Technique for reducing oxidation during dry hopping.

I know this has been touched on in a few other threads, but I just wanted to put it out there and get a couple of opinions. In order to reduce the oxidation effects of dry hopping, I usually add my dry hops as the primary fermentation is finishing up. I still want a little bit of fermentation going on so that the yeast consume any oxygen introduced by the hops. Does anybody else do this?

I know that many people achieve excellent results by adding the hops once the beer is completely done fermenting, but I like the idea that the yeast might helping me out. I'm not 100% sure that this works though. I know that the yeast consume the oxygen in the wort during their reproductive phase. I'm not quite sure if they still absorb oxygen later on in the fermentation. Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

I do that occasionally and it does seem to work. I believe that is the technique used by Lagunitas when they dry hop their IPA. Most of the time, if dry hopping in secondary, I will purge the secondary vessel with CO2, add the hops and rack on top.

since i started kegging, i dont think ill ever secondary in a glass carboy anymore. I just rack from primary to keg, purge the o2 out with co2, add the bag of hops, purge again. no more o2!

I use one of the canisters that came with my vacuum sealer to help remove O2. I put pellets in the canister and pull a vacuum. Then hook up CO2 to the vent port on the canister and when the vacuum is released, CO2 rushes in instead of air. The pellets immediately get poured into the CO2 purged secondary and the beer from the primary gets CO2 pushed onto them.

I usually put the hops in the carboy, and rack the beer onto it. Is oxidation really an issue for us homebrewers? I don't imagine that it is, since it's never happened to me.

I have occasionally just added the hops to the primary fermenter, but after fermentation has finished.

I just heard a podcast recently about dryhopping and yeast. I can't remember which one it was, but it talked about the presence of yeast "binding" somehow with the hops preventing the flavors fully penetrating the beer. It was interesting, and I wish I could find it again! Maybe someone else will recall that.

YooperBrew said:

Is oxidation really an issue for us homebrewers?

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Yeah. what? Who's worries about oxydation, especially because of dry hopping?

Besides beginning brewers who think their beer is really weak I mean.

Revvy said:

Yeah. what? Who's worries about oxydation, especially because of dry hopping?

Besides beginning brewers who think their beer is really weak I mean.

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Who worries about oxidation when dry hopping?

Mike McDole and Vinnie Cilurzo do. But then what do those hacks know about making hoppy beers, amiright?

Oxidation is probably the most common flaw in beers entered in homebrewing competitions. Homebrewers do themselves a disservice by believing false ideas like "oxidation only manifests in beer as cardboard or paper". Then they have a clearly oxidized beer but do not detect trans-2-nonenal so they don't know how to fix it. Then a judge tells them it is oxidized and they go on the internet and say the judge is an idiot. More power to you.

As for the OP. Mike McDole does what you do, adds the hops towards the end of primary fermentation. People will tell you that the hop aroma will evolve with c02 and that is true but thats why you put them in at the end and as McDole says, you can always just put in more.

I dry hop in a soda keg. I put the hops in bags suspended in the center of the keg (to keep them away from the bottom of the dip tube). I do this in a keg that has been purged with c02 and then I seal it up and purge it again. I then fill through the liquid out post. I like this setup since I can go shake the keg a few times a day to get more out of the hops (since I don't have a conical and can't bubble c02 through the bottom like the big boys). At the end of dry hopping I push the beer to a serving keg.

Yeast can reduce oxygen at any point, not just reproduction (though they reduce the most oxygen then). Note that the oxygen reduction capacity of yeast is limited as, for example, they cannot reduce all of the oxygen in the headspace of a bottle in bottle conditioned beers.

remilard said:

Who worries about oxidation when dry hopping?

Mike McDole and Vinnie Cilurzo do. But then what do those hacks know about making hoppy beers, amiright?

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And once again I think you care more about TROLLING me, then actually helping out around here....Inn your zeal to care more about making me wrong, and/or fueling fear in new brewers, you fail to make the distinction, between the needs/requirments of LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL BREWING and home brewing.

Sometimes remmy baby, that's like comparing apples to oranges.

