OVHA Chat

Looking to dry hop an APA. I have dry hopped in the fermenter with whole hops and a bag as well as with whole hops in a bag in the keg. Looking to use pellets on this brew. What is the best method??

Not that I know a whole lot, but I made that bells two hearted clone and just dumped the pellets straight into the fermenter after the fermentation slowed down. Seemed to work out fine.

I put the pellets in a sanitized paint strainer bag and drop it in. They still disintegrate, but are somewhat contained. The consensus online seems to be to weigh the bag down with sanitized marbles but I've never gone through the trouble.

How do you pull that out of the carboy at racking time?

I also dump them directly into the carboy.

I rack into my keg and haven't really had a problem getting the bag back out of the carboy during cleanup. I have resorted to using the buckets if I'm dry hopping my DIPA with many ounces of pellets out a fear that I would have to cut the bag to remove it from the carboy (although the bag is only a buck or so).

In the fermentor I just toss them in when the time is right. Sometime after the main vigorous yeast action has settled down so you don't lose all that good aroma out the airlock. I'm usually in the primary 3 weeks so about 7-10 days before it's time to keg I put them in. I moved to this method after getting a swelled hop bag stuck in a carboy. A real PITA.

In the keg I also just throw them in and use a modified dip tube. I cut a couple of inches off the bottom so it doesn't suck up the hop sludge. I hear that they can be in there too long but I've never noticed much difference. You can use a bag on a thin string or fishing line and just pinch it in the keg seal. It will usually hold pressure.

My thought was to just pitch them in the fermenter (had a stuck bag once as well). Just was not too sure how well the racking would go with hop sludge in the bottom of the fermenter.

I never mess with a bag. I feel like I get a better extraction if they're not contained in a bag. Cold crash for a day or two before you rack and don't get too greedy racking the very bottom. You may end up transferring a minimal amount of hop particles but If you keg you'll dispense most of that in your first pour anyway.

I also am in the "just dump the hops into the carboy" crew. When racking, I just hold the cane up from the bottom a few inches and run the output through a strainer into the bottling bucket to catch the leftover sludge.

For those who want to use a bag, there is now a wide-mouthed, glass carboy option. I will be bringing the ones I bought to this month's meeting for "show-and-tell"

I have been using a device know as the Sure Screen for years. It is basically just a heavy stainless screen that slides over the end of the racking cane. A little pricey for what it is but works like a champ. It also works well removing the crushed coffee beans from my coffee stout.


http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/surescreen.html