Carb drops instead of batch priming to limit NE IPA oxidation?

[DDHIPA]

Hi all!
Last hazy IPA / NE IPA style brew oxidised heavily (supposed to be cloudy lemonade colour, looked quite orangey/brown and lost nearly all aroma and tasted quite dank/muted/naff. Main reason being oxygen entering fermenter when taking samples (have since fitted tap to fermenter) and dodgy shiphon introduced a lot of air when racking to bottling bucket.

As a way of limiting air exposure, does anyone have any informed opinions regarding using carb drops instead of batch priming for my next attempt? I am also going to add dry hops during active fermentation to help gobble up any residual oxygen. And I’m using lallemand verdant yeast which is apparently very fast to ferment

End goal is for fermzilla and pressure fermenting and pressure transferring into keg then bottling half with blichman beergun and kegging the rest but you know.... money and.... money

 

[Leon103]

You will two lots of dry hopping for a neipa.
From where you have explained the issues have occurred I can't see how carb drops will assist but I can't see it harming it so give it a go.

 

[uDicko]

Agree with @Leon103 I've been here a few times and the only real way to nail it is pressure fermentation, closed transfer to keg, closed transfer to bottle.

Sodium Metabisulphate is an oxygen scavenger but really not in any significant difference. I'm not sure how dry hopping is going to help, more so hinder?

 

[Hanglow]

Can you bottle direct from your fermentor? When it comes to bottling time, add priming solution to your fermentor then let fermentation start again, could be as little as an hour or two if it's still at fermentation temperature, then bottle the actively fermenting beer. Also bottle wands leave far too much headspace in bottles, so when you fill the beers up you should be able to press the wand into the neck once you first withdraw it and leave about 1cm of space. Don't fill it all the way to the top though!

Another option but more work is to kraeusen or use speise - save some of the wort from the brew (freezing would be best) then start fermenting it before you bottle (say the day before) then add that to the fermentor then bottle from it once it has mixed itself in.

The best way would be to bottle spund, by bottling it while it is still fermenting during primary, but that can be tricky for ales given their speed and doubly tricky if you are double dry hopping etc with NEIPAs . I have done this successfully a couple of times with german wheat beers. You will need to take a sample for a fast ferment test then monitor the gravity and bottle with 2 points remaining

 

[SteveH]

I recently started fermenting in a corny keg after a similar experience with a DIPA that oxidized very quickly.

So far I've been doing a pressure transfer to a purged keg which works well, but for some styles I'd still like to bottle condition (and avoid the potential o2 exposure of the bottling bucket).

I'm thinking of making a sugar solution and using a small syringe to dose each bottle, then bottling direct from the fermenter keg with a pluto gun (with some beer line or perhaps a bottling wand attached so I can fill from the bottom of the bottles without splashing).

The approach described by @Hanglow sounds good too, but I'd prefer to avoid opening the fermenter keg - I did wonder about adding the priming solution via a plastic bottle with a carbonation cap (via either the gas in or liquid out), but then it's hard to be sure the sugar is evenly distributed, I guess the approach of waiting a while for refermentation to start solves that though?