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Dry Hopping with Whole Leaf in Conicals

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  • Dry Hopping with Whole Leaf in Conicals

    I am in the process of reformulating our DIPA recipe. I plan to open ferment in a used 1000 gallon dairy tank. I want to dry hop with whole leaf hops, so I am thinking I will bag them and toss them into a conical, when the beer is nearly done fermenting, push the beer over into the conical with the hop bags, and spund the tank. Are there any issues I should be aware of with dry hopping this way? I've never used whole leaf at my brewery because our hop ports are so small.

  • #2
    Originally posted by honkey View Post
    I am in the process of reformulating our DIPA recipe. I plan to open ferment in a used 1000 gallon dairy tank. I want to dry hop with whole leaf hops, so I am thinking I will bag them and toss them into a conical, when the beer is nearly done fermenting, push the beer over into the conical with the hop bags, and spund the tank. Are there any issues I should be aware of with dry hopping this way? I've never used whole leaf at my brewery because our hop ports are so small.
    Sounds like a needless PITA to me... But in breweries that do use leaf hops to dryhop typically you need to secure the bag to something, say the racking arm, or hang the bag from specially added hooks in the tank or from a loop on a dryhopping port cap. Deschutes, I've heard for example, has or had this whole process of hanging bags of hops in at various levels in their big ass tanks. You'd need to add a tri-clamp or something to weight the bag down or it'll float.

    Also; an anecdote. Couple years ago we 'fresh-dry-hopped' a batch of our fresh hop ale. Took 20lbs of the wet hops, put them on a screen with a fan aimed at them for 10 days up in the office while the main fresh hop beer fermented. Then fed a long tubular mesh bag into the 4" dryhop port on another sanitized and purged fermenter, fed the hops into the sack, tied it off and dropped it in, then jumped the beer over much like you propose. Come time to rack, everything was going fine till the bag got stuck in the racking arm and the flow came to a crawl. Eventually we could tell the level was below the manway (no liquid came out the zwickle). So my assistant brewer sanitized his arm, popped the manway, took a big deep breath and reached in to free the bag.

    Nope. Lesson learned, never doing that again.
    Russell Everett
    Co-Founder / Head Brewer
    Bainbridge Island Brewing
    Bainbridge Island, WA

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    • #3
      Conical Screen

      Is useful if you have a 4" t'c port on the bottom of the the fermenter with stand pipe and drain port.

      Makes for a beautiful hop essence while racking.

      Lance
      Rebel Malting Co.
      Reno, Nevada USA
      Attached Files

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      • #4
        Get a torpedo or similar vessel. We only use whole hops and the ease of use versus trying to weight down bags in the fermentor is well worth the cost. Also much safer than carrying bags of hops up a ladder (or making an assistant reach into a pure CO² environment).

        Cheers.
        Last edited by Mike Elliott; 02-12-2016, 06:40 PM.
        Mike Elliott
        Head Brewer
        Philipsburg Brewing Co.
        Montana

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Mike Elliott View Post
          Get a torpedo or similar vessel. We only use whole hops and the ease of use versus trying to weight down bags in the fermentor is well worth the cost. Also much safer than carrying bags of hops up a ladder (or making an assistant reach into a pure CO² environment).

          Cheers.
          How do you guys go about the clean up? We currently have a love/hate with our torpedo. Result is great, whole hops are great, but we haven't found a great way to make the clean up less of a PITA.
          Head Brewer
          Brazen Hall Kitchen & Brewery
          Winnipeg, MB Canada
          brazenhall.ca

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          • #6
            Also hate cleaning it. We have the vertical variety from GW Kent. The bottom wedge wire screen has lifting handles.

            We lift the screen with the forklift and a sling to get the entire hop plug out at once. It helps to let it drain overnight if you have the time. Generally, though, hops go everywhere and we spend lots of time picking them up. I'll post a pic Monday when I'm doing it again.
            Mike Elliott
            Head Brewer
            Philipsburg Brewing Co.
            Montana

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            • #7
              Hi Lance, I think it has ben awhile since you posted this, but where did you get the conical strainer you have in the picture on this post?


              And, were/are you just throwing whole cones in the FV with this strainer in the bottom? Or are you still bagging the hops?


              Cheers!


              Originally posted by nohandslance View Post
              Is useful if you have a 4" t'c port on the bottom of the the fermenter with stand pipe and drain port.

              Makes for a beautiful hop essence while racking.

              Lance
              Rebel Malting Co.
              Reno, Nevada USA

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