What PSI do you use on your spunding valve?, thanks for the pics.
Right now 0 since this isn't a pressure rated conical. I might bump it to 1 or 2 psi in a couple days.
What PSI do you use on your spunding valve?, thanks for the pics.
I shocked those aren't pressure rated.
Didn't read through, but the diptube fits pretty tight in the hole. Is there a trick to getting it back in after bending it?
Didn't read through, but the diptube fits pretty tight in the hole. Is there a trick to getting it back in after bending it?
If you haven't already bent it (or maybe even if you have), I recommend just picking up a $5 used straight dip tube for fermenting and keeping the original one that came with the keg as-is. The straight ones would work better with the dry hopping screens if you think you might ever try those, and I like that they pickup near the side of the keg so that I can tilt the keg towards it during transfer to get a bit more beer into the SK.
Close lids fastAny tips on adding dry hops near end of fermentation? Every time I open the keg the foam rises like a mofo even after releasing pressure
Any tips on adding dry hops near end of fermentation? Every time I open the keg the foam rises like a mofo even after releasing pressure
Better solution is an oversized conical with some glycol.
if you’re in the 1%. lol
I've been reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast book. I'm paraphrasing here but they caution about "early capping of the fermentation vessel" to carbonate (read: spund) due to the fact that some yeasts off-gas undesirable compounds until the tail end of fermentation.
I sort of connected the dots on this when I spunded my hefe brewed with 3068. After spunding, purging the keg smelled like rotten eggs from the production of sulfur compounds that this yeast is known for. Prior to using this closed transfer method by fermenting in a carboy, I'd get this smell during fermentation, but since it's basically open, by keg time that smell was well gone. I also ferment at a minimum 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up. I wonder if I'm "trapping" these sulfur compounds and other undesirables by using this method.
Anyone else have this notion?
I've been reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's Yeast book. I'm paraphrasing here but they caution about "early capping of the fermentation vessel" to carbonate (read: spund) due to the fact that some yeasts off-gas undesirable compounds until the tail end of fermentation.
I sort of connected the dots on this when I spunded my hefe brewed with 3068. After spunding, purging the keg smelled like rotten eggs from the production of sulfur compounds that this yeast is known for. Prior to using this closed transfer method by fermenting in a carboy, I'd get this smell during fermentation, but since it's basically open, by keg time that smell was well gone. I also ferment at a minimum 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up. I wonder if I'm "trapping" these sulfur compounds and other undesirables by using this method.
Anyone else have this notion?
Doing some searches, I came across a blog post on Scott Janish's site seemingly dealing with the topic I was looking into. While the experiment in the main post doesn't sound like exactly the same scenario (his "experiement" used different yeasts, dry hop schedules for the different batches and fermented one under pressure for the full fermentation), but some of his comments in the discussion below seem to deal with exactly what I had done with my 2 failed beers - regular fermentation for the first 90%, then tossing in dry hops at the end and then allowing to naturally carbonate. To my surprise, it sounds as though he made the same/similar observations with multiple batches whenever attempting this.
Below is the link to the post and some of his comments:
http://scottjanish.com/fermenting-dry-hopping-pressure/
"I’ve tried spunding on the tail end of fermentation a few more times and I’d suggest against it actually. I’ve never been thrilled with my results, I always seem to get a milder flavored beer from it."
"I’ve done a few beers where I cap the fermentation towards the tail end of fermentation with the last dose of dry hops essentially allowing the beer to naturally carbonate. Each time I’ve tried this, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Thinking I would trap in more of the hop aromatics (not being vented with C02 under pressure) and increase aroma, I actually seemed to get the opposite, a more muted hop character with a “green” note. I’m not sure if I’m also trapping in some of the undesirable components of fermentation or what, but experimenting with this method a few times and getting the same result, I’m leaning against the processes. "
I may try doing a real side-by-side experiment in the future to compare to, but seeing as though the beers that the 2 times I've tried this have resulted in drain-pour beers (although hoping I may be able to salvage something out of my latest with some additional dry hopping), I'm not in a huge rush to do this knowing that half the beer is likely going down the drain. I'm not sure "muted" or "milder" quite does it justice - there is something just totally off about the hop character in these. NEIPA beers that I have added dry hops on day 2 and still have another 1-2 days before I cap or spund to pressure haven't had this issue. Neither have ones with all hops at the very end of fermentation but no spunding.
