How do you get the bag of hops into the carboy and then remove it?

Question

I always have a difficult time getting the hops in the carboy and then removing it when dry-hopping. What's the trick?

Answer 1

The easy answer is don't use a bag. I usually use whole flowers when dryhopping. They float on top and then I rack to another carboy when done w/ the dryhop.

I used a bag 2x and it was a royal pain in the butt. Getting it out was always the hard part, brute force was my method. It always made me worry about contamination.

Answer 2

Thanks Mark, I've wrestled with this for awhile. Funny, 20 years brewing in a vacuum... the simple concept of a weight and dental floss never occurred to me... I suppose that says something about my intellect.... I think I love this website. No more loose pellets in my secondary carboy.

Answer 3

It's easier using pellet hops in the bag. What I do is place the hops in the bag along with a weight of some sort (a stainless butter knife or something thin) to get the bag to sink. Tie a length of dental floss to the top of the bag and lower the bag into the carboy keeping a length of the floss outside the carboy. Lower bag halfway down and then push the stopper/airlock back into the top of the carboy cinching the dental floss in place so that you can pull the bag back up later. I would recommend racking the beer out of the carboy before trying to retrieve the bag because it will expand and need to be worked out of the carboy opening.
mark
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