How to CO2 purge a BrewBucket

[TBA]

Been reading up on preventing oxidation. I want to try CO2 purging while adding dry hops to my SS BrewBucket. Would I blow gas up through the racking arm while I open the lid to add hops? I have the blow off attachment, do I blow gas in through that?

 

[McKnuckle]

Opening the lid is what introduces oxygen from the air outside the bucket, so it wouldn't have any effect to bubble CO2 up through the beer.

The best you could do is to fill the headspace with CO2 while dropping the hops in, basically trying to blast any encroaching air away. It won't be perfect, but it should work reasonably well. If there's still some active fermentation remaining, that's the best medicine, as it will allow additional CO2 production to resume dominating the headspace gas mixture once you close things back up.

 

[TBA]

I was adding the dry hops near the end if fermentation but was getting hop burn. Also, FG was also low by 4-6 points. None of that bothered me much when making west coast IPAs but now trying NEIPA and I think that is where my biggest issue is. Was hoping to find a better way.

 

[kevin58]

I haven't tried this but always wondered if it would work... using a stainless steel spice infuser/tea ball to hold dry hop pellets and use a magnet on the outside of the lid to hold it in place on the inside of the lid. Then when ready to add the hops just remove the magnet.

 

[Jag75]

I do what @McKnuckle suggest without any issues at all. As long as you have co2 going into the headspace as your cracking the lid open just enough to get the hops in your good.

I also do a few purges once the port is closed. I have a Spike Cf5 so I'm not sure how different it is from your set up , however I've done it this way with all my fermenters I've had.

 

[Jim R]

I have used a small sanitized mesh bag filled with hops with magnets on 4 corners attached to the lid before fermentation. When I wanted to dry hop I removed 2 of the magnets allowing the hops to drop in without opening the lid. It worked ok. The other alternative I have used is to just dry hop before active fermentation is complete to drive off most of the oxygen I introduced opening the lid quickly. I have also thought about just slowly dropping pellet hops down my fairly large blow off tube without opening the lid but haven't tried that yet.

 

[AzOr]

Save yourself a bunch of stress and add hops mid fermentation.

 

[mattdee1]

On my plastic bucket fermentors I run a steady flow of CO2 in through the stem of my 3-piece airlock while I quickly drop the dry-hops in through a ~1" drilled port on the bucket lid. I just crack the 1/4 turn valve on the CO2 manifold until I get a gentle but obvious flow of gas into the headspace. The dryhop port, by the way, is usually plugged with a rubber stopper. After the hops are added, I replace the rubber stopper and let the CO2 run for a few more seconds before replacing the standard airlock. Very simple to do and results have been very positive.