dry hoping with whole hops

[kylesmi]

Having a little issue, maybe someone can help me out with. We have been using only pellets for dry hoping until this latest batch of a seasonal pale ale. We bought some local whole cone organic dried Cascade hops and figured we would dry hop with them. Problem is we put them in there 4 days ago and today when I sampled the beer, it did not seem to have any difference in flavor from when I sampled before the dry hop addition. So when I climbed on top of the fermenter and looked through one of the sight glasses in the top I noticed that all of the whole hops were just laying on top of the fermented beer. Any suggestions?

[South County]

If you had dry hopped in your brites you could stick the whole hops in a mesh sack and weight them with a few spare triclamps with a little better success, but since your doing it in your FVs its tougher, bottom line though is that oil you seek is protected by the coneflower itself. With out heat, the whole hops just don't give up the flavor/aroma like a pellet would, you can let it sit longer and/or rouse with co2, and worst case try with pellets in your brites to salvage the batch. Good luck.

[HinduKush]

If you had dry hopped in your brites you could stick the whole hops in a mesh sack and weight them with a few spare triclamps with a little better success, but since your doing it in your FVs its tougher, bottom line though is that oil you seek is protected by the coneflower itself. With out heat, the whole hops just don't give up the flavor/aroma like a pellet would, you can let it sit longer and/or rouse with co2, and worst case try with pellets in your brites to salvage the batch. Good luck.

We tie the bags to the carb stone so they can float in, not on, the beer and won't clog the drain if they sink.

[South County]

We tie the bags to the carb stone so they can float in, not on, the beer and won't clog the drain if they sink.

Yeah true, forgot to mention tying them off. Depends on the tank too.

[wholehop]

We always soak the hops in hot water first and this seems to help get 'em into the beer.

[Ted Briggs]

ditto tyoing the bag too the carb stone. I use a sanitized ziptie.
-it keeps them submerged
-keeps them from clogging the outlet
-easy to remove
-IMHO during tank carbonation the bubbles scrub aroma into the beer. No proof of this though...