Bottling dry-hopped beer

[Brew_DD2]

Had a torrid time this afternoon trying to bottle and keg a batch of a heavily dry-hopped pale ale. Tried using a nylon bag on the end of a length of silicone tubing attached to the fermenter spigot. Unfortunately the spigot is very low down on the fermeter and got instantly clogged.

I have an autosiphon as backup but I either don't know how to use it or it doesn't work.

Old-fashioned siphoning worked but by this point the huge amount of dry hops are now back into the beer, undoing a good cold crash.

Surely there has to be an easier way to rack beer.

Any advice?

 

[LarryF]

I always dry hop using a weighted fine mesh bag and I can the bottle straight from the FV.

 

[Brew_DD2]

I think I will have to go back to doing that. Was a 200g dry hop and my main concern was a lack of contact with the wort.

 

[GerritT]

. Unfortunately the spigot is very low down on the fermeter and got instantly clogged.

I have an autosiphon as backup but I either don't know how to use it or it doesn't work.

Old-fashioned siphoning worked but by this point the huge amount of dry hops are now back into the beer, undoing a good cold crash.

Surely there has to be an easier way to rack beer.

Any advice?

Tried tilting it backwards and keeping it that way before the coldcrash, and then transferring it to the bottling vessel? Should leave you with a bit more leeway.

 

[LarryF]

I think I will have to go back to doing that. Was a 200g dry hop and my main concern was a lack of contact with the wort.

It's a trade off, there is an element of hop contact with the wort vs a lack grief when bottling. If you're racking off to a secondary a hop tea that's steeped rather than boiled may be an option.

 

[Brewberoza]

I think I will have to go back to doing that. Was a 200g dry hop and my main concern was a lack of contact with the wort.

Use several bags if you want to increase contact. Surface area is what they say.

 

[GerritT]

Use a mashing bag?

 

[Sandimas]

I find using one of those little nylon bags on the end of the syphon tube in the beer works for me. If I've heavily dry-hopped I fish the majority out with a sterilised slotted spoon prior to syphoning.

 

[sdt7618]

Using your auto siphon pop a wire champagne cork holder inside a mesh bag and then the siphon into the wire holder. The wire keeps the bag away from the siphon and let's you keep drawing beer without clogging.

 

[STICKY_ICKY]

For me I cold crash overnight, transfer to bottling bucket with an auto siphon, cold crash overnight again. I would always put pellets straight in, adding in a bag just doesn't have the same effect IMO.

One thing I have found when bottling hoppy beers, is that they can oxidise very easily. Avoid as much disruption as possible unless you want it to quickly turn brown and lose all of it's hop profile.

I even found that the head space in the bottle could turn things bad. So my thinking was, if my beer is already producing CO2, it should push the oxygen out of the bottle, right? So what I do now is, when transferring to the bottling bucket, I calculate my priming sugar slightly higher than I want it, so that it will start producing CO2 overnight, and then I bottle the following day using a wand. This seems to do the trick and it is now my standard procedure, regardless of style.