Reducing dry hop oxidation with "mini whirlpool" before adding to fermenter?

[TripleC223]

Not sure where to pose this question since it's about a potential brewing technique.

I have brewed several IPAs in recent months, many of which have suffered from some degree of premature oxidation (staleness, darkening of color, etc.) and/or drastic loss of hop aroma just a couple weeks after bottling. This has only happened with my IPAs, most of which I hit with a large amount of dry hops in pellet form.

My research has led me to believe that the cause of that oxidation may come largely from the dry hops, either from the oxygen released into the beer from the pellets dispersing or the manner in which I add them.

I'd like to try the following experiment to cut down on that oxidation. If anybody has any suggestions, or experience with this method, please chime in.

Problem: If processed hops contain oxygen, and that oxygen is released into the beer after adding dry hops to the fermenter, then that oxygen will contribute to the oxidation of the beer before bottling. Therefore, more dry hops = more oxygen introduced to beer. This is also a problem that runs parallel with any "splashing" oxidation that may occur when physically adding the hops to the beer, or the unintended introduction of oxygen that comes from opening the fermenter.

Hypothesis: To combat the negative effects of the introduction of that oxygen, a brewer could add fermentables along with the dry hops to jump-start a small secondary fermentation. That secondary fermentation would theoretically make use of the oxygen that's introduced from the dry hops and keep it from prematurely spoiling the beer. The brief fermentation that occures would both make use of the oxygen contained in the dry hops AND create more co2 that would push out any headspace oxygen introduced by the adding of hops/wort.

Technique: On dry hop day, make a "starter-sized" batch of wort (1 quart at 1.040?) to act as the catalyst for secondary fermentation. After cooling to the appropriate temperature, add it to the fermenter and follow immediately with dry hop additions.

Additional technique: To take this a step further, would it be feasible to add the dry hops directly to that "starter-sized" batch of wort and let them steep for 30 minutes? My thought is that it would extract hop aroma much like a full-size whirlpool would, while also expelling the oxygen from the hops as they disperse in the wort. Then you just dump the entire wort/dry hop mixture into the fermenter, including all hop sediment.

Potential problems:
-The secondary fermentation started by adding the wort would result in a loss of hop aroma. To combat this, you could add more dry hops along with the wort. Honestly, I'm willing to sacrifice an extra ounce of hops if it meant my IPAs would stay fresher longer.

-Also, the resulting secondary fermentation may require more time to allow the yeast to flocculate, if you're concerned with that. The beer may be cloudier than desired.

Does anyone have an idea if this would work? Anybody tried something similar?

 

[FVillatoro]

Before you tackle oxidation from dry hops, are you completely confident that your beer racking/transferring/bottling is sound and introduce minimal oxygen? Oxygen intake is usually much greater from those and bottling is specially known to be more prone to oxidation vs transferring to a keg.

I brewed a dry hop-heavy pale ale back in November of last year that I had forgotten about, and it had not changed color and I could still smell and taste hops 4 months after. I do co2 transfers into kegs though, so this is more than likely the reason - minimal oxygen despite a huge dry hop.

Cheers!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

A couple of thoughts:

First, I'm in agreement with the post above...O2 introduced by dry hopping is probably far less relevant than oxygen introduced in packaging (unless you take extreme care, which is problematic when bottling).

Second, I think bottle conditioning seems to cause issues with IPAs (especially heavily dry hopped ones). I keg my NEIPAs which typically have 6-8 oz of dry hop addition(s) with no oxidation issues. Bottling NEIPAs is notoriously problematic.

Third, you could just add the hops at the tail end of primary fermentation and have the same oxygen consumption as you'd get inducing a secondary active fermentation. This is standard with NEIPA processes.

 

[thehaze]

I've noticed some similar symptoms with some of my beers, where I dry hopped with around 10-12 oz of hops. If I only use 6-9 oz for dry hopping, the problem does not occur.

Which is why, I started doing the following: I dry hop with 5-7 oz of hops and add lots of hops during late boil additions and whirlpool, I try to minimize the number of sample drawn from the fermenter, I never splash the beer at any point during its life time. Next in line is a CO2 tank with a regulator, so I can purge the fermenter, the bottling bucket and the bottles themselves.

I've brewed a simple Pale Ale ( 5.5% ABV, SRM 7.5, 33 IBUs, 96% MO + 4% Crystal 60L, All Amarillo hops ) where I've used 7.1 oz hops in the boil and whirlpool. I did NOT dry hop the beer, and at 2 months in the bottle, the beer was great. Like very good. I do use Brewtan B and Protafloc for my recipes, but I can't tell if the Brewtan B is doing something.

I would love to keg, but unfortunately I have no space, nor means to accomodate kegs. But I would also just buy kegs for hop heavy beers.

 

[ESBrewer]

I think most oxygen (on average homebrewing level) comes from opening the primary vessel that generally contains a large head space. For me, a simpler solution to limit the effects of oxygen in primary would be to add dry hops earlier, when there is still some sugar and active fermentation going on. At this stage, co2 production tends to protect beer from oxygen and also yeast is able to consume some oxygen without the need to restart fermentation (compare this to open fermentation). If you are not willing, for some reason, to start dry hopping during primary fermentation, I would consider a suitable secondary vessel w/ zero headspace, carefully racking the beer. The amount of oxygen that you can dissolve by splashing the beer (even if you do it vigorously and on purpose) is typically less than the amount that can be contained in a large primary vessel head space after the fermentation has completely ceased.

But of course it is possible to experiment with that type of innovative things. Just keep in mind that simplicity tends to be valuable, too.

 

[TripleC223]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. After reading these posts, it seems that my method may be worth more trouble than it's worth. I went with a traditional dry-hop this time, just tossing 2 oz of pellets in unbagged. This is not a "hazy" IPA, so I'm hopeful that my oxidation fears are overblown. If I'm wrong, I will try this method next time around and see if it makes a difference.