Dry Hop in Secondary

Grains, malts, hops, yeast, water and other ingredients used to brew. Recipe reviews and suggestions.

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Blubyoumon
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Dry Hop in Secondary

Post by Blubyoumon »

Hello. I have recently made an IPA and it called for a dry hop in the secondary carboy. I used pellets. no screens. I am curious that the hops just lay around on top and just look like a problem when I go to bottle. I am in the second week of secondary. Will I need to filter this off?
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slothrob
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dry hops

Post by slothrob »

Dry hopping with pellets can be a bit messy, but often most of the particles will drop to the bottom after a while. Some more of the floating particles will stick to the glass during racking. Then the trick is to try and avoid them as best you can when you rack the beer to the keg or bottling bucket.

Some people put sanitized nylons or stainless steel screens over the input end of the siphon tube, but I've never tried it myself. I'd worry that it would clog and break the siphon, but apparently some brewers get it to work.
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Blubyoumon
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Post by Blubyoumon »

Thanks you for your reply and the tips.
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slothrob
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dry hops

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Good Luck and let us know how it goes.
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The BJB
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dry hopping oops...

Post by The BJB »

So I racked a half batch (test) APA into the secondary today and added an additional oz. of Millennium in the secondary. To do this, I soaked a muslin hop bag in the sanitizer, squeezed out the liquid and tied the hop pellets in it.

Is there any reason that I should have avoided dropping it in the bag into the secondary and just dropped the hop pellets into the brew? I assumed that this would make it easier for bottling, did I make a mistake in doing this?
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slothrob
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hop bag

Post by slothrob »

Like you say, the hop bag helps keep the hops out of the way when you bottle. If you put pellets in directly, you might see some bits of hops in the bottles, which freaks some people out.

I don't dry hop that often, but when I do, I just add them directly to the fermentor. Most brewers I know prefer hop sacks, though, so either is acceptable.
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Post by The BJB »

what a relief! I was beginning to worry that the bag would somehow throw the taste off.

As said in our other conversation regarding the E.IPA, I am just beginning to experiment with hops. Before beginning to brew, I was one of those "stout only" kind of guys, so I never even knew anything about hops even being in beer.
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