Fermentasaurus - dry hopping under pressure

[Fleabag]

gonna use the aeropress to seperate the juice from the hop matter to help mitigate this problem. The aeropress uses a paper filter (metal filter may work better) so will be a pretty debris free tea.

Maybe a coffee plunger? Let us know how it goes - I’m curious how this works. I’m wondering how it still transfers once both vessels equalise pressure.

 

[Mister clark]

My process is similar to others but what I've found works well:

1. Set spunding valve to ~5PSI
2. When you hear that the valve is no longer venting you're 90% done.
3. Take the top off and quickly drop the hops on - no bag required.
4. Purge with Co2 and get the pressure up to 2-3 PSI with
5. Close the spunding valve off/set to a high PSI.
6. Pressure pretty much always gets back up to 13-15 PSI and at that point is almost always done.
7. Crash and transfer under pressure.

I also tend to do my second dry hop (f there is one) in the keg.

If there is no second dry hop per se I'll split my dry hop 70/30 between fermentor and keg with the smaller charge going in the keg in a bag that is weighted down.

Going slightly off topic put I've taken the liquid out tubes out of my kegs and replaced them with a fermentasurus float and tube so I draw all my beer from the top avoiding all the crap and hop particles and the bottom of the keg. Note that to do this you need a gas in post to replace the liquid out tube.

I've done a Julius NEIPA clone 2 times and several big IPAs (including a Jackhammer clone) and I'm getting good results.

One modification I've made since my last brew is to thread a couple of stainless steel bolts over the femetasurus silicone tube that's in my keg to ensure the float is pulled just below the surface of the beer. I was having foaming issues before as I dont think the tube mouth was completely submerged.

The jackhammer just kicked but I had that 9 weeks or so and I noticed no issues with oxidization/loss of aroma or taste. It actually got better after a week or 2 cold conditioning with the hops in the keg.

I'm away at the moment but I'll take a pic of my julius clone which is 4 weeks old, no sign of oxidation and the color will usually turn brown fast if oxygen is present.

 

[topssip]

Yep I tried the collection bottle with the same results as you so now I either put my hops in through the top at time of pitch or at high Krausen and that allows the fermenter to re pressurise naturally and chew up any oxygen let in when you lift the lid.
Cheers.

I have bought some extra large empty tea bags and use these to dry hop in the keg. I'm sure you could use one of these , I put a small stainless steel weight in with the hops. And you could tie on a piece of fishing line for retrieving .

 

[buckerooni]

OK, tried the hop tea with aeropress + carb cap idea. bit of a PITA because the aeropress only holds about 200ml, there's few vessels involved, takes a bit of time and a bit messy. I really have to do a side-by-side to see the difference (if any) between this and a french press.

1. make hop tea - 1.5L 70c water, hop pellets, steep for 20mins in a jug, a few stirs and let it settle. *
2. pour off liquid portions into aeropress and squeeze into a cup, repeat x 8. use some of the pellet material in aeropress to squeeze out a bit extra, Ended up with about 800ml of filtered hop tea.
3. transfer into 2L bottle, use carb cap to purge and pressurise to 40psi
4. cool it to around 25 deg
5. use jumper lead on the liquid input on the fermentasaurus to inject
6. boom!

* transferring all the hop material into the aeropress made it clog within seconds!

new thought - would the aeropress would add oxygen to the tea as it passes through the forced filter? seems likely, so it may be similar to a dry hop in terms of oxygen, so perhaps this method only provides filtered hop tea. whether there is any taste difference with this is unknown so lets just call this an experiment at this stage!

 

[RADbrewing]

Have you tried swapping out the collection bottle for a soda steam bottle?? They're longer and might stop the hops clogging up??

 

[Chappo]

Why not use a magnet and hop bag? When you want the hops to be added to the wort remove the outside magnet and the hop bag will drop down into the wort (add a small weight to make sure the bag sinks).

 

[hotmelt]

Maybe this would work better.

It's an adapter to attach pet bottles to a sodastream.If you were to use this you could add your hops to a collapseable drink bottle,connect to adapter and slowly fill bottle. Then squeeze the bottle a few times to transfer the hops or wait till they have rehydrated then do it.
The only place I have found them for sale is here.
http://www.sodaeasy.eu/
Or if you know someone with a 3d printer they could make one.
http://www.instructables.com/id/PET-bottle-to-sparkling-machine-adapter-SodaStream/
I don't have a fermentasaurus to try it but it should work better then the original bottle does.

 

[pirateagenda]

I either vent pressure for first 3 or 4 days then add dry hop and cap/spund the fermenter... or
dry hop at the same time as adding yeast.

both have worked fine for me.