hopping

[wheazy_joe]

looking for sop hopping advice.....

So far the only hops I've added to my beer has been the saaz 'tea bag' that came with my hammer of thor pack. Brewed it it a cup of boiling water and added to the wort as instructed. Nice and easy.

My next brew is gonna be the Cooper's European lager/Pilsner and I've got a vacuum pack of Saaz hops that I would like to add some of to the mix.

Questions:

- when am I best adding the hops, at the start or after the fermenting has calmed down?
- what's the best way to add them? I assume once I open the vacuum pack of hops, I can't just throw them in loose. Do I need to source a muslin tea bag or something?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Covrich]

You can throw them straight in or put them in a sanitised muslin bag. If you throw them in you may want to filter around your syphon when you bottle.

As for timing well I personally do it post fermentation.. and I do it 3-5 days before bottling.

 

[wheazy_joe]

Thanks, yeah was thinking that throwing them straight in would mean I would have wee bits of hops making their way into my bottles, but filtering the syphon sounds like a good idea.

suppose if i can get my hands on some muslin bags that would be easier.

thanks again.

 

[howyoubrewin]

Even a muslin cloth from the supermarket will work. You get those two ply ones. Cut the corner of one of those and boil it in water for a few minutes to kill any nasties then put it over the end of the syphon tube to bottle. Putting the hops in free will allow them to give off maximum aroma.

 

[wheazy_joe]

sounds perfect howyoubrewin!

 

[flamingo]

Filtering the end of the siphon tube sounds a good idea. But how would the muslin cloth be secured on the end of the circular inflow?

 

[Covrich]

Filtering the end of the siphon tube sounds a good idea. But how would the muslin cloth be secured on the end of the circular inflow?

Never done that way myself before but what I seen was people sanitise the food twisty ties around the neck of bag as its pulled up over the syphon

 

[flamingo]

Sounds about the best method Covrich ..... I'm going to give it a try.

Cheers.

 

[clibit]

Elastic band?!

 

[wheazy_joe]

would an elastic band not compress the syphon tube too much, thus preventing the tasty beer making its way into the bottles?

 

[wheazy_joe]

but my thoughts are, if you have a muslin bag to put over the end of the syphon, you would be as well just putting the hops in it and save any hassle?!

 

[clibit]

would an elastic band not compress the syphon tube too much, thus preventing the tasty beer making its way into the bottles?

No. The tasty beer would successfully reach its destination unless you secured the elastic band ridiculously tightly. ;-).

you would be as well just putting the hops in it and save any hassle?!

The theory is that loose hops are able to release their oils more freely than hops stuffed into a bag.

 

[wheazy_joe]

true. think I will defo give this method a go on my next brew.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

Have done both ways of dry hopping, chucking in the hops dry in the secondary, then fished them out with a steralised sppon.tea strainer, and in a clean steralised muslin bag weighed down with a couple of steralised marbles to make the hops sink into the liquid as opposed to floating on top

my preference is the muslin bag method, they are very cheap on amazon and you can effectively dry hop twice, that is to dry ohop for 4/5 days, remove the bag abd dry hop with a fresh bag of hops, which prevents the build up of overly grassy flavours from leaving in the hops for too long

 

[clibit]

I think bags are fine too, as long as you don't overfill them. They swell up when the hops soak up beer. You want plenty of space in the bag to allow the beer to reach all the hops easily.

 

[bowman159]

I always bag mine, and leave tie the knot high on the bag leaving room for expansion in the hops as they get wet.