Is there any reason (other than infection risk) not to re-rack my beer before I cold crash it? I have 4 oz of leaf hops sitting at the top (it’s about a 2-3 inches thick layer) and I don’t believe that much will sink to the bottom.
I was thinking I rack as much of the beer from below the hop layer as possible and then cold crash. My thinking is this should reduce the amount of hops that eventually make it into the bottling bucket helping to clear the beer up even more.
You know you are going to open a can of worms here on “secondaries.” Do what you feel is best. You could always try to cold crash it and see what happens. You can rack cold too, you know.
Last time a cold crashed with leaf hops, I was surprised how many of them dropped out and settled.
I’d just crash it and see what happens.
That’s what I do is cold crash it and the whole hops settle to the bottom.
Well left it in the garage overnight and temps were down in the 40’s and none of the hops dropped at all, they’re all still floating on the top. Is there anything I can do to coax them down or am I going to be racking between the pellet hops at the bottom and the leaf hops at the top? I plan on leaving the beer out there one more night.
Do you have a fridge that you can put it in to get it down to the 30s for a couple of days ?
Nope. I Wish I did cause I would be a lager brewing maniac!
OK after 2 days in the garage in the low 40’s about 1/3 of the leaf hops dropped to the bottom. This made it EVEN more difficult to siphon because instead of just dropping it to the bottom, i had to siphon between 2 layers. I lost about 8 bottles because i couldn’t even get an ounce through my siphon without it clogging immediately (that’s with a filter over the siphon) towards the end. I will always be using a hop bag from now on if using leaf hops. These things were nothing but a headache for me and lots of lost beer.
The beer gods needed their share your right it can be a pain. Here is what I use the last item is actually double ended, I couldn’t find the exact pic. Then I push it with a couple lbs of co2 still a pain but not as bad.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/30-s ... -tube.html http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/surescreen.html http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/3-5- ... range.html http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew ... 4-mfl.htmlIt is experiences like this that make me buy muslin bags by the handful every time I go to the LHBS.
The grammar gods don’t like you right now. :cheers:
Better now that I fixed it :mrgreen:
The grammar gods don’t drink beer.
I know this doesn’t help you now, but I always found dry hopping to be a PITA until I started kegging. Now I dry hop in a keg using either a stainless steel braid on the intake end of the liquid dip tube or using one of these: http://www.stainlessbrewing.com/Dry-Hopper_p_155.html.
Now I dry hop with wreckless abandon. 
I hope you’re joking…
It gives them a peech imspediment…
