Opening the Fermenter to Dry Hop

[ManVsBeer]

Hi all,

I've had a 5 year break from brewing for because of a spate of infections put me off. I'm now paranoid about everything and I want to dry hop with the fermenter lid on, dropping the hop pellets through the airlock hole.

What's the chance of oxidisation dropping them into 20L from the height of a 30L fermenter?

 

[Bizenya]

I would think even just opening the air lock is a risk, plus if your trying to drop in decent amounts of hops it's going to take awhile. I think a nice smooth opening of the lid, with hops at the ready, and smoothly but swiftly getting them into the wort without splashing is the key. Reckon takes me about 15 seconds to take lid off, and place the hop balls into the fermenter before the lid is replaced. Still a rush, but I think it's minimal.

 

[Weizguy]

Has been known to disintegate rubber condoms for decades.
I bought a tube of keg lube in 2009 and at the current rate of usage should still be half full for sealing my coffin o ring.

Bribie, are you using keg lube on your condoms?
Sorry to hear about your current rate of usage, though.

 

[ManVsBeer]

I was thinking a small hole compared to the whole lid off would not expose the wort too much. It wouldn't take long to drop 15g off pellets through it. I was more concerned about oxidisation with the hops splashing in. Maybe I should just man up and take the lid off, but I will have to take all the sticky tape off sealing the lid to the fermenter

 

[Nizmoose]

Let's be fair, some beers used to be fermented without a lid at all, and the fact remains that carbon dioxide is heavier than air, if you take out the airlock or even the lid for a few seconds your beer is unlikely to see any of the oxygen you're worried about, it will have a layer of co2 and even after that depending on a few things, a healthy thick krausen. There's nothing to worry about if it's a minute or two

 

[CrookedFingers]

MvB,
If you were going to go down the road of just taking the airlock off and dropping in to the hole, use a small funnel that fits the hole.
I have done it before and all it needs is a little jiggle once or twice to get them moving.
I am a glad wrap user now however, but with a SS fermenter coming I might go back to using the funnel.

CF

 

[vykuza]

If you get a lot of bubbling and blow off when you add your hops, it's not a reintroduction of oxygen that's doing it.

All those hop pellets when they break up, have a huge amount of surface area. The dissolved CO2 in your ferment will bubble off this huge surface area, causing more airlock action. Nothing to worry about.

 

[ManVsBeer]

Cheers for the replies. I reckon I'll just open the lid and slide the hops in carefully. After experimenting with dropping seeds roughly the same size and weight into a bowl of water from height, they made more of a splash than I thought.

 

[3136]

Hey bud yeah as stated above you can boil all the DME if you wish I just did 500 grams as I had an 8 litre pot. It seems a general rule of thumb is 1 litre water per 100grams malt ie. 10 litres water for the kilo. It is a very simple recipe for a really nice hoppy little beer! Please let me know how you go

So did you do two 5L boils?,or did you just put the other 500grams in the fermenter?

Re the OP's question, would it be an idea to have a pouch attached to the lid of the fermenter and some way to drop it in at a given point.
Perhaps even a little shelf, then the fermenter could be tilted a little to knock it into the mix?

 

[peas_and_corn]

I think that's over engineering to solve a problem that doesn't really exist

 

[pat86]

Yes, highly recommend putting that idea on a shelf

After the 5-10 days before dry hopping, they would be practically useless having been kept at fermentation temps instead of 0C.

For anyone who finds this thread, the answers are above and in many other more informative dry hopping threads here.

Just throw them in gently.

 

[peas_and_corn]

The thing is, you're introducing more oxygen by bottling with bottles full of air, filling kegs full of air and filling a bulk priming fermenter full of air than you will ever introduce by opening a fermenter lid for a few moments. It amazes me how many home brewers try to be so specific in irrelevant areas when other parts of their process introduce huge variables that make the specificity irrelevant. It's like people who obsessively take mash temperatures in a mash tun that isn't continually stirred and thus obviously has cold and hot spots.

 

[slcmorro]

Open lid, drop in hops, close lid. Simple. The amount of oxygen you're going to introduce is negligible, because in comparison to the volume of beer it's nothing. Also, if there's still fermentation going on, the oxygen will either be consumed by the yeast or pushed out of the FV by the CO2 still being produced, even in small amounts.

Don't fear the dry hop. Open, drop, close. Stop stressing! RDWHAHB!

 

[Dan Pratt]

When I dry hop i try to get add them right at the end of fermentation while the yeast still has a few points to go. The reason for this is when adding the hops its obvious that oxygen is introduced to the beer but the yeast finishing fermentation scrubs that out with the production of C02.

Ive done it when fermentation has finished without any noticable effects to the beer, but if your worried about that small amount of O2, add when your near final gravity. Some may say you will lose some hop aroma to the yeast, which is correct ( due to hop resin being extremenly stick and attaching to the yeast cells) however the additions of dry hopping at 2-3g/L or more will not be noticable as a loss of aroma.

 

[Spiesy]

The thing is, you're introducing more oxygen by bottling with bottles full of air, filling kegs full of air and filling a bulk priming fermenter full of air than you will ever introduce by opening a fermenter lid for a few moments. It amazes me how many home brewers try to be so specific in irrelevant areas when other parts of their process introduce huge variables that make the specificity irrelevant. It's like people who obsessively take mash temperatures in a mash tun that isn't continually stirred and thus obviously has cold and hot spots.

Whilst I agree with your principle, kegs should be purged of oxygen.