***NEW PRODUCT*** The Yeast Brink from Nor Cal Brewing Solutions

[Zooksta]

I want to buy one of these for my new conical for dry hopping, but I'm trying to think of a way to liquid purge it or something, in order to actually be sure the air is displaced.

I only did this once, but I filled the yeast brink with starsan, pushed it out with co2, then dumped out the leftover starsan through the ball lock port, then added hops and purged again.

 

[TheMadKing]

I only did this once, but I filled the yeast brink with starsan, pushed it out with co2, then dumped out the leftover starsan through the ball lock port, then added hops and purged again.

Yeah I thought of doing that - but you introduce air by opening it to the atmosphere again, so it seems marginally more effective than just purging

I did start another thread on this question as it may have the potential to become a larger conversation about purging small spaces (bottles, dry hops, etc)

I know there is an oxygen free dry hopping thread with some interesting ideas on it, maybe this discussion would be best on that thread too... The internet is a messy place

 

[Brewbuzzard]

What is a yeast brink you ask? Here ya go. Its a multi purpose yeast harvesting and inoculating tool that you can also use to dry hop AND O2 evacuate your conical!



Here is a link to the actual brink online

1.5

Cheers
Jay

I just watched your video and have to say Brilliant! I also thought of another use which you may already know of. While taste testing my young barleywine I think your product could be used to inject finings into a beer. After injecting just continue to purge with CO2 to lift the finings throughout the beer. I use gelatin and this should work.

 

[TheMadKing]

I just watched your video and have to say Brilliant! I also thought of another use which you may already know of. While taste testing my young barleywine I think your product could be used to inject finings into a beer. After injecting just continue to purge with CO2 to lift the finings throughout the beer. I use gelatin and this should work.

yeast, finings, and priming sugar solution all seem like great options

 

[Brewbuzzard]

yeast, finings, and priming sugar solution all seem like great options

Hey, didn't think about priming sugars...

 

[Jaybird]

I just watched your video and have to say Brilliant! I also thought of another use which you may already know of. While taste testing my young barleywine I think your product could be used to inject finings into a beer. After injecting just continue to purge with CO2 to lift the finings throughout the beer. I use gelatin and this should work.

NICE! Absolutely!

 

[eric19312]

So I used my new 3" sight glass yeast brink to dry hop a hazy IPA this weekend. This was a lot of dry hops and maybe too much for first try. Did not go real well and I'm open to suggestions. Sorry for the long thread...

This was about 17.5 gallons of beer in a CF15 fermentor. The sight glass downcomer was attached to the butterfly valve which was attached directly to the dump port on the cone (no elbow or other hardware in between). On day 3 or 4 of fermentation when yeast was just starting to slow down I opened the fermentor top and added a pound of dry hop pellets. Got some explosive blow off with all those nucleation sites hitting all that actively fermenting beer but got the lid closed without issue and captured most of the mess through my blow off.

Once fermentation appeared done - day 7 - I switched the blow off for a pressure manifold, pressurized the head space to 5 psk and I used the brink to dump two full site glasses worth of yeast, That went really well. I even saved first 25 oz harvested in a sanitized mason jar, looked decent even if a little green. I didn't keep dumping until the cone was clear...

Then I loaded 8oz hop pellets. Should of gone back to this thread and seen where Jay suggested 4-6. 8 was way too much. I attached the sight glass to the valve loosely, purged with CO2, tightened it down, and then filled with beer. And had a hop brick in my site glass. Never turned into a pushable sludge although I gave it a long time to soak. Overnight actually. worked at it and got some to move by increasing pressure (40psi I think). Then got some more beer and repeated. Eventually I got a fair amount into the fermentor and decided to stop, clean it out and try again with 4oz.

Repeated the process with 4 oz. This time when I went to fill with beer I forgot to attach the blow off and the beer just trickled in. Got the blow off assembled by by now I think I had a plug of damp hop pellets and even after putting 15 psi on the fermentor head it took about 20 minutes for the sight glass to actually fill with liquid. I let this rest an hour. And pushed. And nothing moved. Increased pressure and maybe a little moved. Vented the pressure, filled with beer, let it rest another hour. And pushed and, again almost nothing moved. But maybe some moved. So I basically repeated
1 close valve
2 pressurize sight glass
3 open valve
4 vent sight glass
about 10-20 times. First bunch of repeats did not seem like much was going on then I got one where there was liquid in the glass along with hop gung and after about 3 more cycles I was done.

