Young's American IPA brew

[Howard Taylor]

Hi, so I am ready to hop my latest brew. Do I just throw the 100g of hops into the brew or put them in a muslin type bag first? Thanks for your comments.

 

[Slid]

If you put them in a bag, you can add sterilised cutlery or glass marbles to help the bag stay immersed. It will be much easier to fish them out at bottling time also. Pouring boiling water over the bag before use should sterilise it.

 

[SteveH]

I've been wondering the same as I'm about to dry hop for the first time.

If you syphon to a bottling bucket can you just add the pellets loose and try to avoid them with the end of the autosyphon tube?

 

[Pavros]

I chuck them in loose.
Then, when I siphon to the bottling bucket for priming, I tie a small mesh bag (like the ones you get with the Festival kits) over the end of the siphon that goes into the fv. I get very little transfer of hop debris or trub into the bottling bucket.

 

[terrym]

It's probably marginally better to chuck the hops in as they are rather than use a mesh bag. But if you do, you really need to filter out the hop bits. I use a siphon tube and like @Pavros use an old Festival kit sock over the end of the tube (inside the FV). After the pellets have broken up, most of the bits will sink to the bottom, but some will tend to float so I usually rap the side of the FV from time to time and this helps them sink as well. A crash cool also seems to work as well at the end of the dry hop. But if you use a weighted bag make sure it is big enough since pellets expand. Finally I have found that nylon is better than muslin since muslin soaks up the beer, whereas nylon doesn't.

 

[stephen1546]

I just throw the hops in, im only a beginner though. I read that you should hop for more than the 2/3 days, which the instructions state. I kept the hops in for 5 days, started them towards the end of fermentation. Been bottled for a week now in a warm place. Tried one, tasted pretty good.

 

[Meza]

You can bang one of these on the end of your Syphon before bottling to keep the hop detritus out.

 

[merrydown]

I've done it both ways and couldn't tell the difference. It's a tasty ale :)

 

[Meza]

You can bang one of these on the end of your Syphon before bottling to keep the hop detritus out.

Doh I meant to attach this picture

 

[Graz]

Doh I meant to attach this picture

View attachment 16573

Loose hops, cold crash, + using one of those thingies is how I now do it. Always had grief with the siphon socks blocking up.

Great beer that IPA.

 

[Meza]

Loose hops, cold crash, + using one of those thingies is how I now do it. Always had grief with the siphon socks blocking up.

Great beer that IPA.

So do you syphon into a secondary before cold crashing to get rid of the hops first?

I had a Cwtch kit that didn't come out great but I cold crashed in primary with hops in. Wonder if I left them in too long.

 

[Graz]

So do you syphon into a secondary before cold crashing to get rid of the hops first?

I had a Cwtch kit that didn't come out great but I cold crashed in primary with hops in. Wonder if I left them in too long.

I just cold crash in the primary and only really to get the hops to drop to the bottom, never that worried about the clarity of the beer though most of mine do clear nicely.

Process is ~2 weeks fermenting, check gravity, if it seems like it's finished continue, if not leave it a few more days and check again.

Lob the hop pellets in loose. Leave for 2-3 days at fermenting temperature. Set the fridge to cold, once it's cooled a bit give the bin a few taps to encourage anything still on the top to drop out. I typically only give mine ~24 hours cooling but you can leave it a couple of days. Then siphon with one of those mesh cages shown above on the end either straight into a keg or into my bottling bucket for bottling. Will then bottle it straight away after batch priming.