Is dry hopping as dangerous as some make it out to be?

[stoby]

So I have been brewing a little while now, have made some good ales and started venturing into lagers. I always love researching brew techniques and advice from those that have been doing this a while. I have made a couple of IPA's that I have dry hopped in the past, I have always put the hops in the secondary (loose with whole cone, and pellets in a mesh bag) and racked the beer on top of them. I usually let them sit that way for four days to a week. The results have been great. As I have researched other threads and forums, I have read that this could be a horrible way to dry hop beer as it has the potential for the dreaded "oxidation". One guy even went on a rant about Low Oxygen Brewing that went way off course the original dry hopping topic. Anyway, my question is this....

How much of a real threat is there to oxidizing the beer. I dont use a closed system, and only rack using a siphon. This applies to dry hopping as well as going from carboy to keg. I take precautions to minimize exposure the best I can, and to purge headspace and all that good stuff. Obviously my beer is still being exposed, but I have yet to feel the ill effects of oxidation. Granted I drink like a fish and most my beer has a pretty short turn around, but some kegs have been around for months and usually the beer just gets better and better. Has the whole oxidation thing been overstated by the brewers that have invested a great deal of time and money in their techniques and methods, and therefore scare the bejesus out of newbies by making us think that our beer will be dog piss unless we do things their way. Right now I have a nice little APA I wanted to dry hop with an ounce of Cascade, but am second thinking it because I dont want to ruin the whole batch. If anyone has a rock solid method to dry hopping that reduces the risk of oxidation they could share it would be greatly appreciated....given it doesnt involve buying a bunch of new stuff.

 

[Sbe2]

Skip the secondary and add your dry hops at the tail end of fermentation in your primary. If you get really dialed in to your process, you could add them a few pts before your beer reaches FG.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Brew how you like. Like what you brew.

... The results have been great. ...

Looks like you have a recipe/process "dialed in" for you to enjoy. I'll suggest that you stop "playing with the dials" for that recipe, continue to brew it "as is" (bot process and ingredients), and enjoy the beer.

That being said, there are styles (NEIPAs, Brut IPAs) that require special techniques or ingredients.

 

[eric19312]

+1 on skip the secondary. Also dry hop with pellets not cones. Whole hops carry a lot of air into fermenter.

If you don’t object to hazy ipa you can dry hop in primary as soon as airlock activity starts.

Next batch I’m going to try skipping dry hop in primary snd just do it in the keg with one of those clear beer draft systems.

 

[VVbrewery]

YES DRY HOPPING IS DANGEROUS! DON'T EVER DO IT. YOU'LL POKE YOUR EYE OUT!

Seriously, I agree with the above posts. Forget the secondary & use pellet hops. I used to do it the way you are and it's a waste of time not to mention some of the beers I made with whole hops had off flavors probably due to oxygenation. I've never had any off flavors since doing it this way. Also after spending an hour or so getting a swollen hop bag out of a carboy I started just dumping them in the fermenter and it works fine. Not good if you want to harvest the yeast but since I don't it works for me.

 

[Shawn3997]

Is there any downside to doing all of your dry-hopping in the primary at the end of fermentation? Drop some pellets in and wait a few days then rack?

 

[Sbe2]

Is there any downside to doing all of your dry-hopping in the primary at the end of fermentation? Drop some pellets in and wait a few days then rack?

I would say no, but that’s just me.

 

[passedpawn]

Is there any downside to doing all of your dry-hopping in the primary at the end of fermentation? Drop some pellets in and wait a few days then rack?

I hope not. That's how I've been doing it for a bazillion batches.

 

[GPP33]

Dry hoping is worth it on something like an IPA or a pale ale you want to have a prominent hop aroma. Sounds like your technique will allow some air in, which will probably diminish the positive effects of dry hoping but not override them completely. Dry hoping won’t ruin your beer but how you do it will determine how much better it makes it. I’m in the camp of dry hoping in primary.

Personally I wouldn’t worry about dry hop technique until you have eliminated all other sources of contact with air post fermentation.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I like to wait until primary fermentation is thoroughly finished, then throw in an ounce or two of boiled sugar with the pellets to kickstart a little yeast activity in order to scavenge any stray oxygen and purge the headspace.

 

[AkTom]

No.

 

[Sadu]

I don't think there is any dispute about whether oxygen damages beer on the cold side.
What is up for discussion is whether you can taste the difference, and if you can, whether it's worth the stress dealing with the extra steps. I think sometimes it's worth it, for competition beers or expensive IPAs definitely, for quick turnaround session beers not so much. Even if you can't taste the difference a good beer judge can.

