I tried a few different scenarios for dry hopping in some kind of sieve, but found little to no benefit from doing this. Not to mention the risk of infection from tossing said item into the fermenter. I went back to adding dry hops loose into the fermenter, and I often use large volumes of dry hops. Two things that can help with keeping debris out are 1) cold crash for at least a few days to compact all the gunk, and 2) increase your batch size by a liter or two so that you don't get said gunk transferring into your bottling bucket/keg. IMHO that the extra ingredients to increase batch size by this much is negligible. That is actually one scenario that the BF software does not account for, hop absorption in the fermenter.

 

I too do not have the ability to cold crash. I use a hop socks on all my IPAs with great success. I do spray it down with StarSan before adding the hops. Then, tie it off with unflavored floss before tossing in my fermentor. I leave a tail outside the fermentor so the sock doesn’t sink to the bottom. There is always a risk of infection, but I haven’t experienced this. My thinking is that there is a layer of C02 on top that provides some level of protection.

 

The stainless tube infuser things don't work well for dry hopping in the fermenter for me. Too tall and thin for my batch sizes. They work well in the keg and with an auto-syphon inside the stainless tube for transfer, though I don't really use those approaches much anymore.

Currenly I use bags for the dry hop and loose for the boil and that avoids blockages. I just spray the bag with sanitiser and let it float/drop free in the fermenter.

I've now got a few fermenters with floating dip tubes so I can go back to loose hops on all my batches and follow the approach Craig's mentioned (a litre or two extra batch size for highly hopped and cold crashing).

 

A fine mesh nylon bag solved my dry hop issues (~$5 at the brew shop). The secondary ferment helped, too. I bottle mine, too. There is something about looking at a selection of 12 beers and choosing which one I want today that I like, and 12 kegs is not an option around here. Also, some of the ales do get smoother and condition well with time.

 

They are quite easy to clean

 

Very easy to clean. I grab the ball of hops and peal the bag back over the waste can and turn it inside out. Then use the spray nozzle to remove any sticking particles. Wash with some dish detergent, a spray of Starsan, and it dries quickly on a paper towel.

 

You can also purchase small, disposable muslin hop bags. In bulk they are less than $1 each.

 

Brulosophy just did a podcast about infusers, if you're interested.