Dry hopping is adding hops (in any form) to the
beer after primary fermentation for an added
touch of hop aroma. Because they’re compact,
hop plugs are better for dry hopping than whole
hops; however, hop pellets are usually best
because they’re compact and because their
smashed lupulin glands make the aromatic oils
more easily accessible to the beer.
You find two schools of thought as to whether
you can dry hop without contaminating your
beer. One side says the hops are unboiled and
may potentially contaminate your brew; the other
side (the one I agree with) says the alcohol in the
fermented beer is antiseptic enough to keep any
bacteria at bay. As a safeguard, you may want to
try steaming the hops in a strainer for about 5
minutes before adding them to the beer.
If you want to dry hop your beer, you should do so
during secondary fermentation (see Chapter 11
for more info on secondary fermentation). In any
case, whatever you put into the secondary fermenter
needs to be strained out of the brew on
bottling day. The best way to avoid sucking up
hops or anything else from your secondary fermenter
is to attach a sanitized plastic or stainless
steel scrubber that you would ordinarily use for
washing dishes to the end of your racking cane.