The beer I have in the fermenting now required 3 oz. of citra dry hopped a week before bottling. Now it’s time to bottle and there is still a massive amount of hops suspended in the beer. I cold crashed at about 50 F for two days and it’s still there! I bottle condition, so my options are limited, is there any way to filter out some of the hops on the way to the bottling bucket?
Take a small mesh hop bag and tie it around the tip of your racking cane.
I did a citra APA this summer and had to use a combo of pellet and cone hops in substantial amounts. and the best approach I could come up with was to use a cloth strainer bag loosely covering the auto siphon(fermenter end) attached with a sanitized rubber band. Worked great. Cold crashing can theoretically reduce hop aroma/presence and I didn’t want to overdo it.
Rookie LA wins the speedy response ribbon!
I used some sanitized cheese cloth and rubber bands on the end of the tube thatwent into bottling bucket…glad I used a fairly large piece…it filled it up.
WOW, I think both of you are lightning fast!
Thanks for the advice, I’ll give that a shot
50F is not really cold crashing. Try 30-33F. That’ll work.
update:
I used a sanitized rubber band and put a sanitized hop mesh bag on the end of the auto siphon. Either it restricted the flow enough, or I have the wrong kind of tubing, or both. There was a massive amount of air bubbles in the line, and anything I tried to do made it worse. I also had to pump the siphon so many times because the stream broke that that the beer foamed up. Pretty sure I just compleatly oxidized a beer that used 8 oz. of citra that I needed for a wedding in 2 weeks
did you put it on the outlet end? I think that is what they said. Either way I think it’s probably going to be fine.
I’m sorry some said one end some the other.
I put it on the inlet end. Really hope I didn’t F#@& it up, a zombie dust clone that finished at 1.011 and smells AWESOME!
Keep your fingers crossed. I think two weeks you’ll be fine especially with a hop bomb. Let us know.
I prefer to use my pellet hops in a fine meshed nylon bag.
Then you did it right. Inlet end with bag attached loosely so there is a large amount of surface area to filter. Works great. Not sure where things went astray.
It definitely has to go on the outlet end or you will restrict the flow in and cause the autosiphon to pull air down between the tubes, past the plunger and into your beer. I use a stainless tea ball with a hole in it just tight enough to jam the end of the hose into it. Works great.
Again I’ve done this and the version I describe, which I picked up from another brewer on this forum, definitely works. The key is a large amount of surface area on the inlet end, not tightly stretched across a half inch opening.
Beating a dead horse here.
Maybe one last flogging, don’t put the suction end right to the bottom rather follow the surface down. Maybe about a half inch below the surface, give it a try and adjust a bit so you aint sucking air… Sneezles61
