Should we de-gas before dry hopping?

Degassing, as in agitating the fermenting beer to get out all the residual O2 and CO2? Isn't that a recipe for oxidation prior to getting the dry hops in that you are (assumed) trying to keep from being oxidized? I'd add more but I already know you know more than me so this question has me scratching my head.

 

Won't you de-gas anyway once you bottle or rack into a keg?

 

Call me crazy, but this just strikes me as dangerous (in terms of benefiting the beer). Blanketing the beer with CO2 makes sense. But going beyond what Vinnie has said sounds unnecessary. Of course you could be the one to start a whole new trend.

 

I will be interested in hearing what others have to say on the de-gassing topic.

My method for dry hopping is simply to wait for the primary fermentation to be complete (where complete = no more bubbling). I then simply throw the dry hops in the primary fermenter. There is a little bit of CO2 out gassed during the very initial introduction of the dry hops (the dry hops provide nucleation sites for CO2). Very quickly any bubbling stops. I doubt that any aroma is scrubbed during the initial introduction of dry hops since there really isn’t any time for the hop’s essential oils to dissolve into the beer yet. Lately I have been dry hopping for 14 days of contact time.

Cheers!

 

This would be my reading as well. "The dose makes the poison", if you will. Comparing the amount of CO2 offgassing during primary fermentation is orders of magnitude larger than the release from the nucleation points.

 

I would not add this process. It would be little more than superstitious behavior.

 

Are you really Homebrew42 incognito?

 

Yeah, just a sock puppet out for a walk.

 

Vinnie uses CO2 to put his hops back in suspension when he is dry hopping Elder. Just saying...

 

My gut reaction $0.02 is that you don't want to degas. This would scrub some more aroma from any late additions you did and cost you in terms of depth and complexity since late addition aroma is a little different from dry hopping. Yes, I realize that primary fermentation already scrubbed out a lot, but I'm a little superstitious with this sort of thing and I'm not aware of any brewers doing this. There are also some desirable aromas produced by the fermentation that you would be removing. In addition, if you bottle condition, your priming addition is based on a 'normal' level of residual carbonation (that you would be changing) and this could make it challenging to hit the desired CO2 level.

I can think of possible pluses and minuses to degassing, my predujices notwithstanding. Brewing a big batch and degassing one carboy and not the other might be interesting.

 

I understand this to be blowing the hops off the bottom of the conical with CO2 introduced from the bottom. If the hops drop and are all packed down, the surface area available to transfer the essential oils is reduced.

 

I understand the rationale, but if CO2 must be eliminated to make a better beer, reintroducing it would seem crazy. Some days I think we over think such things.

 

Keep in mind that ethanol and co2 are waste products of yeast metabolism. Both are toxic to yeast. You wouldn't be your healthiest if you were chillin' in a vat of urine, right?

 

It's supposed to be good for your skin, not that I've tried it.