Disassembled, cleaned, added 4 more ounces and repeated (except for the blow off mistake, fixed that and did fill get a quick liquid fill). Did wait an hour of pellet soaking for the first cycle but then just accepted I would need a bunch of cycles and immediately repeated the process. Took a long time but got it done.

So when I compare what I did to that video a few thoughts come to mind. Looks like Jay has about 2 oz of hops in a quart jar and I had 4oz in 25 oz sight glass. Also looks like Jay had a fermentor full of water. I had a fermentor full of beer. And sitting in the bottom of the fermentor I am guessing I had a substantial quantity of hops and yeast.

So when I went to add "beer" to the sight glass through the downcomer I probably added mostly hop/yeast trub along with a little beer. Which was not sufficient to turn my new pellets into a think pushable slurry.

I have some ideas about what to do next time but would appreciate any advice from current users.

 

[Jaybird]

Eric
I am going to let others reply first. So the insight is coming from users other than myself. I am super happy to give you some insight and some assistance with your process straight away if you like. Totally up to you.

Cheers
Jay

 

[eric19312]

Eric
I am going to let others reply first. So the insight is coming from users other than myself. I am super happy to give you some insight and some assistance with your process straight away if you like. Totally up to you.

Cheers
Jay

Thanks Jay - I’m not unhappy with the unit and am sure I’ll get it figured out. Learning curve is part of what I like about the hobby. Am eager to see what other users add but for sure your thoughts are welcome.

 

[Broothru]

Thanks Jay - I’m not unhappy with the unit and am sure I’ll get it figured out. Learning curve is part of what I like about the hobby. Am eager to see what other users add but for sure your thoughts are welcome.

I'll jump in.

Sounds like it is, as you suspected, too many hops in the brink. I've got the same 3" sight glass model and have never had any issues, but never tried more than 4 oz DH addition, at least at the same time. It also sounds like you might have gotten a trub plug in the downcomer that got really compacted by the high pressure in the fermenter.

I'm guessing you're wanting to get some biotransformation from the hops. If you could hold off a few days to get some of the yeast and most of the trub OUT before dry hopping I think you'd solve the issue. When I dry hop it's usually when fermentation is almost complete and the fermenter is unpressurized (or at least <5 psig). Then I do everything you do regarding attaching the brink and purging before tightening the TC and opening the butterfly, except for only using 4 oz or so DH at a time. I usually don't wait for more than 10 minutes or less to 'liquify' the hops. Then I set my CO2 regulator to ~2 psi higher than the fermenter pressure and slowly open the valve. 90-95% of the hop mush goes right into the fermenter, just like in Jay's video. Then I bleed of the pressure in the brink, fill with beer/wort from the fermenter, let it all mix together, and shoot it back into the fermenter. Rinse, repeat as necessary to get all you hop addition charge (or multiple charges) into the fermenter.

I'm surprised you've had issues, especially with a 2" TC port. I've got a 1.5" TC port on a Ss Brewtech Unitank and have never had that happen. I think you've accurately diagnosed the problem. Just make sure the dump port is cleared of trub/yeast debris before uploading your hops, and limit your hop charge to ~ 4 oz until you get the results you're looking for.

 

[CodeSection]

I'll jump in.

Sounds like it is, as you suspected, too many hops in the brink. I've got the same 3" sight glass model and have never had any issues, but never tried more than 4 oz DH addition, at least at the same time. It also sounds like you might have gotten a trub plug in the downcomer that got really compacted by the high pressure in the fermenter.