Anyways, sorry for the long post - what experience do y'all have with this? Anyone having good results with this method? Or similar bad results? Or ideas on good ways to dry hop late or after fermentation while limiting O2 exposure?
I've had 2 hoppy beers that I think I essentially ruined with this method already this year. In both beers, the hop aroma/flavor was totally lacking and had a weird harsh, maybe even chemical/soapy, characteristic to it (both beers used the same source RO water from the grocery store that I use for all my beers, before anyone goes shouting "chloramines!" or anything). It's hard to explain - you can smell and taste that there are hops in there, but its a different kind of flavor/aroma than anything I've ever had before. Kind of like if you removed all of the supporting characteristics from the hops (fruity, floral, pine, resin/dank, etc) and were just left with generic hop presence.
Thanks for the post! I am familiar with the blog post you're talking about. I haven't actually tried a side by side with that method, but I can't say I've really produced NEIPA beer that I feel like I needed to pour out with spunding. With my NEIPAs I usually dry hop right at yeast pitch for simplicity (so I don't have to open the fermenter until after the beer has been transferred). The current 1272 batch I have, I did the dry hop at yeast pitch but I goofed the spund timing and it only spunded a bit.
I may try standard bio transform dry hop with no spund at all and see if I can tell a difference.
I'd be interested to hear others' opinions.
Edit: Also, I wonder where the threshold pressure for the poor hop character is. I like to ferment at a minimum of 5 psi to keep the kegs sealed up.
Your description is spot on with what I have experienced. I have noticed the same astringent/soapy flavor when fermenting an ipa under 15 psi, then letting the pressure build to 25 psi near the end of fermentation.This was without any dry hopping.
I've never experienced this off flavor with a normal non-pressurized fermentation. Next time I'll try fermenting around 3-5 psi the entire time and see if that weird off flavor gone. Glad to see it's not just me that has experienced this issue.
Side by side experiment would be interesting. Brulosophy did an exbeeriment on a zombie dust clone with pressure fermentation, but unfortunately they skipped the dry hops.
I haven't had any negative experiences yet on getting weird or dull hop flavors when dry hopping under pressure. I've got a Trillium Fort Point clone on tap right now and it's pretty juicy. I made this recipe before without pressure and it tastes similar as far as I can remember. It was nearly a year ago last time I brewed it though.
I may test this out myself next time as well and do half batch under pressure half not.
i’ve been fermenting out my beer, adding 1 oz/gal dry hop along with about 50-60g of sucrose boiled in water, seal it up and purge and set lid to 20 psi. leave it for 1-2wks and then throw into keezer. seems to produce very hoppy beer
Thanks for the input - when are you adding the dry hops for that recipe? Also, what’s your pressure set to when the dry hops are added?
I'm leaning toward trying this on my current batch. The common thinking is get the ipas on tap fast but with no o2 exposure, time could actually work in your favor.i’ve been fermenting out my beer, adding 1 oz/gal dry hop along with about 50-60g of sucrose boiled in water, seal it up and purge and set lid to 20 psi. leave it for 1-2wks and then throw into keezer. seems to produce very hoppy beer
While I can't say that I've noticed any negatives from capping/spunding near the very end of fermentation with any non-dryhopped beers, I'm starting to lean towards adding dry hops near the end of fermentation and then capping or spunding to naturally carbonate being a very bad thing for hop character in the finished beer. I've had 2 hoppy beers that I think I essentially ruined with this method already this year. In both beers, the hop aroma/flavor was totally lacking and had a weird harsh, maybe even chemical/soapy, characteristic to it (both beers used the same source RO water from the grocery store that I use for all my beers, before anyone goes shouting "chloramines!" or anything). It's hard to explain - you can smell and taste that there are hops in there, but its a different kind of flavor/aroma than anything I've ever had before. Kind of like if you removed all of the supporting characteristics from the hops (fruity, floral, pine, resin/dank, etc) and were just left with generic hop presence.
