Anybody experimented with recirculating dry hopping?

[Vinylwasp]

Did you use pellets, cones etc.? And how did you add them? My last brew was about 19L and I added 170g of pellets in a fine, mesh, hop cylinder. The hops expanded to about twice their volume but even if they expanded to fill the cylinder, there is not enough space in the cylinder for 3L of liquid. Let alone with the added hops taking up space.

Would a tightly packed mesh cylinder help squeeze the hops to recover some beer?

T90 pellets and that vol also includes the yeast.

 

[phildo79]

T90 pellets and that vol also includes the yeast.

Did you add them in loose, in a bag etc.?

 

[Vinylwasp]

Did you add them in loose, in a bag etc.?

Loose into my Fermzilla All-rounder via the Hop Bong about 3 days into 2ndary ferm. This one is hitting the 2l mark but you get the idea. The FV is not level in this picture either.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Well after recirculating water for a few hours through just over 400g of hops and 50g of rice hulls I recovered about 500ml of liquid just inder gravity but the hops absorbed about 800ml of water. They looked pretty dry after about 12 hours but still contained nearly a litre of water. Not sure squeezing them would have recovered much more. So can’t avoid losses it seems. However the hop oil extraction looked really good so light be still a good method for better extraction and maybe reducing losses through reducing hops due to better extraction. Marry up this with Cryo hops and you could really minimise losses

 

[phildo79]

Definitely think adding them loose isn't helping. When I bought my hop cylinder, there were two size options. Basically small and large. I went for large, which is about 30cm tall. I have never got close to maxing it out with hops. It would easily take 500g of pellets. It is probably better suited for cones.

But I don't think I have ever experienced the sort of losses you boys have. I have also used muslin bags for dry hopping and those do tend to swell up quite a bit. But I think limiting the space the pellets have to expand in could help.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Think from my experimentation is that no matter what you do with hops they're going to suck up beer like a sponge. In my case they doubled their weight. Even if you had them in a bag and squeezed out the beer you're not going to recover much. This is why highly hopped beers are more expensive...not only are the hops expensive your losses are higher too.

However I like this recirculation method. I much prefer hops being separate from the beer and think that extraction has to be better if you're pushing beer through them rather than them sitting on the trub. I'm not convinced with rousing ether because unless you can dump all your trub then all you're doing is mixing up the hops with trub so that when they settle again you now have some of your hops buried within the trub not contributing to the extraction at all. So by recirculating I hope to improve the extraction which in turn should enable less hops to be used in the first place...then start using cryo hops and other new hop products then you're really going to be improving things.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Resurrecting this thread as I’m getting close to giving it a whirl.

Just wondering if anyone has experience or knowledge of flojet beer/gas pumps. I’m looking to use one but not sure if it would work with in this situation. I assume in the application for which it’s intended, in a cellar to pump beer to taps, it operates on demand, so as a beer tap opens the pump fires up. I assume by detecting a pressure drop between pressurised keg and beer tap open to atmosphere. If this is the case the the pump won’t work or is unlikely to work in this application.

Also looking to use a Peristaltic pump as an alternative, but struggling to get confirmation from a few manufacturers that they can pump a head of pressure as the pump will need to pump the beer a good metre or so vertically.

Thanks.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I bought a foodsafe diaphragm pump on Amazon to make a carbonator clone, it might suit if it was installed upstream of your hops
VerRich 12V Water Pumps Diaphragm pump Without Pressure Switch 70W 6 L/Min 0.9MPA 131 PSI(M18*1.5mm Connector) https://amzn.eu/d/1HAxcGE

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Here's a video on the carbonator copy , but it might give you some ideas , especially around cleaning and sanitising . It would be much the same process methinks to what you're looking to do

 

[hoppyscotty]

Yep that looks like it's exactly the same as a flojet beer pump, but powered by an electric motor instead of being gas driven. I already have a flojet pump so will have to test it. I just need it to run continuously for about 24hrs. It'll be hooked upto an air compressor. Doesn't even need to have a particularly high flow rate as I'm looking more for a percolation effect under gravity rather than a pumping beer through through the hops as I'm concerned about compaction of the hops restricting the flow...filter coffee instead of espresso!