I'm guessing you're wanting to get some biotransformation from the hops. If you could hold off a few days to get some of the yeast and most of the trub OUT before dry hopping I think you'd solve the issue. When I dry hop it's usually when fermentation is almost complete and the fermenter is unpressurized (or at least <5 psig). Then I do everything you do regarding attaching the brink and purging before tightening the TC and opening the butterfly, except for only using 4 oz or so DH at a time. I usually don't wait for more than 10 minutes or less to 'liquify' the hops. Then I set my CO2 regulator to ~2 psi higher than the fermenter pressure and slowly open the valve. 90-95% of the hop mush goes right into the fermenter, just like in Jay's video. Then I bleed of the pressure in the brink, fill with beer/wort from the fermenter, let it all mix together, and shoot it back into the fermenter. Rinse, repeat as necessary to get all you hop addition charge (or multiple charges) into the fermenter.

I'm surprised you've had issues, especially with a 2" TC port. I've got a 1.5" TC port on a Ss Brewtech Unitank and have never had that happen. I think you've accurately diagnosed the problem. Just make sure the dump port is cleared of trub/yeast debris before uploading your hops, and limit your hop charge to ~ 4 oz until you get the results you're looking for.

Same here...except I wait for the hops to liquify. I have had zero issues when following the above process. I DO dump the yeast/trub first. I DON'T add hops via the lid and then add more hops later via the YB.

I don't know why one would follow that process as there is no need to remove the lid when you have a YB. That sorta defeats one of the benefits of the YB. Yes, I have a CF10 and the other member has a CF15. Ignoring the introduction of O2 when he opens the lid issue, he may find that process easier. To each their own.....

I DO "stir" the hops with CO2 via the 2" port over the following couple of days after adding hops.

 

[eric19312]

Thanks @Brooothru and @CodeSection

Hops during fermentation ... biotransformation was a sort of, but was brewing with US-05 so not really expecting biotransformation, mainly seemed like a convenient point in time to get first pound of dry hops into the fermentor, likely anticipating dosing dry hops with the brink might take some time.

Opening the lid....I understand during active fermentation small doses of oxygen are not really able to hurt the beer or the hops as the yeast at full kick will rapidly metabolize any oxygen that does get in. The low oxygen brewing site has pretty interesting data on the power or yeast to rapidly deoxygenate water, I assume the principal is pretty applicable to fermenting beer too. Also sorry I don't open the lid, I put the hops in through the 4" TC port.

The 2" dump port....well the downcomer on the brink with the 2" TC connection is probably same pipe as the downcomer on the 1.5" model, just a different TC flange.

@CodeSection how long do you wait for the hops to liquify?

 

[CodeSection]

Thanks @Brooothru and @CodeSection

Hops during fermentation ... biotransformation was a sort of, but was brewing with US-05 so not really expecting biotransformation, mainly seemed like a convenient point in time to get first pound of dry hops into the fermentor, likely anticipating dosing dry hops with the brink might take some time.

Opening the lid....I understand during active fermentation small doses of oxygen are not really able to hurt the beer or the hops as the yeast at full kick will rapidly metabolize any oxygen that does get in. The low oxygen brewing site has pretty interesting data on the power or yeast to rapidly deoxygenate water, I assume the principal is pretty applicable to fermenting beer too. Also sorry I don't open the lid, I put the hops in through the 4" TC port.

The 2" dump port....well the downcomer on the brink with the 2" TC connection is probably same pipe as the downcomer on the 1.5" model, just a different TC flange.

@CodeSection how long do you wait for the hops to liquify?

@Jaybird's video I believe shows roughly 45-50 minutes. I always kept them in the YB for roughly 75-90 minutes. Mainly, because I was doing other stuff and would come back later.

I guess the amount of hops used would influence the time it takes to liquify them as well....

 

[Broothru]

Same here...except I wait for the hops to liquify. I have had zero issues when following the above process. I DO dump the yeast/trub first. I DON'T add hops via the lid and then add more hops later via the YB.

I don't know why one would follow that process as there is no need to remove the lid when you have a YB. That sorta defeats one of the benefits of the YB. Yes, I have a CF10 and the other member has a CF15. Ignoring the introduction of O2 when he opens the lid issue, he may find that process easier. To each their own.....

I DO "stir" the hops with CO2 via the 2" port over the following couple of days after adding hops.

