Being my second time brewing beer and my first time going into a secondary I really noticed how much this helped clear the beer up and discard the sediment versus my first batch. However, I noticed a few issue/questions that I am not sure how to approach.
1. The muslin bag full of hops is floating on top of the beer in the secondary. My concern with this is that only half of the hops, the hops in contact with the beer are contributing to the dry hopping. It may be to late now, but is there a best practice method to dry hopping in glass carboy? Should I have sunken the hops? What is I didnt use a muslin bag?
2. Going along with the dry hopping; I was happy to see the beer clear up from racking into the secondary and leaving behind sediment, however, I now noticed little bits and pieces of the dry hop leaves have been introduced to the beer and seem to floating around. They dont seem to want to settle to the bottom or even float completely to the top so I am concerned about them being incorporated into the final beer on bottling day. Any way I can filter them out?
3. One last observation I had is the activity of the beer now that it's in the secondary. I know primary fermentation has finished and it's considered "flat" beer until I pitch with the priming sugar into the bottles. What I am observing now is that the beer seems to be pretty much "stagnant" in the carboy and I worrying that my beer is "dead." However I did notice that there is pressure coming out of the carboy as my S shape Air Lock is not letting the water sit at 50/50, but there is no bubbling. Since this brew is clearer than my first batch, I have nothing to compare the activity of the beer to as with my first batch you could not see into my glass due to the cloudiness of the beer. Should I see some light carbonation? Or am I just worrying to much?
1. The muslin bag full of hops is floating on top of the beer in the secondary. My concern with this is that only half of the hops, the hops in contact with the beer are contributing to the dry hopping. It may be to late now, but is there a best practice method to dry hopping in glass carboy? Should I have sunken the hops? What is I didnt use a muslin bag?
2. Going along with the dry hopping; I was happy to see the beer clear up from racking into the secondary and leaving behind sediment, however, I now noticed little bits and pieces of the dry hop leaves have been introduced to the beer and seem to floating around. They dont seem to want to settle to the bottom or even float completely to the top so I am concerned about them being incorporated into the final beer on bottling day. Any way I can filter them out?
3. One last observation I had is the activity of the beer now that it's in the secondary. I know primary fermentation has finished and it's considered "flat" beer until I pitch with the priming sugar into the bottles. What I am observing now is that the beer seems to be pretty much "stagnant" in the carboy and I worrying that my beer is "dead." However I did notice that there is pressure coming out of the carboy as my S shape Air Lock is not letting the water sit at 50/50, but there is no bubbling. Since this brew is clearer than my first batch, I have nothing to compare the activity of the beer to as with my first batch you could not see into my glass due to the cloudiness of the beer. Should I see some light carbonation? Or am I just worrying to much?