Airlock for dry hopping: Crazy?

[DasBierBaron]

I'm looking for ways to make the hop flavor in my IPAs stay awesome longer. The flavor usually starts to fade quickly after about 10 days in the keg. I typically dry hop in the keg with a stainless dry hopper, remove it after 4 days or so and purge the head space 5 or 6 times at 30 psi.

I had an idea to make dry hopping a simpler affair without introducing oxygen by mounting an airlock on top of my conical. The airlock would be a 1.5" butterfly valve, a 1.5" tube, and a ball lock to TC adapter. Before dry hopping I would close the butterfly valve, remove the ball lock adapter, add the hops to the tube, put the ball lock adapter back on, purge with CO2, and finally open the butterfly valve to dump the hops from the tube.

Is this a neat idea or just totally overkill and a waste of money?

 

[dthompson79]

Probably unnecessary. You could just purge head space with more co2 or add them during active fermentation so fermentation would scrub o2 out better.

Try fermenting with a spunding set to 2-3 psi once you dry hop to hold in more of the volatile aromatics. I have heard this works well.

 

[DasBierBaron]

Probably unnecessary. You could just purge head space with more co2 or add them during active fermentation so fermentation would scrub o2 out better.

Try fermenting with a spunding set to 2-3 psi once you dry hop to hold in more of the volatile aromatics. I have heard this works well.

Unfortunately the Ss Brewtech Conicals only hold like 1 PSI. It makes it difficult/impossible to purge the head space or spund.

I have heard that the problem with dry hopping during active fermentation is the hop compounds will drop out with the yeast when they floc. You also lose aroma to the off-gassing. I've never actually tried it myself so can't comment on whether this is true or not.

 

[hezagenius]

I think some pros flush the hops in a chamber before adding them to the fermenter. Probably overkill on the homebrew level. But I guess if you can't do a decent purge in the conical, then why not. It's not like it's going to take a ton of CO2 to do it.

For me, I dry hop 3-5 oz during fermentation (try to add around day 3 or so) then transfer to a dry hop keg with another 3-5 oz and dry hop for another 2-5 days. In the dry hop keg, I apply about 6psi to help speed up the carbonation process. Then I either 1) transfer to a serving keg and crash/carb, or 2) just crash/carb in the dry hop keg and drink from that.

 

[Brewtiful]

I'm looking for ways to make the hop flavor in my IPAs stay awesome longer. The flavor usually starts to fade quickly after about 10 days in the keg.

Simple solution. Drink it quicker!

 

[MidAtlanticBrew]

I have a dry hop going using this technique. The end cap on the right of the cross has a custom SS brewtech PRV. It releases at about 3.0 to 3.5 psi and unlike the stock SS PRV's, it returns to the close position once the pressure drops below this level. This time I had about 4 points left in my fermentation when I dry hopped.

The higher pressure PRV really helps with keg transfers as well.

Probably unnecessary. You could just purge head space with more co2 or add them during active fermentation so fermentation would scrub o2 out better.

Try fermenting with a spunding set to 2-3 psi once you dry hop to hold in more of the volatile aromatics. I have heard this works well.

Unfortunately the Ss Brewtech Conicals only hold like 1 PSI. It makes it difficult/impossible to purge the head space or spund.

I have heard that the problem with dry hopping during active fermentation is the hop compounds will drop out with the yeast when they floc. You also lose aroma to the off-gassing. I've never actually tried it myself so can't comment on whether this is true or not.

 

[sredz]

Good God, That looks like a mad science experiment!

 

[dthompson79]

That looks.......complicated.

 

[MidAtlanticBrew]

LOL, Yes the silver cross. I could get away with one less ball valve and no elbow but everything else is necessary the way I use this. I'm kinda tired of 25-30 minute keg transfers so I wanted a higher pressure PRV and a "low" pressure guage in the system. Also wanted to build pressure when I dump and I was afraid I'd forget to open the valve so the PRV needs to be inboard of the valve. I forget things sometimes, maybe it's the beer.

 

[day_trippr]

There must be a way to get a few more tri-clamps in that picture...

 

[DasBierBaron]

I have a dry hop going using this technique. The end cap on the right of the cross has a custom SS brewtech PRV. It releases at about 3.0 to 3.5 psi and unlike the stock SS PRV's, it returns to the close position once the pressure drops below this level. This time I had about 4 points left in my fermentation when I dry hopped.

The higher pressure PRV really helps with keg transfers as well.

Why do you have two ball valves on there? I assume you close one when you want to build up pressure, but what is the other one fore?

 

[MidAtlanticBrew]

Only one is needed, My intent was to use the second one to create a volume between the two valves that I could purge once I loaded the finings. After purge, open the bottom valve to let the finings in. That didn't work out so well as the finings coat the structure on there way to the fermenter.

Why do you have two ball valves on there? I assume you close one when you want to build up pressure, but what is the other one fore?

 

[DrFun]

You could always try a randall/hop back to get that extra hoppy punch.