Dry-hopping

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deebee

The Bludgeon Brewery
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Sorry to flog a dead horse, but with all the good press dry hopping has been getting lately, I wanted to know how everyone does it.

Some seem to put the hops into the secondary upon racking. I can see this would have full benefit when you might be lagering your beer (which I don't do). Anyway I tried dry-hopping into secondary by putting the hops pellets in a coffee mug, topping up with boiling water and pouring the slurry into the secondary then racking on top of that. I left it in there for a week or so but found that I ended up with a lot of hops in suspension when I racked again to bulk prime and bottle. They clogged up the bottling tube and each bottle took f'n ages to fill. Had to keep on removing the bottler, cleaning it, replacing it. Some of the bottles have a lot of hops in them which should be okay but the blocked bottler was a hassle. Haven't done it that way since.

Now I just put the hops slurry into the sterile fermenter when I'm about to put my freshly cooked and cooled wort in and just before I pitch the yeast. Seems to work ok. By the time the beer goes through the bottler it has been racked twice and there is almost none left in suspension.

I have been using 15-20 grams of either cascade or goldings depending on the style.

Interested to hear your different methods and quantities.
 
deebee get a hop bag or a cheesecloth or last resort the missus pantyhose then i would make a hop tea then with hops in the panty hose then chuck the panty hose in with the hop tea that what i would do
 
gday deebee
last few brews did a dry hop of about 30 grams cascade.made up a tea and bunged it straight into the secondary.let it ferment out and racked to cold conditioning vessel.this left a fair bit behind in the secondary but some still got into the cc vessel.no worries as this was eventually racked into a keg.first few pours or so saw the dregs of cascade come out into the glass and then it was all clear sailing.i just liken it to drinking a coopers real ale with all the floaties.then again being an ex sth aussie im used to un sightly water.
jazmans method is an excellent way to go if you dont want chunky beers.

cheers
big d
 
Dry Hopping.

You guys are UNREAL.

I have posted a cheap 10.00 pre keg bottling filter than you run the beer through from the secondary to the keg or bottling bucket.

You buy an inline 13mm irrigation filter and attach a 12mm food good racking tube to it.

This will filter out the hops that are still left in suspension.

Presto - Job Done - time for a BEER. :chug:
 
Thanks fellas, I knew this post would get you going GMK, you are the dry hop king!

Jaz do you recommend putting the stocking in boiling water first to kill any bugs on it?

Also what quantities are you guys using? What factors determine the quantities you decide to use?

Do you ever just chuck fresh pellets/plugs/cones straight into the fermenter or secondary?

Will definitely try out the stocking thing again as dry hopping. DId it once with goldings flowers in the boil but didn't put it in the fermenter. Flowers definitely will choke up the tap. Will need to have this technique sussed by April when I have my own hops harvest!
 
i allways put the hops into my SS Coffee Mug and add boiling water.

Then leave for 2 mins then pitch into the secondary.
I find that this gets rid of the initial "just cut green grass smell"
that is intially produced from bad Phenolics.

After 2 mins - hops smell really good...

As usual...give a try.

And make the PRE KEG Filter!!!!!!!
 
just read the article....NICE.

I like what it says about
"pellets can cause a sudden eruption of foam that will have you scrambling for a towel and wondering what sort of alien being has taken over your beer. This is because as the pellets break apart (almost immediately) they provide thousands of nucleation sites for the CO2 in the beer to attach itself and come out of solution. Be careful and go slowly when adding pellet hops to any nearly full container. "

This is what I was refering to in my earlier post.
 
i about to dry hop a thomas cooper with halletua or saaz with hop plugs so with the plugs i may not need to filter it as it will not get past the sediment trap and as witht he stocking not to sure yet havent tried it but maybe pour boiling water through it first before you add the hops but i think im gonna get a proper hop bag as with the high temps i be worried it might gice some off flavours with the nylon ect int he stocking so who knows
 
Jazman

I tried the stocking once....NEVER EVER AGAIN.

I boiled a new one for an hour...sterlised but still got some off flavours from the natural colouring or something to do with it.

I use my method now and it never fails. :D

A friend of mine had a hop bag...he got an infection in it some how. Took ages to work out where it was coming from. He now Dry Hops with my method...
 
I have dry hopped my last few brews using GMK's method.

and would thorughly recomend it, very easy, cheap, and best of all great results.
 
GMK,

For those of us mere mortals who are not yet kegging ;) and are forced to bottle, do you recommend that I dry hop the primary before racking or stick with the BYO article and dry hop the secondary before bottling?

Cheers,

Rowan
 
I allways dry hop in the secondary for 2 weeks.

Hope this helps.
 
just dry hopped the thomas cooper heritage and use hallertua plugs and will use a filter not stocking or hop back and i used a different yeast than the can so ley you know how it goes
 
Have you tried cold conditioning

Definately reccomend it.

Most particles in suspension will settle when the yeast settles.

There is still enough yeast in suspension for priming if you do secondary fermention.
 
referring back to GMK's post about the inline filter. as i usually bottle condition my brews (since i have no keg yet) would this filter out all the particles still in suspension and stop any further conditioning of the beer once bottled?
i ask this because i once asked what the difference was between store bought beer (and why they say fresh is better) and home brew. i was told, and it seems to make sense, that store bought beer is filtered thereby stopping any further maturation of the beer so what leaves the "factory" is what you drink at home with no chance of the beer changing over time.
this is probably off-topic but thought it might be important...
joe
 
the inline irrigation filter isn't fine enough to filter out the suspended yeast cells. It will only remove solids.

I have used a filter for winemaking, when bottling wine.
and it is much finer, and requires pressure to force the wine through the filter medium, depending on the media used you can filter out very small particles, like commercial brewerys.

most winemaking shops will hire out these filters, if you wanted to try it.
 
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