hi guys!
i made yesterday a batch of beer, and i added hudge amounts of hops, in pellets,and i didnt used bag, so my beer turned green, with a lot of particles at the bottom, now its fermenting in the ferm, my question is if have to clean the hops when i transfer the beer to the second fermentator. Mb using a sanitized blanket.
I don want to bottle my beer with hops, i just need the flavour and aroma…
thanks!!!
Unless you plan on aging your beer, it’s my opinion that you don’t need to transfer to a secondary. I even dry hop in my primaries. Then again, maybe transferring to a secondary could help leave some of your hops behind. Last time I did something similar to you, as I was racking my beer to the keg, I left some beer behind just as I started to suck up those hops on the bottom. I still got some in the keg, so I would see some floating around in some of my pours. Beer still tasted great!
How were you planning on using the sanatized blanket? I’m no expert, but be careful trying to filter any hops or trub from you fermenter to your bottling bucket using a blanket or mesh. This will add O2 to your beer and you don’t want to do that.
Next time you do this, you can try racking from your boil kettle to your primary in an effort to lower the amount of hops going into your fermenter. Anytime I use a lot of hops, I just toss them into fine mesh hop bags, sometimes I’ll have 5 of those bags floating around the boil. Just make sure the mesh bags are large enough to allow wort to pass through the hops. I use 9X12in. bags for 1-2oz of hops.
The hops will settle down by the end of fermentation. A few days before bottling you can mix up 1.5 grams of unflavored gelatin in a cup of hot water then dump into the fermenter. This will also help clear it up.
http://www.brewing-tips.com/gelatin-finings/
Make sure the water isn’t warmer than maybe 150F. I personally don’t bother to let it cool before putting into fermenter but others here may disagree.
If you have temperature control this is a good time to drop the temp to the low 30’s. That will also clear the hops.
-Sent from the future.
No to the blanket idea.
When fermentation is done, everything (yeast and hops) will settle to the bottom and your beer will clear.
Just put a sanitized large nylon mesh bag over the end of the racking cane when it comes time to transfer to your bottling bucket or to your keg. It will keep the hop particles out.
+1
No need for a secondary. Just primary until the beer is clear then bottle.
And why spme people recomend secondary? When is this used?
I think mainly for when you plan to leave it in the fermenter for long periods of time. Some will use it for dry hopping, adding fruit, etc… I’ve only been brewing since Oct 2011, so I haven’t added anything besides dry hops and I just add those to my primary. So far, I only brew ales that are in the 1.046 - 1.060 OG range, so I just usually let them sit in primary for 3-4 weeks before kegging them.
Secondaries seem to be a hold-over from the earlier days of homebrewing.
The theories behind them no longer seem to hold true, if they ever did. Better quality ingredients these days may play a role.
The consensus is they are not necessary and present an unnecessary opportunity to expose the beer to O2 and/or infection (both issues can be mitigated, but the opportunity is there).
However, you’ll still see them recommended in most of the beginning home brewing texts as those books tend to be older.
Relax, don’t worry, skip the secondary.
I use a secondary for 3 reasons.
- I am adding additional fermentables, such as fruit.
- I want to use the yeast cake for a different beer, but don’t have time to bottle.
- I ran out of 6 gallon carboys, and I don’t have time to bottle.
Really, reason 1 is the only beer-related reason to rack to secondary. The other ones have to do with time management.
+1
10 oz of pellets in last 5 gal batch of IPA …gelatin, crash cool and presto…jewel clear beer in 24 hrs.
Would just let it sit if I’d had the time, but tried this to make a competition deadline and it worked superb.
What i did when i first dry hopped was i got a mesh hop bag from my local homebrew shop and i tied the bag to the end going into the beer and it helped not get any of the particles into my priming sugar bucket, it could work for you when racking into your secondary
One of the reasons i use a secondary is that apperantly your beer can pick up some weird flavors off the yeast cake on the bottom, although i don’t know if this is true lol.
This is one of those theories I mentioned earlier that do not hold true.
In my experience, and many others, you can leave the beer on the yeast for an extended period of time with no ill effects.
This theory originated from older homebrewing days where people throw a pack unhydrated dry yeast right into the beer. Knowing that doing that instantly kills 50% of the yeast, thats quite a bit of dead stuff at the bottom immediately. Pitching enough properly hydrated dry yeast or fresh liquid clean liquid yeast nullifies this issue.
Uh Oh! Here we go again :-\
I always thought it came from homebrewers wanting to do what commercial brewers do. In a commercial fermenter, you have maybe thousands of gal. of beer sitting on the yeast causing a lot of pressure.
This was my understanding as well.
To me, one of the best things about being a homebrewer is that we don’t have to do what commercial brewers do.
Yeah… like brew beer for a profit! (see previous comment about 10 oz of pellets in 5 gal batch - I’ll bet that one is goooooood)