Dry Hop Tube for Strainer Bag in Plastic Bucket Primary Fermenter

[MikeY59]

OK, I am back to home brewing after a 10-year hiatus. I have a 7-gallon plastic bucket primary fermenter. I want to dry hop using a 1-gallon paint strainer bag, since I want to minimize hop trub to harvest yeast post bottling. BUT I really do NOT want to open the lid of my fermenter to drop the bag into the bucket. And I may want to do multiple dry hop additions.

I have been thinking on building a hop drop tube of PVC. Something like:

* Drill an appropriate size hole in my plastic lid.

* Use about a 4 inch length of 1 inch PVC, with about 2 inches above, 2 inches below the lid. Sealed w/ appropriate glue/caulk.

* Glue a bushing on the lower side of the PVC, to give something to attach the paint strainer bag (so it does not slip off the pipe once filled w/ wet hops or pellets). Using a twist tie to attach the bag to the PVC pipe with bushing.

* Maybe use a small saucer to weigh down the bag and the keep the bag spread open, so that when hops are dropped in they sink into the beer.

* Use a stopper on the top of the pipe to seal it when not adding hops.

What do you think? This seems easy to set up at the start, then add the hops (possibly multiple adds) after the fermentation is mostly done.

Anyone added such an DIY change to a plastic bucket fermenter?

Or am I just over complicating this, should I just open the lid and pitch a weighted strainer bag to dry hop?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I would just pitch the weighted strainer bag.

If you ever get an infection i'd say theres a 99% chance it will come from the bag or the hops themselves. Its always a risk you take when dry hopping.
The act of taking the lid off for 3 seconds to toss in a bag should have little effect unless you live in a sewer.

I like the idea, i just dont think it will do anything to help you. Even if you did make it, your still dumping "unsanitized" hops in your wort which totally negates any gains you get from the setup.

 

[MikeInMKE]

Before engineering a solution, it might be worth polling to see if anyone has experienced an infection due to dry hopping.

I've dry hopped a handful of batches and never had an infection, but that's too small of a sample to go on.

I've always waited until the yeast had consumed all of the wort's sugar that they were willing to turn into alcohol, so I don't know how much sugar is left for an infection to live on, nor if any of the likely infections could survive in the alcohol left behind by the yeast.

I also take precautions, such as spraying starsan where the bucket meets the lid before I open it, boiling the hop bag, spraying my hands, scissors, and hop packs with starsan before cutting the hop packs open and dumping them into the hop bag.

Besides, hops have a mild antibiotic effect against bacteria.