Dry Hop Sanitizing

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KIDD

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Hello,
I just finished my first All Grain batch made on my homemade 2 tier system. Everything went well, But I have a question concerning dry hopping in my secondary carboy. Do I need to boil the hopbag to sanitize it. I realize that the hops will not contaminate at all, but what about the bag.
Also, should I first put the bag in the carboy first or after the beer has been racked?
 
Yes, sanitize the hop bag.

But you dont need to use the bag at all. I just dry hopped for the first time in the secondary. Just dropped the hop pellets right in there.
 
I would add the bag and then rack onto it, you might also consider adding a weight to the bag to keep it below the surface.
 
I would, when I dry hopped without a bag with whole hops I ended up with a mess on my hands, I had to choose between straining the beer before bottling and risk aerating it or getting tons of pieces of hops in my finished product. However, even a few rocks in my bag couldn't keep it down, of course no bag they will float on top as well.
 
Yea but I read that if you bag whole hops you are gonna have a real hard time getting them out of the carboy.
 
I secondary is glass carboys and I never bag them. I just toss them in loose. It would be too big of a PITA to extract the soggy bag from the carboy! I use an auto-siphon and have never had a problem siphoning or bottling.

That said, I may convert a corny keg to a dedicated secondary for dry-hopping, similar to the recent project in BYO. With the larger opening of a corny, I could use an ungodly amount of hops, bagged and weighted for a monster IPA aroma! I know that Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head uses women's nylons stuffed with hops and weighted down with S/S chunks in the bright tanks for hopping his 60 & 90 min IPAs.
 
The bag is actually a lot easier to get out then put in, Just pours out if you add some water, if you put rocks in though then it can be a bit harder to get out.
 
Yeah, an auto-siphon is gonna act like a strainer, and you really shouldn't get much in the way of hop leaf bits in the finished product.

those using a standard siphon hose...yeah I can see what a mess you'd run into.
 
malkore said:
Yeah, an auto-siphon is gonna act like a strainer, and you really shouldn't get much in the way of hop leaf bits in the finished product.

those using a standard siphon hose...yeah I can see what a mess you'd run into.


What about the small chunks of hop leaf that get sucked up against the opening on the bottom of the auto-siphon, and impede the flow? This is the problem that I have had, and it is a real PITA! I have even tried the sanitized mesh wrapped around the end of the siphon: th chunks keep building up, and slowing the siphon down until it stops. Any suggestions?


Also, be prepared to lose more beer to hop absorbtion with whole flowers than pelletss.
 
Bearcat Brewmeister said:
I actually throw mine in loose then put the bag our a nylon around my racking cane when I transfer to the keg to keep the hops out.

I do the same thing, but I cut the bottom off of a small muslin bag and slip it over the bare cane then put on the little rubber bumper that goes on the bottom.
Worked pretty well for my first foray into dry hopping. No hop particles made it into my bottles at least, and it didn't get clogged.
 
The one time so far that I used dry (whole) hops. I put them in sanitized cheese cloth. Yes it was a bit of a PITA to get them in/out of the carboy. I waited until after I racked to the bottling bucket to remove them. All in all it worked fine just a little tough getting the bag of cheese cloth through the hole. They made a real nice Sierra Nevada clone which I am drinking now.

Cheers!!! :mug:
 
Hey Chris_dog, how did your SN Clone turn out. I just made one recently. It came out a lot more hoppy, which I am not unhappy about, but I was curious how much and what you dry hopped with.

I used .75 oz of cascade for two weeks.
 
I just dry hopped for the first time and i used a grain bag with some marbles in it. Then tied some fishing line around the top so i can pull it out with. Ill see how it works in about a week or so.
 
It was BYO's clone recipe which called for dry hopping in the secondary with .75 oz of Cascade Hops. I agree the beer does have a strong hop aroma not so much it is unpleasant though. (Really it is very good and not bad for my first attempt at AG). I might do half of the dry hops if I make it again. Right now I have Beermuncher's Nierra Sevada that is ready to be bottled. I will see which I like better before I try and fine tune either recipe to my taste.
 
Can you Dry Hop successfully if the hops are just floating in a grain bag at the top of the secondary? I was going to leave it in there for 2 weeks.
 
I dry hop using pellets only. They usually sink to the bottom and my auto sihpon with the cap on leaves them at the botton. If it picks up little it just settles out in my bottling bucket before I bottle.

Once they stayed floating on the top and that was fine also. If they stay on the top I swirl the carboy a few days before bottling and the eventually sink to the bottom.
 
I use whole for dry hopping. They float on top of the beer and give me no problems when siphoning( just a few leaves get sucked up, no biggie). So far that is the only method I have tried.
 
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