Good call on routing the yeast with a CO2 blast. Dump trub till you start seeing yeast. Roust with CO2, then inject the hops with the yeast brink. I'll have to use that technique next time I dry hop.

Brooo Brother

 

[jekeane]

So I used my new 3" sight glass yeast brink to dry hop a hazy IPA this weekend. This was a lot of dry hops and maybe too much for first try. Did not go real well and I'm open to suggestions. Sorry for the long thread...

This was about 17.5 gallons of beer in a CF15 fermentor. The sight glass downcomer was attached to the butterfly valve which was attached directly to the dump port on the cone (no elbow or other hardware in between). On day 3 or 4 of fermentation when yeast was just starting to slow down I opened the fermentor top and added a pound of dry hop pellets. Got some explosive blow off with all those nucleation sites hitting all that actively fermenting beer but got the lid closed without issue and captured most of the mess through my blow off.

Once fermentation appeared done - day 7 - I switched the blow off for a pressure manifold, pressurized the head space to 5 psk and I used the brink to dump two full site glasses worth of yeast, That went really well. I even saved first 25 oz harvested in a sanitized mason jar, looked decent even if a little green. I didn't keep dumping until the cone was clear...

Then I loaded 8oz hop pellets. Should of gone back to this thread and seen where Jay suggested 4-6. 8 was way too much. I attached the sight glass to the valve loosely, purged with CO2, tightened it down, and then filled with beer. And had a hop brick in my site glass. Never turned into a pushable sludge although I gave it a long time to soak. Overnight actually. worked at it and got some to move by increasing pressure (40psi I think). Then got some more beer and repeated. Eventually I got a fair amount into the fermentor and decided to stop, clean it out and try again with 4oz.
cont...

I my experience these guys will never work well for heavy dry hopping. They just can't hold enough soaked and expanded pellets. 3oz is the most I have used without it being an hour long affair to get them in the conical. To use the harvester to inject standard IPA hop bills its an all day affair.

It works great for injecting purees, fining agents, etc but I wont use it for hops any longer. It does work better with cryo hops. and it is great for yeast harvests if thats something you do.

 

[eric19312]

I my experience these guys will never work well for heavy dry hopping. They just can't hold enough soaked and expanded pellets. 3oz is the most I have used without it being an hour long affair to get them in the conical. To use the harvester to inject standard IPA hop bills its an all day affair.

It works great for injecting purees, fining agents, etc but I wont use it for hops any longer. It does work better with cryo hops. and it is great for yeast harvests if thats something you do.

appreciate the feedback. which size brink are you using?

 

[CodeSection]

I my experience these guys will never work well for heavy dry hopping. They just can't hold enough soaked and expanded pellets. 3oz is the most I have used without it being an hour long affair to get them in the conical. To use the harvester to inject standard IPA hop bills its an all day affair.

It works great for injecting purees, fining agents, etc but I wont use it for hops any longer. It does work better with cryo hops. and it is great for yeast harvests if thats something you do.

I haven't experienced anything near on what you are describing. I guess it depends upon what size of YB you have, what size batch you are DH, and finally how much hops you are DH with. It is really no big deal letting it sit until the hops turn into mush. Lol, its not like I'm sitting there watching it as I have better things to do with my time while it liquifies. Something is wrong if it takes all day.....

I haven't tried @Brooothru's process of waiting only around 10 minutes before injecting the hops. Since I have a 3" YB as well, I will try his method to see how that works the next time I DH. Thanks for the tip @Brooothru!

 

[jekeane]

appreciate the feedback. which size brink are you using?

I have used the 3" and the smaller canning jar one. The canning jar one is a pretty big hazard to put under pressure imo. I had the jar shoot off the band a couple times and wont use it anymore.

 

[NoviceBrewer420]

What is a yeast brink you ask? Here ya go. Its a multi purpose yeast harvesting and inoculating tool that you can also use to dry hop AND O2 evacuate your conical!



Here is a link to the actual brink online

1.5

Cheers
Jay

Bro I live in the 530!

