Hop Torpedo

[mattjm]

Hoping someone has tried this and can give me some pointers.

I currently ferment in a pressurised stainless conical in a brewpi controlled fridge and then use co2 to transfer to keg so basically maintain a completely closed oxygen free system.

I would like to add to it for dry hopping by using a hopback and a peristaltic pump. the Idea basically being to fill a hop rocket or similar with my dry hops and pump out of the racking/dump port through the hop rocket and back into the racking/blow off port.

What kind of flow rate would I need? recommended pump? time?...

 

[2much2spend]

I'm watching this topic

 

[Danscraftbeer]

mmm me too.
Although first thought that came to my mind would be to just transfer as normal only through a hopback (chamber filled with hop flowers) into the serving keg. Not sure how much you would get out of the hops with cold beer transfer though. I dry hop in the serving keg but the hops should be removed after a while or they start to give a slight stale tea like flavour.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Stuff it I'm going to try that above method anyhow. I'm thinking a 2lt chamber filled with hop flowers. Now just to find a 2lt pressure able container.

edit: Ideally a mini keg! another use for a mini keg when I get one this year. :beerbang:
Just thinking out loud I'm sure its been done before but I never thought of it before now.
This means it all stays a closed system with no exposure and no need to remove hop socks from the keg later.

Thanks for the bright idea mattjm.

 

[mattjm]

So with your method the dry hopping would just occur for the transfer as it passes through the randall/hopback?

 

[Danscraftbeer]

So with your method the dry hopping would just occur for the transfer as it passes through the randall/hopback?

Yes. That was my thought to transfer the beer through the hops to fill a keg. The beer is cold, around 4 to 8c.

My second thoughts are that the hop flowers still need to be loose? Or if they are compacted then the beer just channel and not really rinse all the hops of their glory. etc.
You will see this when you throw out those used hops and see, smell and feel that glorious sticky resin that has been wasted etc.
Oh its so shamefull. Especially if you have grown them yourself.
Just how do you get the best of them hops?

 

[Brownsworthy]

Just use CO2 and go straight into the keg using something like the blichmann hop rocket no need for a pump imo. Though I guess you could recirculate to get more out of the hops or just do a single pass, with CO2, after bringing the temp back to 16-18°C to get more out of the hops rather than at CC temp.