Beer Forum

From another thread, does anyone practice any special sanitizing routines when dry hopping or just wash hands and drop in the hops.

Thanks!

Just open the package, measure, and dump them in. I believe the hops are resistant to bacteria and the alcohol in the beer would kill off anything.

Just chuck them in, I dont even wash my hands all the time. I do have a preference for adding them with a little bit of fermentaion activity going on, I fugure the CO2 production will help cut down on any contamination risks.

The only thing I do sanitise is the hop sock if I am using one. Nothing to sanitise when freeballing.

dags wrote:Just chuck them in, I dont even wash my hands all the time. I do have a preference for adding them with a little bit of fermentaion activity going on, I fugure the CO2 production will help cut down on any contamination risks.

The only thing I do sanitise is the hop sock if I am using one. Nothing to sanitise when freeballing.

That is what I figured - I use a hop sock, so I am assuming you simply soak it in the correct dilution of star san or saniclean, ring out, place in hops, and drop in. I use a conical, so I can not let the hops 'freeball', they would plug the 1/2" dump valve.

Thanks!

more or less, I soak the hop sock and what ever I'm using in star san, sometimes after rinsing with boiling water.

As for not being able freeball in a conical, I ferment in plastic fermentors and freeball with hop pellets. I am yet to have any issue with the outlet tap blocking. They break up pretty well and mean that you end up with all the hop mess mixed in with your yeast & trub. Might be different if you were using leaf hops?

I've got some hops freeballing right now in a keg with some un spiced whitt. Havent figured out what I'll do with that next

I dry hop with whole hops (and sometimes oak chips) freeballin' in my carboy- they float to the top, I siphon from the bottom, no problems with clogging. I nuke the chips for two minutes with some water in the microwave to kill bugs before dumping them in, then I put the hops (and oak) in the carboy by pushing them through a sanitized funnel with a sanitized plastic chopstick. Then I rack my beer on top of it.

I need to add in my warning on freebaling with hops in a keg. if you are using pellet hops in a keg use a hop sock as it is a pain in the arse to unblock the hops out of the pickup tube. I ended up free pouring the beer form one keg to another to get the beer out. Not a fun proceedure but the beer tastes prety good

I heard your supposed to briefly boil the oak chip then add them.

I dump dry hops straight from the bag and I try to do it quick so not too much oxygen gets in.