 

[Broothru]

I have used the 3" and the smaller canning jar one. The canning jar one is a pretty big hazard to put under pressure imo. I had the jar shoot off the band a couple times and wont use it anymore.

Before I got the yeast brink I used (and still use unpressurized) the canning jar yeast harvester. I had a few email exchanges with Jay, and he indicated that the weak point was the lid seal band. Like you I was afraid of applying more than 1~2 psi on a glass jar.

I still use the yeast harvester on an unpressurized Chronical but never on a pressurized Unitank. Different tools with different applications. It works great for trub dumps and yeast harvests and is much lighter and easier to mount and remove from a fermenter. Just needs to be unpressurized.

Brooo Brother

 

[eric19312]

Eric
I am going to let others reply first. So the insight is coming from users other than myself. I am super happy to give you some insight and some assistance with your process straight away if you like. Totally up to you.

Cheers
Jay

So Jay I'm still struggling. Down to 3oz dry hops in the 3" brink. Tried vertical and horizontal orientation. Thought I really had it last batch because I worked extra hard to make sure no yeast in the cone before starting to add hops. I've got some cryo hops ordered for current batch. Thinking that is one way to cut my total dry hop quantity down while I work this out.

Ready for more suggestions from any source.

 

[eric19312]

OK so back to report some progress. Here is what I tried:

Took extra care to get rid of as much yeast as possible before starting to dry hop. Soft crashed to 55, let that sit for a couple days, then dumped a bit of trub, then harvested a quart of really clean looking yeast, then dumped another 4-5 quarts of yeast before I got to beer. Did this over 4 dumps spaced out by an hour or more to give the yeast in the cone a chance to settle down into the plumbing.

Swapped out the 3" TC gaskets that came with the brink for the hard plastic PTFE gasket thinking these would provide better oxygen seal. Bobby was out of the EDPM one or I'd have gone with those: 3'' TC PTFE Gasket (Heat Resistant to 400F)

Hopped with cryo hops. Did two batches of 3oz each.

Flooded the glass and let it sit for an hour. Put my spunding valve on top of the fermentor at 5 PSI and pressurized the sight glass to 10 PSI. Opened the valve. No joy. Block of hops just sat there. Increased pressure and eventually blew a bit of hops up into the fermentor and was back to my push, flood, push cycle.

Then I remembered the new gasket and how similar it was to the teflon gasket I use to make the racking arm easy to rotate. Loosened the TC clamp that holds the "top" of the sight glass (top being the part with the ports) and gently rotated the sight glass 180 degrees. Did that again in 10 minutes. The rotating allowed the hop much to mix with the beer more readily and sure enough when I went to push this much back into the fermentor I got maybe 75% up in one try. I then repeated a quick flooding and mixing step and pushed it up again. Shot right up into fermentor. Closed the valve and repeated process. Only this time waited 30 min after initial flooding and started the rotation steps.

Only issue I had was when I went to purge the sight glass on the second batch, I still had some wet hop material in the glass and with my initial blast I painted myself and my ceiling with beer hop mush. Don't do that. Purging with just dry hops is fine but once stuff in there is wet you need to purge with the downcomer covered. Next time I'll try covering it with my 2" TC to ball lock gas post before initial purge.

Sorry no videos yet--too much going on to also try to take pictures. Next batch I'll try to get a camera assistant to help out.

 

[Nate R]

OK so back to report some progress. Here is what I tried:

Took extra care to get rid of as much yeast as possible before starting to dry hop. Soft crashed to 55, let that sit for a couple days, then dumped a bit of trub, then harvested a quart of really clean looking yeast, then dumped another 4-5 quarts of yeast before I got to beer. Did this over 4 dumps spaced out by an hour or more to give the yeast in the cone a chance to settle down into the plumbing.

Swapped out the 3" TC gaskets that came with the brink for the hard plastic PTFE gasket thinking these would provide better oxygen seal. Bobby was out of the EDPM one or I'd have gone with those: 3'' TC PTFE Gasket (Heat Resistant to 400F)

Hopped with cryo hops. Did two batches of 3oz each.

