Dry Hop Questions

So I read Vinnie's quickie on Dry Hopping from Extreme Brewing (Russian River Vinnie). He mentions shaking up the fermenter to re-introduce the settled hops (a few days after dropping them into the secondary).

What are the biggest concerns here? Do I have to worry about Oxygen at this point (Hopefully there is a layer of CO2 to help)?

Is it a bad idea to shake up the yeast? Being that they are living organisms, would the rattle cause any harm?

I've never thought to do that, but it sounds like an interesting idea. I guess the key would be that you'd need to let it sit and settle long enough for the yeast to drop back out. Which if you're only doing after the first couple days wouldn't be much of an issue.

Personally I like to use a weighted hop bag that's suspended in the middle. I have no idea if it's beneficial or not it's just what I've always done.

i think shaking should be done differently. Shaking it could introduce oxygen so i would be careful with that.

If it were me, I would stir it gently to "shake up" the beer

That's a good point. There isn't much sediment, other than the hops. This would also keep whatever CO2 layer in place.

Thanks

You wouldn't harm the yeast, but you could definitely get oxygen back into the wort and oxidize your beer...

BeerJorge said:

You wouldn't harm the yeast, but you could definitely get oxygen back into the wort and oxidize your beer...

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At that point, there shouldn't be any oxygen in your fermenter.

bradsul said:

I've never thought to do that, but it sounds like an interesting idea. I guess the key would be that you'd need to let it sit and settle long enough for the yeast to drop back out. Which if you're only doing after the first couple days wouldn't be much of an issue.

Personally I like to use a weighted hop bag that's suspended in the middle. I have no idea if it's beneficial or not it's just what I've always done.

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How do you do this? Last time I dry hopped, it overflowed everywhere and sat on the top of the fermenter.

sfrice80 said:

At that point, there shouldn't be any oxygen in your fermenter.

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Well, it's been transferred to the secondary with a lot of head room. So I'm assuming that a little bit more C02 has been released, but probably not enough to completely kick out all Oxygen.

Once you put those hops in though, CO2 should be pouring out of it. It should be taking CO2 out of suspension and pushing it out, which should push out any oxygen you have in your fermenter. Similar to dropping a mentos in a bottle of Coca-Cola.

sfrice80 said:

How do you do this? Last time I dry hopped, it overflowed everywhere and sat on the top of the fermenter.

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You could sanatize some marbles and put them in the bag with the hops.

sfrice80 said:

Once you put those hops in though, CO2 should be pouring out of it. It should be taking CO2 out of suspension and pushing it out, which should push out any oxygen you have in your fermenter. Similar to dropping a mentos in a bottle of Coca-Cola.

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Interesting.

It wont be as volatile as coke and mentos but it might overflow. Funny story with dry hopping I heard. Recently, I took a brewery tour of a small Wisconsin brewery called Central Waters Brewery, great beer by the way, and the guy said when they climb the ladder to put their hops in for dry hopping they pour it as fast as they can and shut the top because a couple of times it has been so volatile that beer and foam comes spewing out all over the person pouring the dry hop pellets in. He said you have to just sit there and take on all the foam and beer because you have to finish dumping! I thought it was quite humorous.

sfrice80 said:

How do you do this? Last time I dry hopped, it overflowed everywhere and sat on the top of the fermenter.

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I have some glass beads I sanitize and use to weigh the bag down. I've never experienced any kind of overflow however. I add my dry hops to secondary about a week after it gets racked there, most of the CO2 has left the beer by that point.

I think I'm going to adopt something similar to this. Do you put just enough to weigh it to the middle or does it sink to the bottom? I just want maximum hops surface area touching the beer.

sfrice80 said:

I think I'm going to adopt something similar to this. Do you put just enough to weigh it to the middle or does it sink to the bottom? I just want maximum hops surface area touching the beer.

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It ends up suspending about 10cm or so below the surface. But the only reason for this is that I loop the draw string around the top of the better bottle. I just happen to prefer removing the hop bag before racking the beer to keg or the bottling bucket. That's just a personal preference though, I know lots of people who just toss the hops in loose too.