in the gunky beer. After that I have semi-clear beer that is very drinkable. At 72 hours, most beers are very clear/sparkling as long as everything went well in brew process (good hot break, cold break and whirlfloc in boil). Of course dry hopped IPA's tend to have hop haze.

No to hijack the thread but I've done this too and it works well. I usually cold crash the fermenter for 2 or 3 days before kegging but if I need a quicker turnaround, I skip the cold crash, go straight to keg and a few days later, add gelatin. The latter saves 2 - 3 days since the beer is being carbonated while cold crashing. Gelatin works on both uncarb'ed and carb'ed beer!