Opening the Fermenter to Dry Hop

[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.