I am thinking of dry hopping in my primary with pellet hops.
When is this normally done?
I assume it would be after fermentation is pretty much done and should be left alone for 5 days or so.
Will these pellet hops settle out on the bottom? I assume that they are just dumped straight into the beer, or should a hop bag be used.
A little concerned about when I bottle that the dissolved pellets may leave some particles in suspension.
Any thoughts on what has worked well?..I really do not want to rack to a secondary, so that is why I am looking in the primary.
I don’t know if there is any “normal” for dry hopping any more. Many brewers dry hop during active primary fermentation. I prefer to dry hop for 48 hours at 35F post fermentation. Pick a method and see how it works for you. Next time try a different method to compare.
When I dry hop, I place them in a bag suspended in the fermenter to keep the spigot from clogging. I place them in three days after the beginning of fermentation and leave them three days in the beer as it completes fermentation. The thought is to add them as fermentation is taking place so the active yeast will consume any O2 that was introduced by opening the FV and adding the hops.
I tried cold dry hopping for the first time and the results were great. I dry hopped an Oktoberfest Marzen in primary with Hallertau Mittelfruh for 2 days at 36F before kegging the beer. I may not go back to warm dry hopping.
Since I can’t cold crash in my walk-in cooler without needing a “go fund me” page to pay for the electric bill, I dry hop after primary fermentation is complete. I have tried it in the conical but still get a lot of hop residue clogging up my in-line screen when I try to keg out of the primary with more than a couple ounces of pellets.
I went back to dry hopping for 5 days in a carboy “aka a Bright tank” at room temperature and use a stainless steel racking cane to keg out of there. if I suspend the cane about 3/4 inch above the bottom of the carboy, I can reduce the amount of hop residue getting into the in-line screen. I also get a lot more of the suspended yeast to drop out giving me a brighter finished beer Yes, there is some added danger of O2 pickup but I purge the carboys with CO2 before filling them from the primary to minimize it as much s possible.
One of these days I will MacGyver a glycol chiller to cold crash my beers in the primary to do what Denny does.
I dry hop in primary. When to add the hops is a whole other issue. Occasionally get some hop particles in the bottle, but they will fall to the bottom along with yeast sediment when chilled. Chilling your bottles in the fridge for at least a few days (preferably 5-7 days) will have similar effects of cold crashing a fermenter if you don’t have the ability to do that.