Can you cold-crash the primary? If so, do that to drop the yeast, then transfer to the keg and dryhop in the keg at ~68F. I’ve left hops in the keg for months with no ill effects but some people believe that doing so can lead to “grassy flavors” (I think it probably has to do with the hop variety and/or the beer type but what I use and make don’t suffer from prolonged dry-hopping) - if you want to be conservative the first time, hang the hop bag with a length of dental floss that’ll let the beer drop below the bag maybe at the half-way point.
My advice-- and I know some here will disagree-- is to dry hop with the pellets in the secondary for <1 week, and then transfer to the keg and add the leaf hops. The only question is how will you seperate the hops from the wort. For that, I recommend nylon bags.
I weigh my hop bag down with lead-free marbles (available from Marble King of New York, New York and which is the only source I’ve found to date that sells certified lead-free marbles.) Otherwise the hop bag just floats on the top.
[quote=“Kgetch”]No way to cold crash unless that is possible in a swamp cooler?[/quote]One way to cold-crash is to transfer to a keg, then chill and let sit for a couple days, then transfer to a second keg, leaving the sediment at the bottom of the first, and dry-hop in the second keg.
I haven’t seen any detriment to having the bag float. When I dry hop in the keg, I do add the bag first and then siphon the beer on top of the hops which helps saturate them. But I think if you have my hoppy beers, the last thing you’d think is “boy you really need better contact with the hops!” Not quite! :cheers:
Don’t worry about a hop bag. Use a nylon bag around your (auto)siphon, instead. Make sure you get one large enough that the end/top is outside the carboy/bucket. Easy peasy.
I tried that on the first batch of zombie when I didn’t use a hop bag at all. That got jammed up with grub and hop debrit very quickly too. Do you swirl the siphon around to clear while you are racking?
That would put a bunch of grub back into suspension I would think.
Anyway, hops in bags and in primary for a few days. Could not get whole hop bag to sink so left as is. I will check on it sometime today. :cheers:
If you dry hop in the secondary before you bottle, do you need a hop bag or can you just put the hops directly in the carboy? If I do use a hop bag, is it a sure thing that it will float to the top? I bottle most of my beer because I only have one keg.
I always use bags when I dry hop but I use a bag for hops in the boil too.
I just dry hopped in the keg for the first time because I forgot to dry hop my IPA before I kegged it this week. Weighted the hop bag with a SS barb, suspended half depth of the keg with dental floss. I’ll leave it 4-5 days then pull it.
