Blitzing whole hops for dry hopping

[soupdragon]

When I blitzed mine dry they went into a muslin bag weighted down with spoons (all I could find at the time). They stayed in the bag and the effect was pretty much the same as when I blitzed into a puree, ie. loads more effective than whole cones. The problem I had that time was getting the beer off the hops, I ended up with nylon netting tyrapped to the end of my racking cane...even that kept clogging.

In future I shall be sticking to blitzed dry in a weighted muslin bag.

So there's still a noticable benefit to blitzing even when they're contained in either a muslin or voile bag as long as they're weighed down?
Sounds like some good news to me

Just cooling down to pitching temp now, I hope the s-04 is ok. It's got this months date on it.........

Cheers Tom

[Jocky]

Just cooling down to pitching temp now, I hope the s-04 is ok. It's got this months date on it.........

Have you rehydrated it? With the Fermentis yeasts and many others you can always tell if they're good when you rehydrate them.

[soupdragon]

Have you rehydrated it? With the Fermentis yeasts and many others you can always tell if they're good when you rehydrate them.

No, I didn't bother. I used another sachet with the same date just 6 weeks ago and that was fine. Although I didn't realise what the date was at the time.
I have every confidence that it'll be ok, it's never let me down in the past. The only issues I've ever had have been with the iffy batch of Notty a couple of years ago......
Fingers crossed though

Cheers Tom

[hopsinjoor]

OK, so I dropped in a blitzed mix of Simcoe, Amarillo, and Exp 366 into my latest IPA. About 150 grams, all in.

I left it at room temperature for about 4 days and the hop 'slurry' was still floating on the top of the FV, after which I placed the FV into a fridge that I got round to using.

I took the FV out of the fridge today (2 days later) and it was measuring at 5 degrees, and as you can see, the majority of the hops had settled out.



and the bottom of the FV, with all the delicious hops, looks like this.



I hope that helps clear up some worries and confusion about blitzing hops. The beer was lovely and clear, all good.

[soupdragon]

Looks like quite a bit of a loss with all that sediment. Did you have a lot of break material go into your fermenter?

Cheers Tom

[hopsinjoor]

Heh, That's all hops, apart from a very thin bit of yeast at the bottom. The bulk of the yeast and the proteins were removed when racking into the conditioning bin.

To be honest, there wasn't all that much loss. It looks like quite a lot in there, but that's in suspension. When I racked off, I was left with mainly just the hops and yeast, maybe less than 300ml of beer still in there. I cover the racking cane with both sanitised tights and sanitised muslin to act as a fliter, so I rack from above the level of the debris, then as I get to the bottom and the beer level/debris level drops I go lower to get as much as I can without getting the yeast.

[soupdragon]

Ah sorry, I thought that was your primary.

Cheers Tom

[soupdragon]

I'm presuming that a hand held blender will be up to the job of blitzing the hops? Does it make much difference to how well they get chopped up if you add a small amount of liquid ( cooled boiled water/beer )?

Cheers Tom

[Jocky]

Hand blender might puree the hops a bit rather than just breaking them up.

But adding water isn't an issue - just make sure it's been boiled and cooled first.

[soupdragon]

Ah so I may have just wasted £4.13 on a hand blender from Argos?
Mind you, it'll at least cut them into small bits so should still give better results than using whole hops

Cheers Tom

[Jocky]

Puree works just fine - only danger is that bits would slip through even a fine mesh bag

[AdyG]

I bottled mine tonight after 6 days dry hopping on the blitzed hops. I transferred to a fv with bottling tap 2 days ago but strained the liquid to get the majority of the hop particles out. I made no attempt at cooling other than sticking the fv in the cupboard under the stairs, which in this weather is still about 15 degrees plus. Fortunately it looks like there's no bits of hops in the beer... it looks pretty clear actually.

Roll on tasting time! I do need to sort out a brewing fridge still though...

[soupdragon]

Just blitzed my hops.

I didn't add any water or beer though. They ended up looking very finely chopped, not totally ground to a pulp. Popped them in a muslin bag, weighed it down with a large stainless steel nut. They're now sitting at the bottom of my fermenter doing their thing
Fingers crossed that they stay within the bag.

Cheers Tom

[AdyG]

Just blitzed my hops.

I didn't add any water or beer though. They ended up looking very finely chopped, not totally ground to a pulp. Popped them in a muslin bag, weighed it down with a large stainless steel nut. They're now sitting at the bottom of my fermenter doing their thing
Fingers crossed that they stay within the bag.

Cheers Tom

I sieved mine on the transfer to the bottling fv, they were blitzed to a pulp mixed with beer, and no hop particles are in my now bottled beer, so don't worry too much if any escape.

[soupdragon]

Fingers crossed

Cheers Tom