Dry hopping

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

Hi guys,

So we are getting close to finally brewing that IPA I asked about earlier - now just over a week away - and it will also be my first attempt at dry hopping.

I was just wondering, what do you suggest as the best method from a sanitary point of view - to boil the hops bag or to let it lie in a sanitation mixture before adding the hops? And once I add the hops bag to the fermenter (about 5 days before bottling), do I stir or do I just drop it in?

Thanks!

[Johan Stander Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Johan Stander]

Hi Krugie

There is no need to sanitize the hops.
You don't stir at all. You risk introducing oxygen into your beer, which is bad news at this time of the fermentation. Just open your fermenter, drop the hops in and close it. If you decide to use a hop bag for the dry hopping, you need to sanitize the bag. You can do that by steeping the bag in boiling water for a few minutes. You will notice that the hop bag tends to float in the beer. You can remedy this by popping two sanitized desert spoons (stainless steel of course) into the bag with the hops.
That's how I do it anyway.
Let us know how it turns out.

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

Hi Krugie

There is no need to sanitize the hops.
You don't stir at all. You risk introducing oxygen into your beer, which is bad news at this time of the fermentation. Just open your fermenter, drop the hops in and close it. If you decide to use a hop bag for the dry hopping, you need to sanitize the bag. You can do that by steeping the bag in boiling water for a few minutes. You will notice that the hop bag tends to float in the beer. You can remedy this by popping two sanitized desert spoons (stainless steel of course) into the bag with the hops.
That's how I do it anyway.
Let us know how it turns out.

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

Great - thanks! I will be using a hop bag so that is the part I was wondering about from a sanitize point of view.

[Johan Stander Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Johan Stander]

Enjoy the brew day.[emoji482]

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Hi guys,

So we are getting close to finally brewing that IPA I asked about earlier - now just over a week away - and it will also be my first attempt at dry hopping.

I was just wondering, what do you suggest as the best method from a sanitary point of view - to boil the hops bag or to let it lie in a sanitation mixture before adding the hops? And once I add the hops bag to the fermenter (about 5 days before bottling), do I stir or do I just drop it in?

Thanks!

Both methods are used by brewers, but I find it best to throw the hops in directly without a bag .... as you cold crash after 5 days, the hops fall to the bottom and if you use an auto-siphon to bottle, you can just tie a bag to the end of that before inserting into fermenter.

[The Flying Brew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Flying Brew]

Hi Krugie, I tend to use a hop bag if I want to re-use the yeast cake without washing the yeast. Won't use the hop bag if I am tossing the yeast down the drain. If you transfer the yeast to a secondary then also wouldn't use bag. Wouldn't stir beer unless it is to move some priming sugar around prior to bottling. When dry-hopping I think the intention is to not waste hops (so don't use too small a bag for the amount of hops if you do use a bag and don't use hop bag if you don't need to) and to minimise oxygen uptake of the beer so that the hop aroma will last longer after bottling.

Many breweries dry-hop for shorter periods (2-3days). But you will probably find a 1000 different approaches depending on who you speak to.

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

Thanks guys!

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

OK - I'm back with another questions or asking for recommendations for my 1st dry hopping.

To date we have always been bottling directly from the primary fermenter and have not had any issues. My plan is to also do the dry hopping in the primary (using a hops bag) but now I am wondering whether it would be best to syphon to a bottling container before bottling to ensure the hops aroma is spread throughout? I'm assuming the hops bag is going to settle at the bottom of the fermenter and have also read that it is a good idea to add a weight to ensure that it does? I'm not 100% sure as to the effect of the dry hopping - I don't want it to be concentrated in the bottom of the fermenter only?

Or should I rather do things differently now that dry-hopping is in play and do a secondary fermenter with the dry hops added there? Again, if so, would it then be OK to bottle directly from the 2nd fermenter or syphon to a bottling container to spread the aroma?

Thanks in advance!

[Johan Stander Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Johan Stander]

Hi Krugie
If you are using a hop bag, just leave it in there for three or four days. You will be fine.

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

[BeerHolic Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BeerHolic]

OK - I'm back with another questions or asking for recommendations for my 1st dry hopping.

To date we have always been bottling directly from the primary fermenter and have not had any issues. My plan is to also do the dry hopping in the primary (using a hops bag) but now I am wondering whether it would be best to syphon to a bottling container before bottling to ensure the hops aroma is spread throughout? I'm assuming the hops bag is going to settle at the bottom of the fermenter and have also read that it is a good idea to add a weight to ensure that it does? I'm not 100% sure as to the effect of the dry hopping - I don't want it to be concentrated in the bottom of the fermenter only?

Or should I rather do things differently now that dry-hopping is in play and do a secondary fermenter with the dry hops added there? Again, if so, would it then be OK to bottle directly from the 2nd fermenter or syphon to a bottling container to spread the aroma?

Thanks in advance!

There is not set right or wrong way, it all depends on your setup and what works for you.

I rack to a secondary fermentor after primary fermentation is completed. Once secondary fermentation is complete I bottle using a brew bottler attached to the tap of the secondary fermentor.
The amount of trub at the bottem of primary fermentor is past the level of the tap (actually I do not have a tap on primary anymore, just a stop plug) so I need to siphon to a secondary. Hops is added to secondary, no bag just thrown in.
When I used to do extract before going to all grain I bottled from the primary and also just threw hops into fermentor, there was very little trub which allowed bottling from the primary.

I have found that with high amounts of hops, when dry hopping i.e. 80g plus, you tend to lose the last 0.5 - 1 litre of beer as the hop waste blocks the tap. This can obvoiusly be solved by using a hop bag, but I feel that you get more hop flavour/ aroma without the use of a bag. Ok I can ofset this by using more dry hops, but I am happy with the small amount of beer wasted.

[Johan Stander Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Johan Stander]

There is not set right or wrong way, it all depends on your setup and what works for you.

I rack to a secondary fermentor after primary fermentation is completed. Once secondary fermentation is complete I bottle using a brew bottler attached to the tap of the secondary fermentor.
The amount of trub at the bottem of primary fermentor is past the level of the tap (actually I do not have a tap on primary anymore, just a stop plug) so I need to siphon to a secondary. Hops is added to secondary, no bag just thrown in.
When I used to do extract before going to all grain I bottled from the primary and also just threw hops into fermentor, there was very little trub which allowed bottling from the primary.

I have found that with high amounts of hops, when dry hopping i.e. 80g plus, you tend to lose the last 0.5 - 1 litre of beer as the hop waste blocks the tap. This can obvoiusly be solved by using a hop bag, but I feel that you get more hop flavour/ aroma without the use of a bag. Ok I can ofset this by using more dry hops, but I am happy with the small amount of beer wasted.

I agree 100% with BeerHolic. I don't transfer to secondary though, but since I use the auto syphon anyway, I don't bother with hop bags when dry hopping. Most of my brew ends up in the keg so there is only about 6 or 8 bottles in the end.

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

Thanks guys! I will sleep on it a bit!

[krugie Member Find all posts View Profile Close krugie]

We finally had our first taste of the IPA (and 1st dry hopping attempt) today.... two weeks after bottling. Still a bit cloudy but the taste is amazing. Might end up being one of our best best brews to date! Trying to attach a pic bit its not working. Will try on the "What Are You Brewing" thread.