I just transfered an Amber Ale into a secondary and dry hopped it with 1 ounce of Cascade pellets. I checked it this morning and noticed a layer of hopps on the top of the beer. Is this normal? Will it settle out before bottling? Thanks in advance

I have never dry hopped but i do know pellets take awhile to absorb. Some people take them & put them in a sack with some glass marbles in it & hang it from the top of the fermenter or keg to keep them submerged but off the bottem(for a keg at least).
It should be fine!! Keep us posted!!

I heard it was smokin hot over there yesterday!!

Yes, they will settle down to the bottom of your carboy. I just transfered my Red Seal Clone, which is and Amber Ale, and dry hopped it with .5 oz of Cascades and have some floating too. They should all be sunk with in a week or two.

I love dry hopping. Makes my beer smell soooo good.

Looks like the beer is starting to settle out a little today. Thanks for the information.

Your right Jeepguy it was like 108 here on Friday and Saturday. The beers were ice cold though and they flowed down real nice.

I have allways wondered whether it would be good to actually throw some fresh hops into the secondary, not as pellets but straight off the vine. There is a Tasmanian brand of beer (actually called 'Cascade') and once a year they make a brew with fresh hops harvested that day. It tastes quite different, but it also has much much more hops in it than their regular style.

my last brew was a medium ale that i dry hopped with cascade right off the bine, and it is pretty good. i picked about .5 oz. and put it in a bag and dropped it into a secondary for a week, then racked into a keg, it didn't have quite the hop flavor i expected so next time maybe i'll use a bit more.
gary

I've got a Märzen in primary right now. I used two ounces of Hallertauer pellet hops in the boil for bittering, but now I have a pound of Rainier whole Hops to play with. I'm going to try dry hopping for the first time with this brew and this hop. I will add the whole hops when I transfer my brew into secondary, but I'm not exactly sure how much whole hops to throw in there to use, or how long I should leave them in the secondary fermentor. I'm going to do all this in a 5-gal glass carboy, so I'm also wondering if I should put the whole hops into a hop bag and tie it off and push it down in, or should I just toss the hops in there and worry about filtering them out later? I'd like to use my hop bag, but I'm almost afraid I wouldn't be able to get it out of the carboy later on.

Any thoughts or advice?

I would probably use about an ounce or so of the Mt. Rainier hops for dry hopping.

As you pointed out you can either throw the whole hops directly into the carboy and filter them out later or place them within a hop bag of some sort. Either method will work.

I generally dry hop by placing the hops in a muslin bag, To help keep the bag of hops submerged I add a handful or so of sanitized marbles to weight the bag down.

Some folks in the Forum routinely use nylon stockings as hop bags. Apparently they work pretty well in this regard. Muslin bags are relatively inexpensive and I reuse them so I see real need to go this route but....

I generally add the hops to the secondary fermenter and transfer the beer off of them when it is time to bottle/keg the beer. I usually leave beer in the secondary for about a week.

Getting the hop bag out of the carboy isn't as hard as you would think. Once the carboy is empty you can tip it over and grab the bag. You may have to fiddle with it a bit to get the bag into the proper orientation for easy removal. Needly nose pliers are handy for getting a grip on the bag.

I generally remove the hops and marbles from the bag and then give both a good rinsing. The bags can be air dried and later reused.

If the bags are particularly dirty I some times throw them in the wash when my wife isn't looking. When the load of laundry is done I then "help" my wife by putting the laundry into the drier (and remove the hop bags at that point to air dry).

I hope I've answered your questions.

- Scott

Wonderful. That pretty much answers my questions. Thanks Scott for your prompt reply, you were very helpful. The package containing my hops is out for delivery and should be at my doorstep later today. My Märzen has been in primary for just a week now, and it's still fermenting away like crazy, so I may give it a couple more days until I rack it and add the hops. I guess I'll use about 2 oz, and then throw the rest in the freezer? (that'll go over well...) Anyway, I think I'm all set. Thanks again for your help.