# Dry Hopping In The Primary



## spaced (31/8/11)

Hi All,

A couple of times I've dry hopped in the primary with pellets, dropped em in at 7 days and I've still got floaties at 21days.

Can I use this to stop the floaties?
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=901

Or do you have other suggestions?

Thanks in advance


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## zabond (31/8/11)

Hi the best I've used is 70mm tea ball,got 2 off fleabay from china for $12 delivered took 6 days,just do a "tea ball' search'couldnt check out link to craftbrewer to see if thats what you ment cause puta kept crashing


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## spaced (31/8/11)

ZABOND said:


> Hi the best I've used is 70mm tea ball,got 2 off fleabay from china for $12 delivered took 6 days,just do a "tea ball' search'couldnt check out link to craftbrewer to see if thats what you ment cause puta kept crashing




Ok, yeah I'd say we're talking about the same thing. I noticed it said recommended for keg's but didn't know if it would also be good for primary.


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## J Grimmer (31/8/11)

Cant see why it whould not be suitable fot the primary. You could also try muslin bag.


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## Crusty (31/8/11)

spaced said:


> Hi All,
> 
> A couple of times I've dry hopped in the primary with pellets, dropped em in at 7 days and I've still got floaties at 21days.
> 
> ...



Spaced,
I wouldn't bother with dry hopping your primary. I found it best to transfer from primary after day 7, add your pellets to the secondary whilst transferring from the primary. I usually dry hop with 20-40g, depending on beer & find that 7 full days of dry hopping gives excellent aroma to the beer. I feel any more than 7 days can give the beer a slight grassiness so max 7 days for me. You will still get the floaties around the surface but carefully drain to the keg & you won't have any problems. I have a couple of tea balls, used them once & didn't bother again.


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## spaced (31/8/11)

Crusty said:


> Spaced,
> I wouldn't bother with dry hopping your primary. I found it best to transfer from primary after day 7, add your pellets to the secondary whilst transferring from the primary. I usually dry hop with 20-40g, depending on beer & find that 7 full days of dry hopping gives excellent aroma to the beer. I feel any more than 7 days can give the beer a slight grassiness so max 7 days for me. You will still get the floaties around the surface but carefully drain to the keg & you won't have any problems. I have a couple of tea balls, used them once & didn't bother again.



Not a fan of the flavour?

Or too much mucking around?


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## brettprevans (31/8/11)

whilst fermententation is occuring the CO2 will scrub out a lot of flavour. so wait till fermentation has almost finished and then dry hop. you dont have to transfer to another vessel. thats up to you. for what its worth i never bother transferring. 

for dry hopping i can proudly say i use women's stockings. yup. cheap, easy to sanatise and tie up. then throw away. just get neutral coloured ones. quick microwave or boil in water to sanatise, then put your hops in and preeferably weight them down with something non-reactive like stainless cutlery or something, then drop into beer. done.


edit: there is some debate about whether bunching all the hops up into a confined space will affect hop utilisation, hence some comments about not using teaballs etc. i can also live with floaties post dry hopping if i cant be arsed using a stocking


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## Bizier (31/8/11)

If you can get it cold enough, all the floaties generally sink. Another idea is to use the 'stocking' idea for a few days in the keg post ferment, this works better than I had originally thought and you can easily taste it along the way.

ED:


citymorgue2 said:


> i can proudly say i use women's stockings


 :lol:


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## brettprevans (31/8/11)

be kind i prefaced it with "for dry hopping'. its not a general use statement.!!!


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## argon (31/8/11)

Recently i had some really good sucess with dry hopping primary by using the little hop bags available from CB. I had to dry hop 160g into a 20L batch and split it into 2 bags of 60g each. They were pretty loose in there. Then tied 'em up with the little string it comes with and hung them over the lip of the fermentor attached to the o-ring outside the fermentor. Glad wrap over the top.

Initially the hop bag floated on the surface until the pellets absorbed the beer then they dangled kinda mid way in the beer. Didn't seem to need any weights... but in the past i've used a stainless nut or a shotglass. 

I don't like the idea of just chucking them in whole, as i feel that once they absorb the beer they'll just sink to the bottom and end up under the trub, no longer contributing aroma and flavour.


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## brettprevans (31/8/11)

argon said:


> but in the past i've used a .... or a shotglass.


shotglass. brilliant!!!!


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## cdbrown (31/8/11)

I've always relied on cold chilling to help drop any of the hop particles. Dry hop in primary about 70% ferment complete. Leave it as is for about 5 days after ferment then chill before transferring to keg or bottles.


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## Wolfy (31/8/11)

How does temperature relate to dry-hop material settling out?
I can't imagine much of any correlation between temperature and hop matter settling.
Given enough time they will get waterlogged and/or sink of their own accord, but how does being cold help that process?


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## Nevalicious (31/8/11)

Wolfy said:


> How does temperature relate to dry-hop material settling out?
> I can't imagine much of any correlation between temperature and hop matter settling.
> Given enough time they will get waterlogged and/or sink of their own accord, but how does being cold help that process?



Try it and see. I don't know why, but it works...

Recently dry hopped 2g/L Galaxy APA and they floated and floated until I turned the fridge down for CC'ing. Bugger me, everything dropped out


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## sama (31/8/11)

I use teaballs in the primary,4 days prior to kegging/bottling,which is usually 14-17 days.never bothered with secondarys.


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## peaky (31/8/11)

I dry hop in the primary after ferment has finished, I don't bother racking to secondary. Just chuck the hop pellets into the fermenter, leave it for a couple of days at ferment temps and then chill down to 1 degree for a week. Almost never get floaty hops in the beer once bottled, and get good aroma.


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## bignath (31/8/11)

peakydh said:


> I dry hop in the primary after ferment has finished, I don't bother racking to secondary. Just chuck the hop pellets into the fermenter, leave it for a couple of days at ferment temps and then chill down to 1 degree for a week. Almost never get floaty hops in the beer once bottled, and get good aroma.



Spot on! this is what i do - word for word.

@ Wolfy, i have no idea how this works mate, but i have excellent results on the beers that i primary dry hop. Leave a few days, chill down to 1 degree for 4-7days, never had a floatie in any bottled stocks...

can't explain it at all, but it works for me..


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## spaced (31/8/11)

peakydh said:


> I dry hop in the primary after ferment has finished, I don't bother racking to secondary. Just chuck the hop pellets into the fermenter, leave it for a couple of days at ferment temps and then chill down to 1 degree for a week. Almost never get floaty hops in the beer once bottled, and get good aroma.




Yeah I'm not a temperature control kind of guy. My beer fridge is tiny and the little missus seems to think the main fridge is for food. pfftt 

I've found an aussie seller for the tea balls so I'll give em a whirl.

And I'm not setup for kegging.


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