No oxygen dry hopping

[mongoose33]

How did this work out? I have this same conical and attachments already.

Haven't done it yet, but it's the next beer on the schedule. My dark lager is currently occupying the fermenter and I won't have it cleared until late next week, maybe not til the weekend.

I'll report here when I do it.

 

[Gravitysucks]

Hopefully closed systems like folks on here have been putting together will keep this from happening...

 

[cubsfan16]

How did this work out? I have this same conical and attachments already.

I just ordered another sight glass to put the exact same setup together on my Spike unitank. Curious, do you know how many ounces of pellets will fit in the sight glass?

EDIT - sorry, read in a previous post 3-4oz

 

[mongoose33]

OK, time to report! Finally had a chance to try out the butterfly valve/sight glass/pressure manifold thing to introduce dry hopping hops, and I'm pleased to report that....it worked!

Here's a short video showing how it went down:

 

[SEndorf]

Excellent! Now I know what additional items to purchase for the conical.
Thanks for the update!

 

[jturman35]

Thanks Mongoose! How many ounces did you get the site glass to hold?

 

[mongoose33]

Thanks Mongoose! How many ounces did you get the site glass to hold?

It only held 3 ounces, could have maybe gotten another half ounce in there. I had 4 ounces to dry hop with, so I sealed it up again, added the 4th ounce, allowed to purge the hops, then dumped that in.

 

[Bassman2003]

I love the spirit in this thread. Making stuff to solve homebrewing problems is a fun part of the hobby. I have moved to the closed transfer/keg purge with sanitizer approach and can not think of a good way to get the hops in without ruining the whole purpose of a closed transfer. If you throw a bag in before you will end up with sanitizer hops. What to do? Hop tea?

So if you/we could solve this problem it would quite a great thing!

 

[mongoose33]

I love the spirit in this thread. Making stuff to solve homebrewing problems is a fun part of the hobby. I have moved to the closed transfer/keg purge with sanitizer approach and can not think of a good way to get the hops in without ruining the whole purpose of a closed transfer. If you throw a bag in before you will end up with sanitizer hops. What to do? Hop tea?

So if you/we could solve this problem it would quite a great thing!

How about this? Purge the keg. Get the sanitizer out of there as much as you can--and you can get virtually all of it out.

Depressurize. Add hops. Preferred way probably a hop bag suspended from lid to keep them out of the beer until it fills. Reseal. Then run the CO2 from the fermenter, which is pure CO2, into the keg with the hops in it. This gets you a sealed, purged keg w/ hops in it. Rack the beer onto the hops, under some pressure and using a spunding valve to keep down the foam.

*******

A fermentation will produce about 1 volume of CO2 for each 2 points of gravity. You can actually use the output from a fermentation, if you're dropping by about 50 points, to completely purge a keg.

Interesting fact #307.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your reply but I see a couple of holes:

1) Opening the keg and adding the hops defeats the purpose of purging in a way. Maybe a quick lid opening is not that bad but in theory O2 gets in.

2) Why would you need to suspend the hops when a transfer to the keg will be for spunding or just force carb? Either way the fermentation is largely finished at this point.

3) I ferment in a wine fridge so there is no way to run anything from the fermenter. I could just open the lid, drop the hop bag and purge again with tank CO2 but I am not convinced the oxygen would be pushed out given the way gasses mix.

Since I am spunding, maybe the residual fermentation would eat up most of the oxygen from the lid opening and we can just call it a day? It is a conundrum with the use of corny kegs that were not designed for this use. Maybe a little O2 just has to lived with for dry hopping at the homebrew level?

 

[mongoose33]

Thanks for your reply but I see a couple of holes:

1) Opening the keg and adding the hops defeats the purpose of purging in a way. Maybe a quick lid opening is not that bad but in theory O2 gets in.

No, actually not. You're then using the CO2 from the fermenter to purge whatever might have gotten in there with the hops.

2) Why would you need to suspend the hops when a transfer to the keg will be for spunding or just force carb? Either way the fermentation is largely finished at this point.

Well, it was to keep them from creating nucleation points for bubbles to form. Maybe that wouldn't be a big deal if you just let the bag sit on the bottom of the keg.

3) I ferment in a wine fridge so there is no way to run anything from the fermenter. I could just open the lid, drop the hop bag and purge again with tank CO2 but I am not convinced the oxygen would be pushed out given the way gasses mix.

