Dry Hopping and Cold Crashing

[razz]

Hey Coodgee, I haven't used PVPP for a while but when I did I never had an issue with floaties. I filtered a dry hopped beer on Sunday and didn't get any clogging issues at all and the filter when back flushed gave me a creamy green looking water with tiny particles. PVPP coats everything and drags it to the bottom of the fermenter.
For dry hopping, without filtering, I chuck them in loose for about 3-4 days at ferment temp and then crash chill to 3-4 degrees and then keg. I do get some sediment in the bottom of the keg but mostly clear beer and definitely no floaties.
If I used a hop bag I would tie it off so it can get lifted out before kegging. I haven't been all that impressed with my dry hopping of late so I'm going to spend the hops in whirlpooling and do a few trials.

 

[BKBrews]

I have been filtering my beers for ages but have decided to go back to using gelatin. It just adds so much to the process to filter the beer that I don't think it's worth it anymore. Do people use hop bags for their dry hopping or just throw them in loose? If the latter, how do you stop getting hop floaties in your keg/glass? Particularly for the case of a 100-200 gram IPA dry hop?

My process has been for so long: primary ferment till terminal gravity reached. Rack to a cube and add dry hops @ ferment temp for 3 days. Cold crash to 0 degrees for 48 hours. treat with polyclar and filter into the keg. The problem is with all this effort I was only getting crystal clear beer about 50% of the time and often ended up with clogged filters/dip tubes and 3-hour kegging/swearing events. I want to simplify my process to primary ferment until terminal gravity, add dry hops for 3 days, cold crash, add 1/2 teaspoon of gelatin, keg after 48 more hours. Just need to solve the floaty issue. It seems like the hop bag will negate the gelatin a bit because it will fall/move while the fermenter is draining and stir up the yeast/trub. edit: maybe I could create a little hop "cage" with the stuff they make hop spiders out of. Then the cage sits fixed on the bottom of the fermenter the whole time.

I dry hop loose in my primary and have never had an issue with hops in my kegs (biggest dry hop was 150g). In fact, never even had hops make their way into my kegs. I cold crash for 24 - 48 hours and the hops always compact well into the yeast cake. I never use finings either.

I don't know what type of fermenters you use, but a good trick I have found is to run off the first 200 - 500ml into a glass as you're about to transfer. This ensures that any yeast/hops that have settled in the tap do not make their way to the keg. Once you've done this, the rest of the sediment is left behind at the bottom.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

try cold crashing for a few days minimum instead of 48hr.

 

[Coodgee]

I think my issue with loose hops might of been because I was dry hopping in a secondary cube with minimal trub for the hops to settle into.

 

[EalingDrop]

cold crash then dry hop. this gets the yeast cell count down to reduce the hop oils being absorbed and dropped out with the yeast

Does this involve transferring to a secondary after the cold crash? or can you do it in the primary? i.e Hops sitting on top of the yeast bed.

 

[lost at sea]

i commando everything, from bittering through to dry hoping (even my undies). my personal opinion is that hop socks or whatever dont allow for the full extraction of the good stuff, i prefer the hops going right into the raging boil
i BIAB-NC and use the slow hoist method, brew brite and whirlpool the hell out of my wort, let it settle for 20 mins or so, then dump onto cube hops. which is usually 23L in the cube, and 22L into fermenter. 19L into the keg means i only transfer clear beer.

i also warm dry-hop usually, then cold crash for min 3-4 days which gets it nice and compacted on the bottom.

ive never had an issue with hop debris in my kegs yet.

note i only brew ales, not a lager brewer really so absolute clarity is not a big concern of mine

 

[Liam_snorkel]

same here pretty much.

when the beer clears up you know the keg is almost empty

 

[Kingy]

same here pretty much.

when the beer clears up you know the keg is almost empty

Haha that happened to me yesterday, I said to the misses, "check out how clear this schooner is"
off she goes to get one and psssssh no more left hahaha.

 

[Coodgee]

at what point do people have the fermenter up above keg height for transfer? Before cold crash or just before the transfer?

 

[Dan Pratt]

After cold crash I lift mine out of the fridge onto the bench. No issues with any disturbance on the yeast cake or hop debris.