i dry hopped an ipa with 2 ozs of pellet hops last thursday evening. there is no sign of anything settling out yet. it’s just a giant green cover on my beer. fermentation was over. i’ve never just tossed the hops in to dry hop so i’m curious. i was planning on dropping another couple of ozs in the next day or so before bottling but this weekend but now think i need to wait longer.
or do i? can i just siphon from underneath the floating hops? seems like this would work.
thanks.
Sometimes the hops just don’t sink.
Siphoning from under the hops will work just fine.
If you chill it, the pellets will fall out pretty quickly. Otherwise, you might be waiting a while. You can siphon from underneath. A mesh strainer bag tied over the end of the racking cane will help filter out any debris.
+1 for tying a mesh bag over the end of the racking cane. I’ve never done this to filter any dry hops, but have used this technique to filter out coconut in my Coconut Milk Stout and it works great. Dry hops are mostly settled by 5-7 days for me. Whatever gets into the keg as I rack will settle to the bottom of the keg.
+1 on this if you’re kegging or can chill your carboy (sit it outside overnight?). I normally just dryhop in primary and let everything settle out in the keg.
Make sure you have that black plastic cover on the end of your racking cane before you start transferring, and try to transfer as little sediment from the bottom as possible.
The mesh bag can have issues - I’ve done it once, the mash bag clogged several times and I had to keep pulling it out, cleaning, and restarting the siphon (introducing air and increasing chance of contamination).
I’ve had these same issues. Now I use a 3/4" diameter mesh stainless steel screen over the end of my siphon tube. The larger screen surface area seems to distribute the hops a bit better and decreases clogging.