If you purged enough times it would be. But maybe that's no desirable. That's why I went to using fermentation gases.

Since I am spunding, maybe the residual fermentation would eat up most of the oxygen from the lid opening and we can just call it a day? It is a conundrum with the use of corny kegs that were not designed for this use. Maybe a little O2 just has to lived with for dry hopping at the homebrew level?

If you're racking with a few points remaining, that would be a reasonable way to try to scrub oxygen that gets in with the hops.


As far as your fermenting in a wine fridge and can't get the gases out, let me suggest two ideas that might allow that.

One is to drill a hole in a spot not used by the cooling coils and run tubing out of that. Here's how I did that in my small ferm chamber:



The second way, maybe more elegant, is to use a bulkhead shank to pass the CO2 from inside to the outside. I did this on my large ferm chamber to both connect CO2 so I could force carb kegs inside it, as well as pass CO2 out of the fridge to either monitor fermentation, or to run it through a keg to purge it.



The shanks use MFL fittings so you can connect tubing, CO2, whatever. I also use those on my keezer so I can keep the secondary regulators outside but feed the gas to the inside:



You can get them from the Chi Company:

http://www.chicompany.net/index.php...46_425&zenid=b3da20325e896ef6f4ff3d86b06d3da7

 

[Vale71]

Since I am spunding, maybe the residual fermentation would eat up most of the oxygen from the lid opening and we can just call it a day?

Unfortunately that's never the case. For one thing, it takes a lot of time for the oxygen to move from the headspace into the beer, so by the time fermentation is finished there'll still be plenty of oxygen left to do some damage during maturation. And then we have the fact that yeast strongly favors anaerobic metabolism so most of the oxygen that does make it into the beer in time will still be left there leaving plenty of potential for oxydation.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your replies. Mongoose, great setup and appreciate your photos. Still seems like a tough issue though.

How about an idea from left field? Since we are trying to stop O2 from getting in certain areas which are pretty small, what about creating an O2 free bag or chamber to do the dirty work in? Sort of like an O2 free bubble.

Make a clear bag with gloves in, put it over the keg top, purge it, open the keg and drop the hops in. Would be simple if the bag could be made and purged easily. A chamber would be larger & harder to purge but would offer more room for transfers or fermentations.

All of the O2 fear is coming from the environment so change the environment. Just an observational thought.

 

[Bassman2003]

Nobody likes or dislikes my bag idea? I have thought about it a little more and might have a simpler approach. One might not need any gloves. If a plastic bag could have a ball lock gas in attached, one could lay your hop bag on the keg top, squoosh the bag down, tape it around the side of the keg to seal, inflate/flush with CO2 and then open and drop the hops in. Close it back up and done. Hope fully the bag would be flexible enough to allow you to open the keg and drop the hop bag in. No gloves needed.

Getting the gas in post involved and attached might be a challenge. But the concept of creating a temporary O2 free zone has legs imho. Thoughts?

 

[G Scott Stukey]

OK, time to report! Finally had a chance to try out the butterfly valve/sight glass/pressure manifold thing to introduce dry hopping hops, and I'm pleased to report that....it worked!

Here's a short video showing how it went down:

@mongoose33 - did this technique improve the quality/taste of your DH’d beer? I just picked up a Spike Flex+ and am considering getting a sightglass & extra butterfly valve just to do this.

 

[mongoose33]

@mongoose33 - did this technique improve the quality/taste of your DH’d beer? I just picked up a Spike Flex+ and am considering getting a sightglass & extra butterfly valve just to do this.

It was great just after I kegged it. Note that today's post is July 3rd, and that video was posted April 25. So that beer has been on tap for 2+ months. I just had a couple glasses last night, and it's still excellent. The name of the oxygen game here is to eliminate the staling of the hop aroma/flavor, and this beer still smells great and tastes as well. I've often thought a good indicator that a beer tastes good to me is whether, when the first glass is emptied, is my first thought to refill the glass again?

Last night, this was the first thought: "That was good, I'd like some more."

I figure if you can hold an IPA for 2+ months and it's still great, then that's a validation of the approach. YMMV, maybe it would taste better or worse to you, who knows? All I know is that this is now my standard practice for dry hopping an IPA.

