Wondering if others experience a layer of pellet mush when dry hoping pellets? I see this green gunk atop my carboy during primary. The recipe required 7oz. Should it be mixed in? Thx
I add most of my hops at 5 minutes to O minutes. Stir hard to achieve whirlpool like swirl while cooling. When it settles in the carboy, the Krausen always has some hops in it. I do not stir. Eventually, it falls to the bottom. Works out fine. Bitterness and flavor great… 20 batches this way. No issues.
he’s talking about dryhopping, not late kettle hops.
yes - the green sludge that floats on top - very common. Cold crashing can often drop it, or just rack from underneath and pay attention when you get to the end…
you can try agitating the carboy/bucket, but I wouldn’t. definitely wouldn’t stir (oxidation concerns).
You can also put the hop pellets in a hop bag along with enough glass beads to sink it to the bottom.
It will sink on its own
Ok, for dry hopping, I put them in a stainless steel tea ball. Falls to the bottom. Pellet hops dissolve out of tea ball. Float back to top just like late kettle hopping. Sink later. No problems. I would only worry if your floating pellets are thick enough that some pellets not in contact with wort and never dissolve. I would guess that over time, more and more dissolve until all in solution.
If you keg, you might want to try keg-hopping. I put pellets or whole hops in a nylon bag and hang it from dental floss about 1/3-1/2 way down the height of the keg. This way, the hops are out of the beer once that 1/3 or 1/2 of the keg has been served (that helps keep from getting vegetal or grassy notes from the hop matter).
It will drop
I usually drop in the pellets and then gently rock the carboy. As they break up some drops down and some floats. I just try to take care when racking. Had a batch recently that actually clogged my siphon and I lost a lot of liquid volume but all my other batches have been fine. I’m interested in trying the muslin bag or teaball type ideas to maybe prevent that in the future.
If you’re using a carboy it will be hard to find a teaball that will fit.
I can get teaballs into my better bottles but the neck if a glass carboy is much narrower.
Even the generous opening of a corny keg is narrower than you might think. Most tea infusers are too wide to fit. I think I had to go with 2.5" tea infusers and I use several of them when I dry hop.
7 oz of of hops will fill a lot of balls.
No worries on the hops. If you want to add a filter to prevent the dry hops from entering your keg or bottling bucket, just zip tie a knee high leg stocking to the end of your hose. It will catch all hop matter that you siphon or run off.