Each beer had some different ingredients and other tweaks going on so I wasn't sure where to place the blame (thought it was maybe some bad cryo hops, the Imperial Juice yeast, different base malt), but the one thing both batches had in common was that I added all the dry hops (over 1oz per gallon) as the fermentation was finishing up and then removed the blow-off and let to finish fermenting and naturally carbonate. With the first batch, I decided to blame the cryo hops, since it was my first time using them and they seemed to have a brown appearance and duller aroma in the package compared to the pellet hops I was using in the same batch. When it happened to me again this past weekend, I began to think maybe in my attempts to preserve and maintain the freshest/brightest hop character by sealing in all the goodness at the end of fermentation, my efforts might actually be having the opposite effect due to some weird yeast/hops/off-gasing/pressure interaction.
Doing some searches, I came across a blog post on Scott Janish's site seemingly dealing with the topic I was looking into. While the experiment in the main post doesn't sound like exactly the same scenario (his "experiement" used different yeasts, dry hop schedules for the different batches and fermented one under pressure for the full fermentation), but some of his comments in the discussion below seem to deal with exactly what I had done with my 2 failed beers - regular fermentation for the first 90%, then tossing in dry hops at the end and then allowing to naturally carbonate. To my surprise, it sounds as though he made the same/similar observations with multiple batches whenever attempting this.
Below is the link to the post and some of his comments:
http://scottjanish.com/fermenting-dry-hopping-pressure/
"I’ve tried spunding on the tail end of fermentation a few more times and I’d suggest against it actually. I’ve never been thrilled with my results, I always seem to get a milder flavored beer from it."
"I’ve done a few beers where I cap the fermentation towards the tail end of fermentation with the last dose of dry hops essentially allowing the beer to naturally carbonate. Each time I’ve tried this, however, I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Thinking I would trap in more of the hop aromatics (not being vented with C02 under pressure) and increase aroma, I actually seemed to get the opposite, a more muted hop character with a “green” note. I’m not sure if I’m also trapping in some of the undesirable components of fermentation or what, but experimenting with this method a few times and getting the same result, I’m leaning against the processes. "
I may try doing a real side-by-side experiment in the future to compare to, but seeing as though the beers that the 2 times I've tried this have resulted in drain-pour beers (although hoping I may be able to salvage something out of my latest with some additional dry hopping), I'm not in a huge rush to do this knowing that half the beer is likely going down the drain. I'm not sure "muted" or "milder" quite does it justice - there is something just totally off about the hop character in these. NEIPA beers that I have added dry hops on day 2 and still have another 1-2 days before I cap or spund to pressure haven't had this issue. Neither have ones with all hops at the very end of fermentation but no spunding.
Anyways, sorry for the long post - what experience do y'all have with this? Anyone having good results with this method? Or similar bad results? Or ideas on good ways to dry hop late or after fermentation while limiting O2 exposure?
I have used 2 different dry hopping schedules both with great results at getting hop flavor and aromas into the beer. However, the hops will fade over time faster with the first method, which may not be a problem if you can consume it all in ~4 weeks. I can attest that the second method has worked tremendously for preserving hop flavors and aromas. The last beer I brewed was a NEIPA in April this year. Long story short I had a few surgeries this summer and didn't drink much of that keg until recently. I just had the last glass this weekend and it amazed me how much aroma and flavor was still there after 5 months of lagering.I haven't dry hopped under pressure yet, so it would be cool if some of you folks who are doing so already and getting results they are happy with could outline their schedule eg. What pressures, for how long, when you are adding your dry hops, whether the whole fermentation is under pressure or just spunding, etc
I haven't dry hopped under pressure yet, so it would be cool if some of you folks who are doing so already and getting results they are happy with could outline their schedule eg. What pressures, for how long, when you are adding your dry hops, whether the whole fermentation is under pressure or just spunding, etc
Honestly, to avoid having to open the fermentation keg I've been throwing all my DH hops in right at yeast pitch. The less mucking about I've got to do the better IMHO. Not sure if this is ideal or not but it's been working for me. I've got an NEIPA-like beer in the kegerator that's over two months old and it still has all kinds of aroma.
I usually start spunding at day 5 or so. Sometimes this is too late. Day 4 is better.
Not sure how you can water purge a keg with hops in it, so yes it was just purged with CO2, not water followed by CO2.In your first method, was the keg CO2 purged from being filled with air? Did you ever try this with a water purged keg?
how many oz and how full is the keg? the online concern i would have is clogging something if too full with dry hops in there at high krausen
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