 

[Jag75]

It was great just after I kegged it. Note that today's post is July 3rd, and that video was posted April 25. So that beer has been on tap for 2+ months. I just had a couple glasses last night, and it's still excellent. The name of the oxygen game here is to eliminate the staling of the hop aroma/flavor, and this beer still smells great and tastes as well. I've often thought a good indicator that a beer tastes good to me is whether, when the first glass is emptied, is my first thought to refill the glass again?

Last night, this was the first thought: "That was good, I'd like some more."

I figure if you can hold an IPA for 2+ months and it's still great, then that's a validation of the approach. YMMV, maybe it would taste better or worse to you, who knows? All I know is that this is now my standard practice for dry hopping an IPA.

I just want to know how you managed to make it last this long lol.....oh wait are you doing 10 gallon batch ? My 5 gallon IPA lasted bout 3 weeks

 

[mongoose33]

I just want to know how you managed to make it last this long lol.....oh wait are you doing 10 gallon batch ? My 5 gallon IPA lasted bout 3 weeks

I have six beers on tap right now....a dark lager, light lager, amber, hazy IPA, rye ale, and a kolsch. Hard to make a choice there.....

 

[Jag75]

I have six beers on tap right now....a dark lager, light lager, amber, hazy IPA, rye ale, and a kolsch. Hard to make a choice there.....

Dang that's quite a bit of beer Mr. Lol

 

[Mer-man]

It was great just after I kegged it. Note that today's post is July 3rd, and that video was posted April 25. So that beer has been on tap for 2+ months. I just had a couple glasses last night, and it's still excellent. The name of the oxygen game here is to eliminate the staling of the hop aroma/flavor, and this beer still smells great and tastes as well. I've often thought a good indicator that a beer tastes good to me is whether, when the first glass is emptied, is my first thought to refill the glass again?

Last night, this was the first thought: "That was good, I'd like some more."

I figure if you can hold an IPA for 2+ months and it's still great, then that's a validation of the approach. YMMV, maybe it would taste better or worse to you, who knows? All I know is that this is now my standard practice for dry hopping an IPA.

I think what you did was cool, but I will add that spunding onto hops has done the same for me. I am trying to finish off an IPA I kegged April 18th (it's a little strong ABV-wise) and the hop character is great.

 

[Dog House Brew]

It was great just after I kegged it. Note that today's post is July 3rd, and that video was posted April 25. So that beer has been on tap for 2+ months. I just had a couple glasses last night, and it's still excellent. The name of the oxygen game here is to eliminate the staling of the hop aroma/flavor, and this beer still smells great and tastes as well. I've often thought a good indicator that a beer tastes good to me is whether, when the first glass is emptied, is my first thought to refill the glass again?

Last night, this was the first thought: "That was good, I'd like some more."

I figure if you can hold an IPA for 2+ months and it's still great, then that's a validation of the approach. YMMV, maybe it would taste better or worse to you, who knows? All I know is that this is now my standard practice for dry hopping an IPA.

That is an awesome setup for adding dryhops. I really need to add a conical or two.

 

[mongoose33]

I think what you did was cool, but I will add that spunding onto hops has done the same for me. I am trying to finish off an IPA I kegged April 18th (it's a little strong ABV-wise) and the hop character is great.

That's actually what I'm doing, albeit in reverse order. I close up the fermenter with about 7-9 points of gravity to go (for a 5-gallon batch; 5 points is enough for a 10-gallon batch). Then it self-carbonates--spunds, if you will--but I want to dry hop toward the end. This lets me get the hops in there devoid of oxygen, at least as much as I can. I'm sure a little gets in, but by not waiting until it's completely done, I get the benefit of the yeast cleaning up any oxygen that does get in there with the hops.

 

[balrog]

I thought yeasts use of O2 was in the propagation stage and not the fermenting stage?

 

[brewbama]

1. Lag Phase: After pitching Beer Yeast to your wort, you will experience a lag period which varies from strain to strain, and from beer to beer; 12-24 hours is normal. The lag phase will also be impacted by the degree of oxygenation of your wort and by temperature. During the lag phase the yeast is acclimatising to its new surroundings, multiplying by budding, taking up free oxygen and nutrients from the wort, and its metabolism is shifting out of dormancy to active state.

