Dry Hop sanitation issues

TheZel66

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Don't know if anyone's covered this yet, but I'm thinking of dry hopping my next batch, a couple plugs in the secondary. DO I have to sanitize the hop plugs, and if yes, how would i do that?
 
From what i understand, as long as your hops have been properly stored and handled you're good to go.
 
ABout to do same. StarSAn or Boil bags and marbles, correct?

BTW - since I've started brewing beer, I've have totally lost my marbles. Can I use pennies, or bolts instead?
 
Stuff 'em in and forget about it. RDWHAHB.
 
hops are naturally anti bacterial so generally you don't have to worry at all. I just sanitize everything that is going to touch them and then throw them in and don't worry about it
 
The way that i dry hop is using pellet hops ground to a powder and thrown in the primary about 4 or 5 days before racking to secondary. I have had great results doing it that way. I have dry hopped in the secondary in the past and have gotten some off flavors. I think dry hopping for too long has caused that. What is everyones timeline for dry hopping?
 
Hammer1 said:
I think dry hopping for too long has caused that. What is everyones timeline for dry hopping?

I've dry hopped 3 of 5 batches (I'm still a "noob").. first two were seven days, and then I read comments like yours so on this most recent one I went three days. So far, I think the results are the same.

Have used both pellet and whole hops, in a hopsack, with marbles (not sinkers! :)) suspended on a fishing line.
 
I dry hop for 7 days in secondary with leaf hops in bucket fermenter. 14 can create off flavors from what i've read and what I've experienced. Don't have any marbles to lose so won't go there but the pulverized dry pellets at end of primary sound good. Couldn't save yeast then though.
 
Hammer1 said:
The way that i dry hop is using pellet hops ground to a powder and thrown in the primary about 4 or 5 days before racking to secondary. I have had great results doing it that way. I have dry hopped in the secondary in the past and have gotten some off flavors. I think dry hopping for too long has caused that. What is everyones timeline for dry hopping?

I dry hop with whole hops for 2 weeks, the last 5 or so days are part of a cold crash to make the hops sink to the bottom.

I'm curious...If you dry hop in the primary, why do you rack to a secondary? (If your secondary is the keg, enough said) I've taken to dry hopping in the primary as well in most cases, really liking the results and simplicity of it.
 
I personally keep it under a week, and typically use whole hops but I may switch to pellets. The link below is interesting, says that for whole hops 6 days is the saturation point, pellets are faster and give more bang for the buck, and most of the dry hop benefit happens in the first few hours:

http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2012/12 ... y-hopping/
 
Did my dry hop experiment today. Racked my single hop cascade ale into 3 one gallon jugs. Hopped each one with cascade, citra, and centennia, bottled the rest.

Next time I will add hop bags to jugs before racking and will go pellets, esp after Larrys post. whole hops floating on top of jug, I assume they will drop over time.

Any tips on bottling only a gallon of brew?
 
I stuff the dry hops in and leave them until I remember to bottle. Usually it's a week or less.
 
Bottling only a gallon: I use priming tabs for that small a volume. Just drop two or three into the bottles (sanitized of course), fill and cap as usual.
 
I'm curious...If you dry hop in the primary, why do you rack to a secondary? (If your secondary is the keg, enough said) I've taken to dry hopping in the primary as well in most cases, really liking the results and simplicity of it.

I rack to a secondary and cold crash before kegging. Cold crashing drops all of the suspended yeast and leaves a clear beer. You can only Cold Crash if you are kegging and force carbing, if you are going to bottle condition you need the suspended yeast.
 
Hammer1 said:
I'm curious...If you dry hop in the primary, why do you rack to a secondary? (If your secondary is the keg, enough said) I've taken to dry hopping in the primary as well in most cases, really liking the results and simplicity of it.

I rack to a secondary and cold crash before kegging. Cold crashing drops all of the suspended yeast and leaves a clear beer. You can only Cold Crash if you are kegging and force carbing, if you are going to bottle condition you need the suspended yeast.

That's a brew myth, although it can take a bit longer to bottle carb.
 
That's a brew myth, although it can take a bit longer to bottle carb.

Really?

Could someone explain to me how C02 forms in a flat liquid without yeast?

:geek: ? :ugeek: ?
 
In my understanding, even at low temps, there will still be residual yeast in suspension, and some yeast are inevitably carried into the bottling bucket. The most common way I've seen commercial breweries get rid of yeast is to run the beer through a filter.

I have cold crashed and bottled several batches, including last night's bottling session. I'm not worried about under carbonation and cold crashing, and I don't recall ever having an issue. It was an English Ale (ESB), used S-04, and man did it drop clear. For an English Ale, carbonation matters less anyway.

Fermented it at 62F for 8 days. Raised it up to 68 for a few days (which really cleaned it up nicely), then cold crashed it to 34 for 2 days. Before I raised the temp, about 7-8 days in, it had this NASTY woody paint thinner taste. I was actually a little worried the S-04 was to blame, but the old saying RDWHAHB is almost always true.

I am in the process of adding a collar and moving my CO2 tank outside my keezer, so I can have two additional keg in there! That will be sweet. I am really getting tired of bottling. Sometimes it is fun, but lately it becomes a chore.
 
Great post explanation LarryBrewer. Also, yeast autolysis will continue at cold crash temperatures, invariably kicking up small amounts of viable yeast. It takes very little yeast to eat the small amount of sugars needed to produce a few volumes of co2.

Cheers to Beers!
 
Hammer1 said:
That's a brew myth, although it can take a bit longer to bottle carb.

Really?

Could someone explain to me how C02 forms in a flat liquid without yeast?

:geek: ? :ugeek: ?
Here is how you know. After cold crashing and kegging a beer for about four months, I have bottled from the keg, and then stored that bottled beer for about 9 months. When opened, that beer had a thin layer of yeast in the bottle. This is yeast that remained in suspension after the cold crash. There is not a lot, but it is there. Eventually it will all drop out, but on the home brew scale, you got some time.
 

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