Real daft question

[crookedeyeboy]

I'm just thinking about dry hopping and the various gadgets people use.

I have a muslin bag that I use but I was just wondering what do people do with it?

Chuck it in and leave it? Although Ive found in the past this floats, but I am now looking at pellets do they float or sink?

[Dave S]

I'm just thinking about dry hopping and the various gadgets people use.

I have a muslin bag that I use but I was just wondering what do people do with it?

Chuck it in and leave it? Although Ive found in the past this floats, but I am now looking at pellets do they float or sink?

Not used pellets at all, but I've tried dry hopping in a variety for ways, including a couple of times using a SS tube that Greenxpaddy was making a while ago. That was OK but you have to watch that you don't over-fill it. I'm thinking next time reverting to a hop bag with a weight. Just now need to source an appropriate chunk of SS that's heavy enough.

[killer]

You need to weigh the bag down with a sterilised weight.

If you use pellets they tend to turn to a smushy powder. They do eventually settle though I tend to accelerate this by dropping to 2°C for a couple of days. Now I get best results dry-hopping by making a hop puree in a Litre of wort. This mixes really well and I imagine having put it in a blender you rupture all the oil containing glands and get maximum recovery of oils etc... Again I drop the temp to about 2° for a few days and rack to a bottling bucket.

I also sometimes use a 12 cm teaball - this will hold lots of hops - as Dave warned though - don't overfill as if you don't properly saturate the hops you don't get the goodness out of them. On one occasion I put way too many in and after 4 days the inside of the mass of hops in the teaball was still dry !

The other solution is just to throw all the hops in and use a small teaball with your siphon tubing poked through to the centre as per PDTNC's idea

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=65013&p=684699&hil ... ll#p684699

I always use one of these with the hop puree.

[fisherman]

Hello Paul .
I use pellets in secondary . No bags or tea balls just straight in with pellets. They float for approx 48 hours then sink to the bottom and settle firmly. I use gelatine 48 hours before I bottle. When I bottle I syphon into the bottling bucket using 15mm pipe with a lentgh of 15mm copper tube with a u bend. So a very fast syphon, I sometimes cover the end of the syphon with a nylon hopbag to catch any hop residue but collect nothing. I cannot fault pellets I use them in a Homemade Hop Spider in the boil. Paul can you advise me when I bottle the beer is gin clear and just get a dusting on the bottle. Do you think I should use gelatine for clearing or is it stripping to much yeast out of suspension?.

[crookedeyeboy]

Thanks Fisherman, you can use finings but be aware that yeast removal will happen over night as opposed to a few days or weeks so basically if you leave the beer with finings in too long you will evntually have no yeast left to prime with. I used to fine for 24 hours then bottle and it left a perfect amount of yeast in suspension.

[fisherman]

Cheers Paul,
I am due to bottle in the next few days. I shall use gelatine the day before I bottle as you advise. I only use a little sugar for priming just the tip of the spoon as I hate fizzy beer. I love T 90 hop pellets they are never brown and cheesy , Leaf hops in commercial use may be good but I have had very leafy ( no cones ) brown packets. Easier to freeze pellets due to space.
Happy Brewing
Dave