2. Fermentation: For the first 48 hrs, don’t be concerned by the little or absence of activity in your airlock or in the beer. Most strains will show vigorous activity within 12 hours, but lagers in particular such as Bavarian Lager and Bohemian Lager yeasts will nearly always require over 24 hours to produce any krausen or bubbling in your airlock

3. Maturation: Generally, beer reaches premium flavor potential after approximately 4 weeks maturation: 1-2 weeks in fermenter, followed by 2-3 weeks in bottles or other storage vessel. However, there are exceptions to this rule.

 

[Vale71]

I thought yeasts use of O2 was in the propagation stage and not the fermenting stage?

Yeast is facultative anaerobic, meaning it can process sugars aerobically as well and will do so any time it has access to oxygen.

 

[Vale71]

1. Lag Phase: After pitching Beer Yeast to your wort, you will experience a lag period which varies from strain to strain, and from beer to beer; 12-24 hours is normal. The lag phase will also be impacted by the degree of oxygenation of your wort and by temperature. During the lag phase the yeast is acclimatising to its new surroundings, multiplying by budding, taking up free oxygen and nutrients from the wort, and its metabolism is shifting out of dormancy to active state.

What you described there is actually a composite of the lag phase and the log phase. During the lag phase the yeast is acclimatizing to its surroundings and adjusting them as well (PH drop!). How long this lasts is dependent on the yeast's vitality and on the wort (higher OG = longer lag phase). In the log phase reproduction finally kicks in and cell count starts increasing exponentially, which is why the latter should actually be named the exponential phase but somebody like the term log phase better and we're now stuck with it.

 

[hopjuice_71]

Yeast is facultative anaerobic, meaning it can process sugars aerobically as well and will do so any time it has access to oxygen.

Well, sort of. When O2 is present and sugar concentrations are low yeast will aerobically respire, as opposed to ferment. However, with high sugar concentrations aerobic respiration is suppressed by the Crabtree effect. O2 is used up for other metabolic processes (e.g. biosynthesis) but the sugar is fermented to ethanol (i.e. O2 is not the final electron acceptor from the oxidation of the sugar carbons). We rely on this effect when we pitch yeast into aerated wort.

 

[couchsending]

I personally don’t think you need to be super anal about O2 pickup when adding dry hops of you have a conical.

I will put the pressure transfer TC piece on my Chronicals at the tail end of primary fermentation, it’s attached to a manifold that’s hooked up to Co2.

I’ll let fermentation finish, leave for 2 days and then soft crash to 55/60 for a day before pulling yeast. The PRV accommodates for maybe 2-3 pSi of head pressure, enough to maintain head pressure during the soft crash. When I add dry hops I’ll turn the Co2 on, pull the pressure transfer piece, and using a funnel dump the hops in as fast as possible, then reattach the pressure transfer piece that’s already pushing Co2. Once it’s installed I’ll pull the PRV a few times to purge the headspace, then leave as much head pressure as I can while dry hopping. Been rousing with Co2 through the transfer port every now and again lately.

I get zero aroma or flavor drop off over the course of 2-3 months. I have 7-8 beers on tap at a time so inevitably one will last that long.

In an ideal world I’d like to push Co2 into the headspace while I’m adding the hops. Just got a Spike CF5 which will allow me to do that although I wish there was a second 1.5” TC port on those lids instead of having to dump through the huge port on top.

 

[SanPancho]

Lotsa folks make 4” lids with tcs and other fittings. Jay at norcal can give you pretty much anything you want if it fits.

Sorry for the long link. Cant copy the image file.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FNPT-Tri-C...rentrq:bdb06fe516b0abc665b19e14ff8f952d|iid:1

 

[Mer-man]

That's actually what I'm doing, albeit in reverse order. I close up the fermenter with about 7-9 points of gravity to go (for a 5-gallon batch; 5 points is enough for a 10-gallon batch). Then it self-carbonates--spunds, if you will--but I want to dry hop toward the end. This lets me get the hops in there devoid of oxygen, at least as much as I can. I'm sure a little gets in, but by not waiting until it's completely done, I get the benefit of the yeast cleaning up any oxygen that does get in there with the hops.

Ok, I like that even more! I appreciate that you've worked out the headspace v. spunding relationship.

As luck would have it, I kicked that 3 month old IPA last night, and it hard distinct, bright hop character to the last drop.