Dry Hopping Cilurzo Style

[ryantollefson]

First time dry hopping, I'm doing basically a Pliny clone, so seemed appropriate to follow Vinnie's tips from here: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/6351/doubleIPA.pdf

In this article he states:

Once the second dry hops are added we push the initial dry hops (which are now in the cone of the tank) back into suspension in the fermenter. We do this with a CO2 push through the base of the cone. As a homebrewer, you can swirl your carboy or bucket.

I gave the carboy a decent swirl, but none of the settled hops really move; just a tiny bit from the very top layer. Has anyone else tried this and had luck?

Kind of hard to tell in the picture, but you can see the layer of hops on top of the layer of yeast/trub. This is after trying to swirl several times.

 

[beerdrinker]

I wouldn't worry too much about bringing them back into suspension. Anything more than a light swirl and the risk of oxygenation might outweigh any possible extra gain from the hops coming back onto suspension.

 

[PrinceOfThePoint]

I swirl the crap out of my dry-hopped beers at least once or twice a day. I don't know if it's necessary but the beers taste great so it likely does no harm.

 

[ryantollefson]

I wouldn't worry too much about bringing them back into suspension. Anything more than a light swirl and the risk of oxygenation might outweigh any possible extra gain from the hops coming back onto suspension.

If there is still some (minor) airlock activity, doesn't that suggest that CO2 is still coming out of the beer? Wouldn't this mean there is a layer of CO2 on top of the beer that should prevent oxygenation even when swirled? Unless of course you get the airlock to suck in air, then I could see it being an issue.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

The thread title had me excited. I thought you had built a hop cannon. Bummer.

 

[daksin]

I think a swirl is less important on a homebrew scale- you should be just fine.