 

[applescrap]

Yes and no. Yes oxidation matters and perhaps maybe not. As far as the dry hops, its answered. No secondary for sure and add them when you like. Its debateable but i doubt it matters that much. How long they sit also plays a role.
I cant turn my nose to lodo at this point and it makes sense. I mean the less oxygen that touches it the better. Lets say you are judging a competition and you taste beer after beer. All of a sudden one stands out a little more. There it is. Low oxygen. This has what my reaearch and listening of podcasts has led me to. Its that edge in competition and if i am correct brulosopy work and anecdotal info confirms. Hiw much it matters to you is up to you to decide. Ultimately its likely a little better. Mostly i don't care, but as techniques and tools get dialed in and less expensive, i figure that day will come. It surely wont fix a crappy beer. And it wont replace crappy ingredients, both my opinion only. But yea maybe its got a little edge on it. Iirc, and correct me if i am wrong, the second that beers hits the glorious breath of day, it is going to oxidize rapidly. Losing that edge in idk 15 minutes?

Anyone know of commercial zero oxygen brews. Maybe they all are.

Heres the link to the ebeermint. Apparently the lodo didnt allow the sulphur to escape in this instance, leading to preference for normal.
http://brulosophy.com/2017/04/10/th...ow-oxygen-brewing-method-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Sadu]

OP specifically asked for the thread to not get derailed for a rant about LODO, so we should try to respect that. Low oxygen in the mash is a different discussion anyway. The question is whether that oxygen that you let in while dry-hopping stales your beer in any perceptible way.

I remember one night at a party, keg was a getting a bit low so I opened the lid and racked some more beer in. Shook it up at 30 psi to carbonate it but I'd forgotten to purge. Beer was fine that night but a week later it was terrible. You could see a clear difference in colour (side by side with some of the same batch I'd bottled earlier). Even my mates were complaining about it (it has to be pretty bad to complain about free beer right?). It was at that point I started really paying attention to oxygen, and I think my beers have got better for it.

 

[Nash91]

I’ve dry hopped every beer I’ve done, adding hops 5 days to a week before racking and never had a problem.

Love those juicy NZ hops

 

[RM-MN]

So I have been brewing a little while now, have made some good ales and started venturing into lagers. I always love researching brew techniques and advice from those that have been doing this a while. I have made a couple of IPA's that I have dry hopped in the past, I have always put the hops in the secondary (loose with whole cone, and pellets in a mesh bag) and racked the beer on top of them. I usually let them sit that way for four days to a week. The results have been great. As I have researched other threads and forums, I have read that this could be a horrible way to dry hop beer as it has the potential for the dreaded "oxidation". One guy even went on a rant about Low Oxygen Brewing that went way off course the original dry hopping topic. Anyway, my question is this....

I believe you about your beer being great and I also believe that oxidation is bad for the beer. It all depends on how long it takes you to drink up your batch of beer because the oxidation is a slow process and if you drink your beer before it has much effect, your beer will be great.

I bottle my beer and drink it up slowly and since I have multiple batches bottled and do a rotation on drinking them some beers may sit in the bottles a long time. My pale ales lose their hop aroma/flavor with time. I've been told that that is one of the first signs of oxidation. It takes 2 to 3 months before I notice a big change and the aroma/flavor keeps diminishing.

 

[stoby]

Awesome information fellas, all input is greatly appreciated. It seems there is a pretty big consensus that dry hopping with pellets in the primary is the way to go. What's the best way to rack it afterwards to avoid transferring pellet pieces into the keg? Would cold crashing for a couple days settle the debris to the bottom?

 

[GPP33]

yes, cold crashing will help everything settle and compact on the bottom. Doing so without proper precautions though will cause a lot of air to get sucked into the fermenter which gets us back to your initial question. There a lot of ways to feed CO2 back into the fermenter, if you can't hook a tank directly up to your fermenter the balloon trick seems to be the easiest.

 

[Morrey]

Awesome information fellas, all input is greatly appreciated. It seems there is a pretty big consensus that dry hopping with pellets in the primary is the way to go. What's the best way to rack it afterwards to avoid transferring pellet pieces into the keg? Would cold crashing for a couple days settle the debris to the bottom?

Great questions!

Cold crashing always help precipitate suspended matter so it falls out of suspension. If you add gelatin as an example, you do it in cold beer so the cold temperature helps to clear the beer. Same with hops - crashing will help hops drop out of suspension.

If you have a racking cane or auto-siphon, make sure to hold it above the trub so you'll draw clear beer into your keg. I don't suggest free pouring as this method adds tons of extra oxygen.

