Dry Hop Thingy

[goatherder]

I thought I'd post a pic of my new dry hop thingy.

I wanted to be able to dry hop in the keg (or fermenter) and pull the hops out when I was happy with the flavour. The tea ball was a good solution but they tend to sink to the bottom. After a quick trip to big dubya I came up with this. It works a ripper.

 

[haro]

go commercial?

seriously very good idea, but for a hop loving brewer like me im never going to take them out

 

[Slurpdog]

Awesome idea Goaty but I'm with Haro on this one. Why would you want to pull the hops out?
As they say, "Fresh is best"!

 

[Jye]

Try attaching a piece of fishing line to the tea ball and out through the rubber seal in the lid, the lid should still seal and you can easily remove the tea ball without putting you arm in the keg.

 

[craig maher]

Try attaching a piece of fishing line to the tea ball and out through the rubber seal in the lid, the lid should still seal and you can easily remove the tea ball without putting you arm in the keg.

...........and if it aint quite right you could kiss it and throw it back.........yibbita yibbita thats all folks!!!!

 

[Duff]

Or a piece of dental floss out through the sealed lid tied to the top of a stocking full 'o hops :beerbang:

 

[oldbugman]

Or a piece of dental floss out through the sealed lid tied to the top of a stocking full 'o hops :beerbang:

Dental floss and stockings... are they fish net? I'm all gee'd up now.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Not trying to sound negative, but I thought along those lines a while ago, but thought that the float would have a few too many recesses and really hard to clean/sanitise bits. The tube through the centre that houses the spring and the hook would be impossible to clean.

Also considered connecting an eye to the inside of the screw cap of the secondary cube, and tying the hop sock to that. in the end, I resorted to bunging the hops into the cube and be done with it.

Not unhappy with the results.....

Festa.

 

[warrenlw63]

I don't bother taking them out of the keg either. I've had dry hops sitting for up to 3 months in a regular strength beer and find the flavour only gets more interesting over time.

I just use a hopbag made out of that gauze car polishing cloth stuff you can find on rolls at Kmart or Auto places. (around $7 per roll) I cut a length off, boil it up a couple of times to remove whatever may be on it. I only use plugs because pellet dust seems to get out the pores and cloud the beer slightly (flowers would be fine too). Just tie the ends off and toss it into the keg.

Note I don't weight the bag down. IMO this would cause it to drop and foul the diptube. :unsure:

Warren -

 

[Linz]

Amazingly Id just 'dropped' one of those T balls into a keg of beer, after sanitizing & soaking it in a mug of boiling water, and walk back in and see this thread.
I don't intend on retrieving it till the keg is empty....its been in there for a day or two so far....testing the beer tonight..

 

[Ross]

Float looks great, must admit I'm a drop & sink user, as with any commercially dry hopped beer, they are in there to the end - also being a ball it won't block your diptube...

cheers Ross

 

[warrenlw63]

Hey Ross will those balls hold a plug or are they too small?

Warren -

 

[Ross]

Hey Ross will those balls hold a plug or are they too small?

Warren -

Hi Warren,

They taske 1 plug easily, probably 2 if you break the 2nd one up a bit - or 25gms of pellets with no problem.

cheers Ross

 

[warrenlw63]

Thanks Ross.

Sounds pretty much what I want to hear.

Warren -

 

[Pumpy]

I dont think I would fit my 25 grms of Styrian Golding flowers in the tea strainer

Pumpy :blink:

 

[T.D.]

This thread has got me motivated! I have a keg of fairly boring pale ale that's still got about 5L in it. I'm just about to try dry hopping with 10g of B Saaz. Last time I dry hopped in the keg I was getting serious aroma coming through in only a couple of hours. So hopefully by tonight I'll get a good idea of how B Saaz (pellets) go when dry hopped...

 

[tangent]

best improvement in my kegged beer in ages
it's like you get to play with hops again and again!

I keg hopped with pride plus recently. It's actually turned a pretty bland pale ale into hop central.