What's your dry hop method?

[damdaman]

I'm kind of struggling figuring out a good way to dry hop. Here's my conundrum...

Batch has been racked to secondary. One goal of secondary, limit head space to avoid oxidation, so I rack into a 5gal carboy. This severely limits dry hopping options. I've tried just adding pellet hops to the secondary here but hop debris always ends up in my finished beer, and frankly I don't feel like I get as good aroma in the beer from pellets vs. whole leaf hops.

I've tried adding whole leaf hops to the secondary when transferring to a bucket instead of carboy, but got infections a couple times... plus this leaves substantial headspace.

So what do you guys do?

 

[benm1024]

I just picked up a keg dry hopper from stainless brewing that I'm going to try out for the first time in a week or so, and I imagine that'll be the last way I'll ever do it. Before though I just dumped them in the primary. I always use pellets. I tried whole leaf one time and it absorbed too much beer for my liking.

 

[giraffe]

I just add to the glass secondary, and siphon into the keg with a muslin bag around the end of the auto-siphon to keep out the hops. Havent had an issue. Though i got a finer mesh bags off of ebay than the ones my LHBS sells as hop bags.

 

[pfgonzo]

I put hop pellets in a hop sack and directly into my keg. I use floss to suspend it so it never gets closer than about 1/3 from the bottom of the keg (7-8 inches from the bottom). Adding dry hops directly to my keg VASTLY improved the quality of the hop aroma I obtain. Adding dry hops to a fermentor, or to secondary, has never resulted in the impact that adding them directly to the keg does.

 

[Talgrath]

I put leaf hops in a bag, then rack the beer to a bucket with the hop bag in it. Easy to get the hops out, easy to clean up.

 

[WayFrae]

I put pellets straight in the carboy. Then when racking to the bottling bucket I put a sanitized bag around the 'out' end of my siphon tubing to catch all the hop debris that gets through the siphon. My wilserbrewer hop bag works great for this and is a finer mesh than what my LHBS has.

 

[DesignatedDrinker]

Dont make dry hopping more difficult then it is brother. Use leaf hops(Better for dry hopping), dump them in a secondary carboy, rack ontop, set a week atleast.

If you rack from the center of the beer and work your way down staying just under the floating leaf hops you can avoid 99% of the hop particles, if your worried about it use a piece of muslin bag on the cane end or hose end of your racking equipment. Leaf will absorb more beer sure, but just plan your recipe for an extra 1/4 gallon into the primary and you'll be good.

Been doing it this way forever and it comes out clear and hoppy everytime. As the above post mentioned, dry hopping in the keg is best if you want to get true hop aroma from those leaves.

 

[damdaman]

You have trouble getting the hops out of the carboy when cleaning with that method?

 

[DesignatedDrinker]

You have trouble getting the hops out of the carboy when cleaning with that method?

Nope not at all. I just tip it over and dump it down the garbage disposal, fill the carboy a few inches and shake around to get the rest of the leaf debree, dump it, then just clean as normal with some unscented Oxyclean or PBW to get rid of the hardend build up on the sides.

 

[acidrain]

I use large tea balls and throw them in the corny. Let sit at room temperature for 1 week, then chill, carb and serve. It seems like once the beer is chilled, it stops the dry hop addition.

I'm with pfgonzo:

Adding dry hops directly to my keg VASTLY improved the quality of the hop aroma I obtain. Adding dry hops to a fermentor, or to secondary, has never resulted in the impact that adding them directly to the keg does.

 

[Natdavis777]

I have used various methods including using a secondary, then dry hopping in a corney and transferring to the serving keg a few weeks later, to dry hopping in the serving keg, to just throwing the pellets in the primary. I prefer the last method now. As soon as the Krausen falls, I dry hop for 2 weeks, keg, carb, serve. I reduce my oxidation and infection risks, it's easy, and convenient. But choose which method works best for you, that's all that matters


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[ja09]

I usually split my dry hop into two additions. 1. cold crash primary then 4-6 days at 60-70*. 2. Rack to keg with a filled hop spider from stainless brewing for at least a week chilled the whole time.

I've found I also prefer leaf or whole cone to pellets. Really like my results lately.

 

[eadavis80]

My question is I have a beer that will be in secondary for 3 weeks, but I only want to dry hop for the third week. So, if the beer is already in secondary, do I just put the hop pellets in the secondary, let them float and hope they sink/settle over the course of the week?

 

[DesignatedDrinker]

My question is I have a beer that will be in secondary for 3 weeks, but I only want to dry hop for the third week. So, if the beer is already in secondary, do I just put the hop pellets in the secondary, let them float and hope they sink/settle over the course of the week?

Ya just dump them in and take a sanitized utensil and stir it up a but being careful not to splash beer so you dont oxidize it. As long as you get all the leaf hops wet you should be good. I take my carboy and wiggle it in a circle every few days to mix the hops up to get better usage. This wont give you problems with oxidation because all the o2 has been purged by natural co2.