You didn't ask but I'll offer: I fall in the camp of hop containment as an effort to gain clear beer. This camp is pretty divided, so roughly half homebrewers will put the hops in a muslin bag or similar, while the other half will toss the hops direct. Containing the hops makes it easy to fish out the hop baggies and be done with them. If you don't think you'll get enough hop benefit from the baggie method, add 1/4 ounce more hops than called for.

Either way, cold crashing will help your beer to clear up.

 

[stoby]

yes, cold crashing will help everything settle and compact on the bottom. Doing so without proper precautions though will cause a lot of air to get sucked into the fermenter which gets us back to your initial question. There a lot of ways to feed CO2 back into the fermenter, if you can't hook a tank directly up to your fermenter the balloon trick seems to be the easiest.

So with a threee piece airlock I'll still be sucking air back down into the beer during the cold crash? What is the balloon trick? I would hate to screw up this new technique by adding O2 back into the beer.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

So with a threee piece airlock I'll still be sucking air back down into the beer during the cold crash? What is the balloon trick? I would hate to screw up this new technique by adding O2 back into the beer.

Yes a three piece airlock will allow air back into your fermentor when it gets cold. Cold side oxidation is definitely a thing, but I personally don’t believe that its the boogeyman that people make it out to be. A color difference is the first noticeable effect of oxidation, but IMO the flavor difference is not immediately apparent until the beer has been aged for a while.

Not to sideline the thread but I recently read that exBeeriment linked by @applescrap and found the results as well as the preference very interesting.

 

[GPP33]

So with a threee piece airlock I'll still be sucking air back down into the beer during the cold crash? What is the balloon trick? I would hate to screw up this new technique by adding O2 back into the beer.

Yep, it’ll allow air to be sucked in. Right after it sucks in whatever liquid is in the air lock. If you must, use an S air lock.

The balloon trick is basically allowing the escaping CO2 to fill a balloon which you then put back on when you cold crash. The brulosophy guys call it a bruloon or something.

Too worry or not to worry, a lot depends on what styles you tend to brew. But since we’re talking about dry hoping I’d worry.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

... a lot depends on what styles you tend to brew ...

+1

 

[RM-MN]

Letting your beer sit in the fermenter longer will do nearly the same thing as cold crashing without the danger of sucking air and liquid back into the fermenter.

 

[mongoose33]

The results have been great.

There's your basic answer--it was right in your own message!

1. Oxidation will attack beer over time--it's especially pernicious with regard to hoppy beers, which is why often the advice is to drink them fresh. If your beer isn't lasting long, you may not have had it around long enough to notice.

2. Ever been at a keg party where they used a picnic tap and a hand pump to dispense the beer and then had some of that beer the next day? Oxidized! It may be the best example I can think of to find oxidized beer. Too much O2 post-fermentation = ick.

3. I think there's value in doing this: every time you brew, try to do something better. Find ways to limit O2 exposure recognizing that without a specific system you probably can't eliminate all of it. But you can eliminate most of it. Just keep adopting process elements that do that.

How?

A. Purge keg w/ CO2. You can actually hook up a line from the airlock to a QD attached to your keg, release the PRV, and as the beer ferments the CO2 it offgases will be fed into the keg. If the gravity is high enough you'll produce enough CO2 to purge the keg. Every 2 points of gravity is equivalent to about 1 volume of CO2. So if your beer starts at 1.060 and finishes at 1.010, you'll have produced about 25 volumes of CO2. Purge a keg 25 times with CO2 and what do you have left? CO2.

You can also purge it with bottled CO2.

B. Just because I'm fairly anal when it comes to this stuff, I'll typically do a Star-San purge of my kegs after cleaning them. That means a full keg of Star-San has it pushed out by bottled CO2 into another keg using a jumper from OUT post to OUT post. That leaves almost all CO2 from the bottle in the keg. Then I'll harvest fermentation CO2 from the fermenter to push into the keg and I have an almost perfectly CO2 keg.

C: Rack into that now-purged keg through a QD connected to the OUT post. You can do this with gravity--I've done it that way many times. I will then feed the displaced CO2 from the keg--coming out through a QD on the IN post--back into the fermenter so instead of drawing air into the fermenter as the beer drains/racks into the keg, I'm drawing CO2 from the keg back in.

D. There are many ways to avoid suck-back of air/O2 into the fermenter at cold crash. One is to do the balloon trick. I wasn't sure I could get a good enough seal so I used a breadbag filled with CO2 and twist-tied around the airlock. If you ferment under pressure, there's already CO2 in there to account for the reduction in headspace at cold crashing. BobbyM from brewhardware.com sells something that does this, it's fairly cool IMO: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ccguardianv2.htm

I have some pics below showing how I've done this. I now have a Spike CF10 conical I'm crashing in and fermenting the last bit under pressure, so there's no suck-back. I show how I'm feeding CO2 off the fermenter into the keg.

