Hello Lady’s and gentlemen brewers
I am new to this forum and have been brewing for about a year now. I have recently started using the Fermzilla for pressure fermentation.
My question is and what I want to try is to do both of my hop additions using the collection jar. I rigged it so the gas side goes to one side of the collection jar and the spunding valve is also on the collection jar. So it is purging as we speak, I am hoping the trub will blow out of the way when I open the valve ant let the hops make it into the main body of the fermenter then when everything settles out in a couple of days I will dump the trub and do the second hop addition.
Any thoughts???
Welcome to the forum!
Is it your intention to try to blast the hops upward into the beer via CO2 pressure? I don’t think the design of the collection cup will allow that to happen very readily.
Whatever you do, I suggest first dumping the sediment to get clear beer. Otherwise, the hops will just sit in the jar and be covered by all that sediment. Even if you blast CO2 through the sediment to move it out of the way, it will settle quickly on top of the hops–hence, dump it first. Once you do have clear beer and open the valve, the hops will absorb the beer and eventually float to the top.
But this begs the question: why not just add the dry hops from the top? What you’re thinking of doing strikes me as needlessly complicated. If the concern is O2 ingress from dry hopping, this isn’t something to worry about, IMO. As Denny says, reality often astonishes theory. O2 ingress from dry hopping has never once happened to me in over two decades of homebrewing. I believe it’s an overblown concern.
Correct. Gas mixing happens but it takes time. Opening long enough to add dry hops won’t cause problems IMO.
My biggest reason for wanting to try this is because the last time I tried to put it in from the top got kind of Messi. When I relieved the pressure to open the top I couldn’t do it without it foaming out the top.
Is the beer already carbonated?
No, but I am fermenting under pressure and I want to do my first dry hop addition at hi krausen. when I relieve pressure to open the top the krausen really expands to the point of overflowing so I wanted to try and eliminate that issue but maybe I just need to be a little more patient in the depressurizing process.
I spund and dry hop at the same time. I add a cup of simple sugar with the hop charge, then set the spunge to @ 20-25psi. I do this to hope deal with oxygen and speed up the process. You can brew a pale ale and drink it in 7 or 8 days.
One word of warning, if you don’t allow the cO2 to be absorbed by the beer(crash cooling) the floating hops will cause nucleation turning the fermeneter into a volcano, spewing beer all over. So, make sure you get the beer cold, 32-34F before opening the top. I will never open the fermenter too soon again.
I’ve seen hop/beer volcanoes on YouTube. Easy does it!
Thanks for you Thoughts on this subject
I was actually able to relieve the pressure with no issues so I added the hops from the top.