First Time Dry Hopping....Ideas/Procedures ?

[Ricklust]

I’ve been brewing for a little over year now. I only use a primary Fermenter and do 3 gallon batches. The Fermenter is a conical type. I use a bottling wand to bottle.
That being said, I started doing BIAB brewing which is going pretty well. It’s a little more time consuming but gives me more satisfaction overall.
Now for the first time I will be dry hopping in 2 weeks. Opening a Fermenter kinda worries me about infections, oxygen etc..(this will be done in a clean atmosphere). I was told by my LHBS to just put the pellets in the beer.
Will this cause to much trub and clog the bottling wand or spigot ? Don’t want 2 deal with that
Should I use a sanitized hop bag and put the pellets in it? (If so does this need to be weighted and sink to the bottom)? Do I take it out b4 transferring to bottling bucket)?

Just looking for a little input on dry hopping to calm my nerves b4 doing it. Don’t want to ruin the Lemony Sippet batch that’s happily fermenting.

[bpgreen]

No need to worry. You can use a sanitized hop bag if you want, but if you do, you'll need to use something (also sanitized) to weigh the bag down. I've never used the hop bag, but some people prefer using one.

[Beer-lord]

I cold crash before I keg but I rarely use anything to hold my hops. Just go commando and let it do their thing. I have used bags in the past with with glass marbles. I sanitize everything.
If you are concerned about oxygen, don't. I've never had a beer go bad from adding hops. Many times I double dry hop so I open the top twice. It's not open long and I don't see any reason to worry.

[berryman]

^^^ They have it covered, but I will add my 2 cents. I use to secondary a lot and that would be when I dry hopped, you risk more chance of oxidation with a secondary then you would by opening the lid on the primary and adding your hops. I use muslin sacks weighted with a couple SS nuts, sometimes I boil them first and sometimes just a starsan soak (the bag and the nuts that is not the hops) and works either way. Add your hops after primary fermentation is done and 3-5 days before you bottle.

[HerbMeowing]

I dry hop right in the primary.
No racking to 2ndary necessary.

When to Dry Hop
Some advocate adding the charge of dry hops as fermentation is ...
- peaking (bio-transformation ... they say.)
- slowing (scrubs oxygen ... they say).
I add the charge of dry hops a week before bottling, i.e., start of Week 3 in the primary.

Preparing to Dry Hop
Sanitize a 6-8" muslin hop sac in boiling water (1-3 minutes).
Remove sac from water with a fork.
Put sac in sanitized 8 oz. glass / plastic cup draped over the sides to hold it open.
Add hops.
Add counter-weights (I use 11 marbles -- sanitized with StarSan -- for up to 1/2 oz. hop. This keeps to sac submerged but off the bottom)
Tie sac closed with a half hitch knot after sanitizing fingers.

Dry Hopping
Open lid to fermentor slowly to avoid disturbing CO2 layer.
Lower sac into beer.
Replace lid slowly to avoid disturbing CO2 layer.

In general ... rest 3 - 7 days.
Remove sac with sanitized fork.
They'll be a slight loss of volume unless you squeeze the sac which I do to extract flavor more than to recover volume.

[Ricklust]

Thanx to all the Dewers & Brewers for the input on the dry hopping process. Feel much better now.
Thanx Herb for the detailed procedure I will follow.

Slainté [emoji3515]
[emoji481][emoji481]




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk