Thought I'd share a cool mod I just made to my bucket.
In Kelsey McNair's presentation on his award winning IPA recipe at the last NHC, he talked about traping in the hop aromas during dry hopping by sealing up the fermentor. And then reducing O2 intake as much as possible by racking into his kegs with CO2. But he is using conical fermenters and modified sankey kegs, so here is what I came up with for my brew bucket.
I added a chrome tire stem from the auto parts store they cost about a buck each.
The idea will be to replace the airlock or blow off hose with a solid stopper as soon as I throw in my dry hops.
After my week of dryhopping, I'll use the air chuck connected to CO2 to put some pressure in the fermentor just enough to help push the beer into a keg, probably with some help from gravity as well.