Are Yooper (because once again I notice you single me out but don't troll HER for saying EXACTLY the same thing as me- which again is a little stalkerishly creepy how you seem to hover over every word I write, and I write a lot. So your obsession of me if REALLY freaky.) or I talking about commercial breweries, or are we talking about this nervous more than likely new brewer, and what HE needs to concern himself with in his, more forgiving brews? It's all about the context.

In case you haven't noticed...

YooperBrew said:

I usually put the hops in the carboy, and rack the beer onto it. Is oxidation really an issue for us homebrewers?

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But, oh yeah, you don't care about helping the new brewer out, do you?

Man, what happened to the days when my stalkers where hot chicks, who were great in bed, though obviously psychotic...when did I suddenly end up with only creepy guys who still live in mother's basement type stalkers? *shudder* I don't know what's more pathetic, a stalker like remmy, or the fact that I now ATTRACT a stalker like him?

For the record all of the advice I have ever gotten from Revvy has been spot on.
I also don't think that oxidation is a huge issue for most small scale homebrewers, but I also use the McDole method of dry hoping. I wait until fermentation is almost winding down then I just toss them in. McDole uses a "large sack" and agitates the fermenter often to encourage hop flavors. He also uses some sort of mechanism to pour his hot wort, from the kettle, through a bunch of hops, into the fermenter....and he mash hops.
Also, he mashes a little higher and his IPA's don't finish as low as most, 1.018 is what he shoots for.

Revvy said:

And once again I think you care more about TROLLING me, then actually helping out around here....Inn your zeal to care more about making me wrong, and/or fueling fear in new brewers, you fail to make the distinction, between the needs/requirments of LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL BREWING and home brewing.

Sometimes remmy baby, that's like comparing apples to oranges.

Are Yooper (because once again I notice you single me out but don't troll HER for saying EXACTLY the same thing as me- which again is a little stalkerishly creepy how you seem to hover over every word I write, and I write a lot. So your obsession of me if REALLY freaky.) or I talking about commercial breweries, or are we talking about this nervous more than likely new brewer, and what HE needs to concern himself with in his, more forgiving brews? It's all about the context.

In case you haven't noticed...



But, oh yeah, you don't care about helping the new brewer out, do you?

Man, what happened to the days when my stalkers where hot chicks, who were great in bed, though obviously psychotic...when did I suddenly end up with only creepy guys who still live in mother's basement type stalkers? *shudder* I don't know what's more pathetic, a stalker like remmy, or the fact that I now ATTRACT a stalker like him?

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Last time I checked, I gave one of the helpful answer in this thread, one that actually addressed the OP rather than telling him he was wrong.

Mike McDole isn't a commercial brewer, by the way. Neither am I but of course I'm an idiot so I thought I would offer an appeal to authority.

I disagree with Yooper's thoughts on how common oxidation is in home brewed beer and I think that is clear. I like how she didn't insult anyone who tries to reduce oxidation when dry hopping by calling them a new brewer who thinks their beer is weak, which is what you called the OP, me, Mike McDole and countless other home brewers most of whom have something better to brag about than an honorable mention in SHV in a competition that nobody has ever heard of.

remilard said:

Last time I checked, I gave one of the helpful answer in this thread, one that actually addressed the OP rather than telling him he was wrong.

Mike McDole isn't a commercial brewer, by the way. Neither am I but of course I'm an idiot so I thought I would offer an appeal to authority.

I disagree with Yooper's thoughts on how common oxidation is in home brewed beer and I think that is clear. I like how she didn't insult anyone who tries to reduce oxidation when dry hopping by calling them a new brewer who thinks their beer is weak, which is what you called the OP, me, Mike McDole and countless other home brewers most of whom have something better to brag about than an honorable mention in SHV in a competition that nobody has ever heard of.

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We can definitely agree to disagree, however I don't think we really do.

Here's why- when I say I'm not worried about oxidation, I meant in that clearly defined instance. I put the hops into the carboy, and gently rack the beer into it. There is no splashing, and I do everything I can to avoid the risk of oxidation. That's not to say I've never had any- just that it's been a small risk in my opinion, from dryhopping. If I've had oxidation, it's usually in bottled beers that I didn't handle that well going from keg to bottle or from other instances. Dryhopping is generally NOT a big oxidation risk as far as I'm concerned, but the carboy has very little headspace, my dryhopped beers are generally consumed young, etc.