Flooded the glass and let it sit for an hour. Put my spunding valve on top of the fermentor at 5 PSI and pressurized the sight glass to 10 PSI. Opened the valve. No joy. Block of hops just sat there. Increased pressure and eventually blew a bit of hops up into the fermentor and was back to my push, flood, push cycle.

Then I remembered the new gasket and how similar it was to the teflon gasket I use to make the racking arm easy to rotate. Loosened the TC clamp that holds the "top" of the sight glass (top being the part with the ports) and gently rotated the sight glass 180 degrees. Did that again in 10 minutes. The rotating allowed the hop much to mix with the beer more readily and sure enough when I went to push this much back into the fermentor I got maybe 75% up in one try. I then repeated a quick flooding and mixing step and pushed it up again. Shot right up into fermentor. Closed the valve and repeated process. Only this time waited 30 min after initial flooding and started the rotation steps.

Only issue I had was when I went to purge the sight glass on the second batch, I still had some wet hop material in the glass and with my initial blast I painted myself and my ceiling with beer hop mush. Don't do that. Purging with just dry hops is fine but once stuff in there is wet you need to purge with the downcomer covered. Next time I'll try covering it with my 2" TC to ball lock gas post before initial purge.

Sorry no videos yet--too much going on to also try to take pictures. Next batch I'll try to get a camera assistant to help out.

Eric- cf15, right? I appreciate your reporting back. I also have nothing of value to add as I do not have brink. But before I even finished your post, I was thinking... Please film this! 15+ gallons focused on the bottom cone... If that TC clamp is loosened too much, we could have a heck of a good fail video on our hands! Of course, I do not wish for this at all! Although- as I write this- I wonder.... is part of the problem the extra weight /pressure/ force caused by more liquid in your 15 gallons than say 5? Have we had similar issues from a cf5 user?

 

[Jaybird]

Just to add some insight. This product was originally designed for yeast and not hops. We put the downcomer tube fairly close to the bottom of the jar and the sight glass. We have been playing around with customers and some are cutting the downcomer tube about 1/4" and having better luck with the transfers. I do have some customers that are actually flooding the jars and with the tube cut a tad able to push some of the hops into the fermenter immediately then part of the battle is already won. Heep in mind those hops are going to drop when you open the valve again. Anyway always working on how to make the system better for the overall experience. Everybody is going to have a little different process but I like the results so far from what is being reported. Keep it up you guys!

Cheers
Jay

 

[eric19312]

Just to add some insight. This product was originally designed for yeast and not hops. We put the downcomer tube fairly close to the bottom of the jar and the sight glass. We have been playing around with customers and some are cutting the downcomer tube about 1/4" and having better luck with the transfers. I do have some customers that are actually flooding the jars and with the tube cut a tad able to push some of the hops into the fermenter immediately then part of the battle is already won. Heep in mind those hops are going to drop when you open the valve again. Anyway always working on how to make the system better for the overall experience. Everybody is going to have a little different process but I like the results so far from what is being reported. Keep it up you guys!

Cheers
Jay

Thanks Jay - makes a lot of sense. I think a big part of what worked for me was the cryo hops. I re-read the YCH literature on the hops and saw the following statement "Due to fine particle size, there is low risk of clogging heat exchangers." I think its likely that the finer particles are less likely to clog trying to get into the downcomer.

 

[NeoBrew]

My lovely wife gave me a sight glad version for Christmas. I’m just working out the best way to integrate it on my setup. I plan on using it primarily to dry hop. I may also use it to inject yeast, but I don’t tend to repurchase so I think that function will be minimal for me. I have the SS Brewtech 7 gal Unitank. I ferment in a glass front refrigerator where the conical sits on the lowest shelf. The legs are way too short as is to fit the brink in.

I am trying to decide between two options.

1. Moving the butterfly valve to the bottom of the cone and making a modified shelf with a cutout so I can fit the brink in there.

2. leaving the butterfly valve at the bottom of the 90 degree elbow, adding a second 90 degree elbow down and attaching the brink to that. This has the advantage letting me pull the conical up to the edge of the shelf and hanging the brink over the shelf. No modifications necessary. Here’s a picture.


