Should I dry hop in 7.8 gallon bucket primary or 5 gallon glass carboy secondary?

[SDouglas82]

This is a personal preference question.

7.8 bucket: too much head space

5 gallon glass carboy: I hate to transfer beer, much harder to get the hops in the small mouth, and hard to siphon with loose hops.


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[kh54s10]

I would only use the bucket if you have 7.5 gallons of beer to put in it. Too much headspace. You could put the hops in several bags. I use 1 gallon paint strainer bags.

 

[Clarke]

I use 100% buckets, I don't transfer and just drop the hops into the bucket and close the lid, when I did transfer this would agitate the yeast and it would start to ferment a bit more and the airlock would go active pushing out what air was in there. CO2 is heavier than O2 so what little fermentation does happen will protect your beer from the O2... I have never had an issue.

I can only speak from my experience, I have read a lot about too much head space but maybe the oxygenation happens from the actual transfer vs too much head space, I don't know...

 

[kcmobrewer]

I don't really think it makes much of a difference personally. I've done both on multiple batches and haven't noticed any difference. Can't say I'm an expert though.

I almost always transfer it though, for a couple reasons. Frees up my primary for something else. Also, I can let something age for a while in my smaller one while I cycle through batches in my primary without the need for a blowoff tube. Plenty of headspace. I also do not have the issue of the narrow neck because I use those big mouth bubblers. Love em.

 

[iowabrew]

i use buckets as well. I just open them up, drop in pellets/whole and leave it be until i'm ready to bottle/keg. No oxidation issues or infection issues to date