The subject says it all, really. I’m planning to dry hop an IPA with Ahtanum, but only have whole leaf available. I was going to try putting it in a muslin bag with a ball bearing to weigh it down. It’ll probably be a nuisance to get out of the carboy, though. Will there be enough surface area between the bagged hops and the beer? Should I dry hop in a bucket instead of a carboy? Should I just try to find some Ahtanum pellets online?
Halp!
Why not do it loose in the carboy? I’ve done that a bunch, you just have to put a screen or a bit of muslin over your racking cane when it’s ready.
Whole leaf hops will be fine for dry hopping.
You are right, if you put them in a bag, it will be a pain to get out of the carboy.
I never used a bag, just drop the hops in the carboy and when its ready, rack off the beer.
Since I’ve been kegging my beer, when I dry hop, I do it in the keg.
Will they sink after a bit if I just drop them on top, or should I drop them into an empty carboy and rack on top of them? Does it much matter?
I recently dry-hopped in a carboy with loose whole hops. They mostly stayed on the surface. I had no issues with my auto-siphon when it came time to rack to a keg.
doesn’t much matter. in my experience if you rack on top of them they just float on top anyway. there shouln’t be enough movement during racking to swamp them anyway. They will slowly absorb liquid and give up their goodness. They never sink in my experience but that doesn’t seem to matter. some sort of filter on the racking cane would be a good idea though as it allways messes up my siphon otherwise.
I’ve dry hopped with whole hops in a carboy. The carboy neck worked as quite a good means of squeezing the absorbed beer out of the hops as I slowly pulled it out (I’d used about 2ozs of whole hops).
YMMV
Either way will work fine. If you decide to use a bag then make sure you roll your hops into a long cylinder small enough to push through the carboy neck. Both ways have their advantages but I prefer to add them in a muslin bag for ease of removal.
Free flowers in glass
are just too beautiful not to try it. 
My rafts never sink; I just pop the siphon down through and rack out from under it.
Cheers to the Ahtanum dry hop!
Man, I love making IPA’s. My basement smells sublimely hoppy and delicious, unlike making other styles. Then it mostly smells like beer and yeast farts!
Primary is chugging away as we speak. We had a nasty heat wave recently (as did the rest of the country, apparently!) so temperature control was difficult. It got all the way up to 72 in my basement, yikes! I think the batch spiked up to 68-72, it may have gotten a touch higher during the daytime while I was at work. I’m not too worried about it though, US-05 is a tough little bugger and with all the hops in it I don’t think I’ll much notice any bi-products of warm fermentation. Hopefully I don’t end up with 5 gallons of fuselly headache juice. ;p
Incidentally, I tried fermcap for the first time with this batch. So far I like it a lot, I did a nearly full 5.5-5.75 gallon batch and didn’t even need a blowoff hose. So long as the beer turns out well I’ll have to use it more often!
Yep, same thing here. Normally even in the heat of the summer my basement is cool enough for ales, but it’s gotten above 70 down here this year. I just tried my US-05 IPA last night now that it’s carbonated. I can definitely taste that it fermented too warm, though it’s not headache juice. Ah well, won’t happen again now that I have a dedicated fermentation fridge (as opposed to sharing space with the serving kegs).
That’s my problem, too! I have a fridge in the basement, but it’s a serving fridge full of 4 kegs and a Co2 tank! I really want to do a marzen as an octoberfest, but I need to kick 2 kegs first. I have to get to it!