There are lots of ways to do this. Just keep moving toward doing it better. I still am.

The Breadbag method:



O2-free racking feeding CO2 back into fermenter. I just used an airlock w/ the top cut off, it fit the tubing I had. I now use a piece of rigid plastic tubing from a bottle filler through a drilled stopper.



I now have a Spike conical. This pic shows me feeding CO2 off the fermenter into the keg into which I'll rack the beer. If you look closely, you'll see I've hooked up a jumper in series so that the O2 is purged from that too, so when it comes time to rack into the keg, the jumper I'll use is free of O2 as well.



The device I use to connect two liquid OUT Quickdisconnects. BobbyM sells it at Brewhardware.



The jumper:

 

[stoby]

Wow! That is some really cool hardware, and some awesome advice. I may start with something simple like the bread bag, and work into something more advanced. I'm feeling a bit more confident in dry hopping. I read somewhere else that some folks will even put a mesh bag around their syphon when racking dry hopped beers to avoid picking up the small pieces. I surely do appreciate all the help on this thread!

 

[Blazinlow86]

when i used carboys i would drop them in loose once the blow off was slowing down in the primary. no secondary. after cold crashing i used the orange carboy cap with a racking cane to transfer with co2 without moving the carboy. it worked great. now i have a spike unitank like mongoose and just drop em in the top and purge with co2. i think if your making small batches that get drank quick oxidization isnt such a big deal. if you want to keep a pipeline going with multiple taps its a bigger concern. cheers

 

[Hopalong]

Believe it or not, there are bars that use an air compressor instead of CO2, it saves money. Back in the day it wasn't uncommon. Kegs were pounded down so fast the beer didn't have a chance to oxidize. The best part, the compressor usually was stuffed in a damp, dirt floor, stenchy, basement where it sucked the air from that went into the kegs.
The first time I saw one it looked like an antique, rusted, pile of junk resting on a partially collapsed table against a laid up stone wall that was covered with iridescent slime and oozing water. I noticed it when it started up. I asked the bar owner what he used it for. When he told me I was amazed that anyone was that cheap to go that route. That was back in the early 70's before RADON became popular. Prior to having any knowledge about the tap system or that the air mixed with the beer was sucked from a cesspool, I had a few drafts. Wondering why I was in a cesspool? Money.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Believe it or not, there are bars that use an air compressor instead of CO2, it saves money. Back in the day it wasn't uncommon. Kegs were pounded down so fast the beer didn't have a chance to oxidize. The best part, the compressor usually was stuffed in a damp, dirt floor, stenchy, basement where it sucked the air from that went into the kegs.
The first time I saw one it looked like an antique, rusted, pile of junk resting on a partially collapsed table against a laid up stone wall that was covered with iridescent slime and oozing water. I noticed it when it started up. I asked the bar owner what he used it for. When he told me I was amazed that anyone was that cheap to go that route. That was back in the early 70's before RADON became popular. Prior to having any knowledge about the tap system or that the air mixed with the beer was sucked from a cesspool, I had a few drafts. Wondering why I was in a cesspool? Money.

I've watched bar rescue enough times to believe that. There are definitely alot of pos/ cheapskate bar owners out there. Cheers

 

[GPP33]

Believe it or not, there are bars that use an air compressor instead of CO2, it saves money. Back in the day it wasn't uncommon. Kegs were pounded down so fast the beer didn't have a chance to oxidize. The best part, the compressor usually was stuffed in a damp, dirt floor, stenchy, basement where it sucked the air from that went into the kegs.
The first time I saw one it looked like an antique, rusted, pile of junk resting on a partially collapsed table against a laid up stone wall that was covered with iridescent slime and oozing water. I noticed it when it started up. I asked the bar owner what he used it for. When he told me I was amazed that anyone was that cheap to go that route. That was back in the early 70's before RADON became popular. Prior to having any knowledge about the tap system or that the air mixed with the beer was sucked from a cesspool, I had a few drafts. Wondering why I was in a cesspool? Money.

I could see using compressed air on a mild flavored light beer that will have the entire keg consumed within 24 hours and who’s sole purpose is to provide a buzz for patrons who don’t give a s**t about the flavor nuances of a well crafted beer.

 

[anotherbeerplease]

I dry hop constantly. In the primary and sometimes in the keg. To ridiculous amounts, a half pound or more sometimes. Never had oxidation and I keep my beers for many months. My latest dry hopped IPA I intend to keep for years, but no data yet on how well it ages. So in my opinion yes it is yet another one of those boogy monsters when you are better off just relaxing and not worrying...