Using proper techniques can help reduce the risk of oxidation. I didn't mean to imply that it was not an issue at all. It certainly is. I don't flood vessels with co2 generally, though, unless it's a beer that I'm planning on aging in a carboy for quite a while. For wines, I use campden in every other racking (it's an antioxidant) so I don't use co2 for wines generally either.

Now, let's talk about beer and not snark at each other, ok?

This is good practice. It will cost you some hop aroma as some co2 will scrub out the o2 along with it. If you are concerned about oxidation in this part of your brewing you need to be aware that o2 can be more easily introduced during transfers so you need to be careful there as well. Remilard's info in his post is solid. This has been discussed on many podcasts with McDole. He is known for his success in competitions with dryhopped beers.

Is the amount of air 'trapped' in whole hops enough to be significant? Maybe it's just the amount that doesn't usually show up as noticable oxidation IF everything else (racking, etc) is done properly but if not...then it does and in any case you don't have any room for error?

I just got a foodsaver and I let the first bag I sealed get full vacuum pulled on it. I was a little surprised how little volume those hops take up when virtually all the air is sucked out. I purge my dry-hop corny with CO2 with the dry hops inside but I usually try to err on the safe side. FWIW, I use whole hops loose in the corny and have a ghetto screen assembly on the end of the dip tube.

Old posts, I know, but it's just become an issue to me since I had my first commercial oxidized beer at a usually excellent brewpub. I figure if it happens to them, then it could happen to me.

I dropped a bag a few days after racking to my secondary which happens to be a corny. I waited until I chilled the keg before adding the dry hops; thereby, reducing the helpful effects of the ale yeast. We'll see how it goes. I generally don't worry, but this keg will finish right before a homebrewer's party where I'll sample and give away my beer to a bunch of people I'm just meeting. I'd like to avoid the walk of shame after the event.

One thing that might be on my side is that the hops were in bags purged of air with nitrogen. I always thought this was overkill for the hot side, but now I see the potential benefits for the cold side with oxy as a concern.

I know I'm resurrecting a pretty old thread here, but I've been running into an issue of off flavors and smells with my hoppy beers lately (IPAs and PAs) - more like over the last year, and others a little further back. Tonight, I finally (finally!) realized that it's probably oxidation. The connection to all of the "off" beers is that I dry hopped with a hop bag - I just drop/shove it into the fermenter (primary, no secondary). I'm not a scientist, despite my forum handle, but I'm pretty sure there's something about the process of using a hop bag that is introducing oxygen (or something) and screwing up my beer. So I will no longer use them. I've made great hoppy dry-hopped beers before, before I discovered the "convenience" of the hop bag. Comments/light insults welcomed.

Hmm, I really hope you are wrong about the hop bag, because yesterday I used a hop bag to dry hop.

Hey focus, are you sanitizing your hop bags?

I do sanitize the bags. Maybe the issue is that I don't weigh them down so that they become fully submerged - I know others use them without issue, so I wouldn't worry too much, Mike. I'm eliminating the bags, and next time I brew (which will be an IPA) I'm going to be extra meticulous. I'll report the results here.

I just double dry hopped and oaked an imperial IPA, the beer tastes amazing, maybe the best beer I've ever made. I did nothing out of of the ordinary to it. If there is oxidation what flavors would in be getting?

I first notice it in the nose - I really can't give a good description of it, but it doesn't smell fresh like you want it to be - kind of like sweat socks? And the taste kind of follows that idea. It's not a rancid smell, but it is disappointing.

And so I just popped open one of the beers in question - a rye IPA - and it's delicious and flawless. So...I don't know.

Yeah the hop aroma is so powerful in this beer it is hard to pick out anything other than grapefruit and resin when I stick my nose in the glass

I've had issues with cardboardy aromas in my dry hopped beers in the past. Never had it with non dry hopped beers.

I'll be dry hopping my next batch a little earlier in the ferment (I'll rack a little earlier), and also make sure there is no/minimal headspace in the secondary.