Hello there… I was just interested on some peoples opinions on the best way to dry hop your beer in the secondary fermenter… I recently dry hopped a beer of mine by just adding the pellets into the brew and am curious about how i should siphon the beer into my bottling bucket without sucking up the chunks of hops…
I’ve done it the way you mention and then put a sanitized nylon or muslin bag around the end of the auto siphon. That worked ok but now I just tend to put the hops in a muslin bag and put the whole thing in the keg or carboy. Easy cleanup.
I don’t do secondaries, so I just throw (pellet) hops into the primary fermenter, around the last 1/4 of fermentation. This drives off some of the oxygen that can be in the processed or whole hops. You do need to use a bit more with this method though. Usually great after a week, but better after 2.
If I am dry hopping with whole leaf, I will put them in a muslin bag with a sanitized shot glass, and add them during the last 1/3 of fermentation.
I’ve also heard from a pretty reliable source that if dry hopping with pellets, if throwing them in ‘commando’, as soon as they drop to the bottom, you are not extracting any additional aroma compounds.
Re: hop chunks, if you are using pellets, they will clump together with the rest of the sediment at the bottom, and you can keep your racking cane off the sediment. If using whole hops, muslin bag 1000%.
I DH in the primary. I toss them in loose and let it sit for 7-10 days, then cold crash.
Yeah i thinking i’m gonna have a hard time unless i put some sort of strainer on my siphon… The hops have suspended in the beer, more toward the top of the carboy than the bottom.
I line my bottling bucket with a sanitized paint strainer bag and this catches most of the hop debris coming through when I rack.
Ended up finding a nylon filter bag that’s actually used for a fish tank prefilter (it was new not used don’t worry)… Tied it around the end of my siphon cane and it worked awesome… Filtered out all of the tiny hop pellet pieces, and its reusable… Thanks for the tips guys.
Until recently I dry hopped in the “primary” by simply pouring whole hops into the carboy and gently rocking periodically to get them to sink below the surface of the beer. Initially I used a muslin bag a few times and found it to be more of a pain than it’s worth. I think you don’t get the full effect when the hops are bagged.
Now I do it this way: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=115938
I reuse my kettle as secondary and add whole hops loose. Has a s/s false bottom making it easy to go from spigot to keg.
I usually run the beer through a strainer lined with cheese cloth when its going into the bottling bucket. If it’s alot off hops you may have to stop half way through to change the cheese cloth if it gets clogged. Always had pretty good results this way. Enjoy! :cheers:
