Hop sock

[stosh]

I'm dry hopping with one ounce each of amarillo and cenntenial pellets. Each has its own hop sock.

Curious if the carboy should be swirled gently now and then since the hops are "contained" and not free floating throughout the liquid.

Would aeration be a concern? Any benefit to swirling?

I just let the bags float on top. Any benefit to weighing down so they sink to the bottom?

 

[Tribe Fan]

I weigh mine down with marbles and do it in a soda keg as a secondary which makes it a lot easier to swish around and fish them back out. Oxidation would be an issue depending upon head space, and you don't need to mix if this is an issue. You do need to figure out how to get it back out of the carboy.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Getting it out of the carboy. Yes that is an issue, even with leaving a thread or filament line, because once the hops swell from hydration getting them out of the neck takes a good pull.
This is handy, though not perfect for pellets. https://www.homebrewing.org/Dry-Hopping-Tube-for-Carboy-400-Micron_p_7117.html

 

[IslandLizard]

If you have access to CO2, you can flush the headspace with it after adding the hop socks. That surely would reduce the chance of oxidation.

I would definitely weigh the bags down (glass marbles), but save that for next time, though! The less you tinker with it the better.
Some agitation surely helps with flavor and aroma extraction, especially to refresh the wort inside the socks with hop pulp.
So it's a toss up between increased extraction and risking oxidation, through agitation.

I would toss the hop pellets in loose, then give the beer a gentle stir a day later. Use the back end of your long plastic brewing spoon, there's a little paddle on it. Don't whip air into the beer.

I use buckets, and leave the lid on. I drilled a 1" access hole in the middle of the lid through which I can add my hops and give it a gentle stir with said spoon. I do this while streaming some CO2 into the headspace through the airlock, so not much air can't get inside while working with it. I then flush it a bit more when all is done.

 

[stosh]

Thanks so far for the replies.

If you have access to CO2, you can flush the headspace with it after adding the hop socks. That surely would reduce the chance of oxidation.

An additional rookie question: If the airlock is pushing a bubble now and then then the head space is CO2. If oxidation was a threat if I swirled the wort would the air come from the wort itself?

 

[IslandLizard]

An additional rookie question: If the airlock is pushing a bubble now and then then the head space is CO2. If oxidation was a threat if I swirled the wort would the air come from the wort itself?

We're in the Beginners Forum, "rookie questions" are expected, no need to apologize.

When you swirl the beer (once you add yeast, wort becomes beer), the beer will be outgassing some of it's CO2. That's often necessary and done with meads and wines. Not so with beer, usually. We want to keep as much of the CO2, as it helps protect the beer from oxidation.

Let's look at the relationship between that CO2 and air:
Before fermentation starts your fermentor's headspace is filled with air, containing 21% O2 (~1/5), or more if you oxygenated your beer.
During fermentation, the CO2 it generates mixes with that air. That mixture comes out of the airlock. As fermentation progresses, the CO2 content increases while the air content decreases. At the end of fermentation most air has been replaced with CO2. Although it depends on the headspace, it will then contain around 99% CO2, and 1% air or better. All good so far.

Now you remove the carboy bung to dry hop. Air starts to mix back into that headspace through the relatively narrow opening as you drop the pellets or hop socks in. As much as 25-50% can be air again.

With buckets the scenario is even worse. Removing the lid off pretty much blows away 50-100% of the CO2. Just opening the lid barely enough to drop the dry hops easily loses a quarter to half of the CO2, which means, 1/20 to 1/10 of the headspace is now O2. Since fermentation has about ceased, that O2 is being absorbed into the beer where it causes oxidation reactions. Not good.

A bubble here and there can be just outgassing of CO2 from the beer. It could be still fermenting a little too, sure. Some brewers dry hop toward the end of fermentation to help mitigate the re-introduction of O2, although most of us agree that flushing the headspace with CO2 is much more effective. NEIPAs are (very generously) dryhopped when the beer has fermented only between 30 and 70%, for more than one reason.