Another dry hopping question

[Bazz]

I generally dry hop with leaf hops, usually in a weighted down hop sock, i'm wondering (feeling lazy) if i would get as good or even better results just chucking them into the fermenter?

Will they remain floating and make kegging easy or will they sink and block my tap?

Thanks.

[guypettigrew]

My dry hops are just chucked in the keg. One of these is fixed to the back of the tap to stop the hops clogging it up.

Guy

[Kev888]

There may be a little difference in flavour infusion but not much, between a large/spacious hop bag and free-floating dry hops. If you're using a tiny bag, and/or an especially fine one more suited to pellets, then free floating can be more efficient. You can stir free-floating hops easily, but you can also agitate a hop bag fairly conveniently too so very much down to personal preference really.

Free hops usually sink given time except perhaps for some which resolutely float, so the beer between top and bottom is fairly free of them when it comes to racking or running off the beer. However, there may be 'some' still hovering between, and selective racking may also take a bit more effort/concentration/skill. Hop leaves can cause issues with keg valves/poppets, and aren't nice to see in bottles, so you may feel a bag is actually easier in the long run, or else that a filter over the outlet tap or racking cane is worthwhile.

I must admit that I've generally gone for free-floating as I don't really like using wet floppy bags that have to be sterilized. but I use kegs and tend not to re-seal them once dispensing, so provided there aren't enough hops to block flow through the valve there aren't really any problems.

[legion]

Check http://brulosophy.com/2017/07/03/loose- ... t-results/

[Bazz]

Thanks for your responses, think i'll stick to bagging, can't be done with the stress of a blocked tap on kegging day.

[PeeBee]

Very timely. I'm about to dry hop 42L in the fermenter (in its secondary stage now) and was concerned the hops didn't have enough space to float about in (2x hop spiders, 300x70dia, holding 100g hops each which is about the maximum without packing tight). The only problem being I've 380g of dry hops (Dead Pony Club clone) and only 2 spiders, so 200g are just going to be chucked in free. With half in the spiders I should still be able to keg without having to deal with loads of debris.

The only major divergence from the advice here is that I "milled" the whole hops. I'll use pellets next time! And the "milling" saw off my (aging) liquidiser so I'll have to wait until tomorrow for the replacement to finish the job.

[nastyphoenix]

Better using pellets and chuck them in loose. They will sink in a few days to a week. Commercial breweries agitate the hop cake at the bottom for a week (by pumping CO2 in through the bottom) to keep them in suspense to increase the hop flavour. You could do this with a sterile something.

Add them at the end of fermentation after racking off the trub. This is because you'll extract more flavour at the warmer temps. After a week, bring the temp down gradually and the hops will sink.