 

[Bobby_M]

All of my attempts at NEIPA were badly oxidized until I took care of my cold crashing issue and built closed transfer gear. I had an opportunity to taste at least 7-8 entries in a recent competition where they first rolled out the new NEIPA provisional category and ALL of them were different shades of brown and blue from oxidation. It sapped the hop aroma and flavor right out of them. For all the boogeyman claims out there, which is such a hip thing to contest these days, oxidation is not one of them.

 

[anotherbeerplease]

sweet didn't know I was hip! haha. Can I ask how you changed your process to prevent oxidation? Did you drop your dry hops in keg and purge before closed transferring beer onto it? Or still dry hop in fermenter and improve your kegging methods?

 

[seatazzz]

Secondary fermentation (with the possible exception of fruit beers) has gone the way of the betamax...the general consensus is, the risk of oxidation (or other nasties entering the fermenter) outweighs the potential benefits of getting the beer off the yeast and helping it clear more. I personally don't give a rip if I can't read the phone book (ask your parents what that is young uns) through my beer as long as it tastes good. I always dry hop in primary, and usually add it soon after the krausen falls. The last oxidized beer I had was one that was bottled. Since I've been kegging, not one.

 

[divrack]

There was a time when I would have agreed with the consensus that it's totally fine. Now however I'm not so sure. Recently I did a neipa style in a 14 g ss fermenter and transferred into liquid purged kegs with co2, and transferred the remainder into a keg with air in as an experiment. The air keg was instantly noticeable as having a duller taste only hours later but was still totally fine, but the shock was that after only two weeks one of the other kegs I'd been so careful with had turned to brown sludge from golden nectar... I realised that I must have not put enough gas in before sitting it in the cold and it had allowed a few molecules of oxygen in and had spoiled. Was drinkable, but compared to the unspoiled keg was very very saddening...
This only seems to happen to this extreme extent with Beers containing unmalted wheat plus saturation active dry hopping however, but given the results im now of a mind that the biggest thing I can do towards getting good hoppy beer is keep out all o2.
I don't think it's much of a problem for malty beer, but I tend to pound everything quickly so beyond a certain time it might be...
This isn't to say not to dry hop how you want, but if you have the means and it isn't too difficult, consider any process Whereby you don't let air at the beer.

 

[divrack]

All of my attempts at NEIPA were badly oxidized until I took care of my cold crashing issue and built closed transfer gear. I had an opportunity to taste at least 7-8 entries in a recent competition where they first rolled out the new NEIPA provisional category and ALL of them were different shades of brown and blue from oxidation. It sapped the hop aroma and flavor right out of them. For all the boogeyman claims out there, which is such a hip thing to contest these days, oxidation is not one of them.

It's true. Something about unmalted wheat and saturation active dryhop combo plus tiny amounts of o2...
However given how profound the effect is on neipa I'm sure other hoppy Beers degrade albeit to a lesser extent with contact with o2.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

All of my attempts at NEIPA were badly oxidized until I took care of my cold crashing issue and built closed transfer gear. I had an opportunity to taste at least 7-8 entries in a recent competition where they first rolled out the new NEIPA provisional category and ALL of them were different shades of brown and blue from oxidation. It sapped the hop aroma and flavor right out of them. For all the boogeyman claims out there, which is such a hip thing to contest these days, oxidation is not one of them.

And sometime in the future people will be hitting their beer with pure O2 right before kegging contending that cold side aeration is the key to making great beer. People in China were certain for a thousand years that women who had not had their feet bound were inferior to those who had. It wasn’t even a question which way was better.

Am I hip now too @anotherbeerplease?

 

[divrack]

And sometime in the future people will be hitting their beer with pure O2 right before kegging contending that cold side aeration is the key to making great beer. People in China were certain for a thousand years that women who had not had their feet bound were inferior to those who had. It wasn’t even a question which way was better.

Am I hip now too @anotherbeerplease?

That's not something that's going to happen.

 

[Bobby_M]

And sometime in the future people will be hitting their beer with pure O2 right before kegging contending that cold side aeration is the key to making great beer. People in China were certain for a thousand years that women who had not had their feet bound were inferior to those who had. It wasn’t even a question which way was better.

Am I hip now too @anotherbeerplease?

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that because preferences and standards change over long periods of time that we should ignore current ones? Sounds like anarchy to me but it would be so much easier.

 

[balrog]

I hope not. That's how I've been doing it for a bazillion batches.

The browning is real from O2. But mainly I wanted to like the "bazillion". Hope to get there someday.