Under option 1 I would have less “dead space for trub. I’m concerned about having to get the conical cleaned out well to get clear beer. Under option 2 I’m worried about all that tube length and getting hops to actually travel up that tube into the fermenter.

many advice would be appreciated.

 

[eric19312]

My lovely wife gave me a sight glad version for Christmas. I’m just working out the best way to integrate it on my setup. I plan on using it primarily to dry hop. I may also use it to inject yeast, but I don’t tend to repurchase so I think that function will be minimal for me. I have the SS Brewtech 7 gal Unitank. I ferment in a glass front refrigerator where the conical sits on the lowest shelf. The legs are way too short as is to fit the brink in.

I am trying to decide between two options.

1. Moving the butterfly valve to the bottom of the cone and making a modified shelf with a cutout so I can fit the brink in there.

2. leaving the butterfly valve at the bottom of the 90 degree elbow, adding a second 90 degree elbow down and attaching the brink to that. This has the advantage letting me pull the conical up to the edge of the shelf and hanging the brink over the shelf. No modifications necessary. Here’s a picture.

View attachment 712515
Under option 1 I would have less “dead space for trub. I’m concerned about having to get the conical cleaned out well to get clear beer. Under option 2 I’m worried about all that tube length and getting hops to actually travel up that tube into the fermenter.

many advice would be appreciated.

I agree with your concerns about the amount of plumbing and getting your hops out of the plumbing and up into the beer. I'd go with option 1.
Also I find the process takes some time. Are you going to want to prop the door open for extended period while you work on getting the hops out of the glass? At minimum you need 30-60 minutes to get them to to dissolve and so far my experience has been it takes multiple cycles of wetting and pushing to get them all up into the cone. Going to try @Jaybird 's trimmed downcomer suggestion next batch and will report back with results.

 

[eric19312]

Just a quick post to say I did try trimming the downcomer on my brink with some success. I trimmed about 3/8 of an inch. I put 2" butterfly on bottom of conical and mounted the 3" brink to that. I dosed my batch with 12 ounces of dry hops, 4 ounces at a time. First slug went in beautifully and I was sure I had this thing licked. Second slug was a little more trouble and third even more trouble.

One issue is that when you pull beer in for the second slug it has dry hops in it. So not as much beer to wet the new batch. Other issue is I got in a hurry and didn't clean the brink between slugs. So when I added the second and third slugs they were already starting to swell into an impenetrable mass when I tried to get beer into them. Didn't mix nearly as well. I think less than half my hops in the third slug made it into the fermentor. These were all T90 pellets.

But the results...fantastic! Slugs 1 and 2 were Sabro and slug 3 was Cascade. Beer is fantastic with super bright hop character and no signs of oxidation. I'm gonna keep at it. Next time I will be more careful to clean and dry the brink between doses. I might also pressurize the brink a bit higher than the tank when I am purging it so when I open the butterfly valve a puff of CO2 will push any hops that settled onto the inside of the valve up into the beer,

 

[k-daddy]

I had the same issue. While I liked using the brink for dry hopping, I have since gone a different route. I now have a butterfly valve on top of my blow off fitting (Spike CF-5), a long spool on top of the valve and a Blichmann spunding fitting on top of the spool. I close the valve, fill spool with hops, purge with co2, then open the valve to drop them in. Only issue is that I have to wiggle the valve open & closed a few times to get the hops to drop but it has always worked.

 

[Adam Zerwick]

Here's a little something I rigged up using the Yeast Brink (2" TC) with no downcomer. It gets hooked up to my Spike Flex+ with some pvc-free beer tubing. Silicone tubing would be ideal but I hear it's really permeable to oxygen. Any thoughts on this?

4oz of hops was pushing the limit but I eventually pushed the hop sludge into my Flex+ through the racking arm.

Previously I've been dropping hops in through the top using a butterfly valve, sightglass, and spike manifold but that holds around 2oz. It also doesn't drop readily through the 1.5" TC valve. Gonna try using the yeast brink a few times to see which method works better.

Another benefit of this is since it has threads for carb caps you could potentially use fermentation CO2 to purge this thing.