Putting Hops Into Bottles

[cwbrown07]

Feeling a little slow on a Monday morning and I have not come up with any particular joy in seeing whether this has come up before, but I have avague recollection of seeing it mentioned at least once on the forum.

Was playing around with a english pale ale that I have on the go at the moment and thinking about the dry hopping into the barrels which I understand was traditionally done. Got to thinking whether or not a similar effect could be acheived by dropping a hop pellet into the bottle before filling and capping it.

Given the style of beer (and it has fuggles and EKG in it already for bittering and flavour), was thinking about doing it with some EKG and seeing what difference it made. Also thought I might do a couple of different doses to see what worked (i.e one/ two/ three pellets for a bottle). I suspect that the more pellets get added, the more care will need to be taken when eventually pouring to avoid too many floaters...

Are there any suggested 'best methods' floating about?

 

[Nick JD]

It can be done, but it needs to be done before the yeast has settled out so the yeast takes the hops down with it and they get compacted with/under the yeast by the time it's conditioned.

If the hop grit is free to lift when you open the bottle, it acts as a nucleation point for the CO2 to come out of solution and you get a bottle fountain ... with hop grit in it.

It works, but I don't recommend more than 1, 1cm pellet for each 750ml bottle.

 

[DU99]

could use liquid hop's
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=1036

 

[loikar]

Nick is right about the Nucleation point.
I did it ages ago to 6 beers and on opening they were all murky boys.

If you want to hit it with some hops at bottling; make some hop tea and pour it in when you bulk prime.
You'll get more consistency that way too.

BF

 

[kjparker]

Nick is right about the Nucleation point.
I did it ages ago to 6 beers and on opening they were all murky boys.

If you want to hit it with some hops at bottling; make some hop tea and pour it in when you bulk prime.
You'll get more consistency that way too.

BF

You were lucky.

when I tried it, I had to clean the ceiling. Was quite impressive though was like the entire contents of the bottle jumped for the ceiling!

 

[cwbrown07]

Wow - thank goodness I asked before I experimented. I didn't even think about the neucleation sites...

The hop tea idea sounds like a good'un. Might be time to break out the plunger.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Flewy]

+1 on the bottle fountains. I didn't add hops to the bottles on purpose, but I dry hopped and bottled too early, still had hops floating around in each bottle. I thought it would all just settle out, but no. What little beer was left in each bottle after the fountain was full of stirred up yeast and hop floaty bits. Not my finest hour...