Spunding hoppier (dry hopped) beers

Hello everyone,

So I have the stuff coming to make a spunding valve and will be utilizing it on my next Pilsner I will be brewing next week. I think I got my planned process for that (and other lagers) all set, however, since I also brew IPA’s quite heavily I need some advise when utilizing hefty dry hops.


Typically, I utilize a dual dry hop in the ballpark of 8-12oz between both. My thought process was to add dry hop #1 during active fermentation (I throw in loose) and when a few points from FG, rack into the keg with the second dry hop (via standard type transfer, due to all the hop matter and such… Don’t want to clog everything up)… This is where I need some advice… Should I pick up one of those keg filter tubes and insert the (cut/modified) dip tube in the middle of it? Allowing me to throw in my second dry hop loose, being able to purge the keg and rack right into it via the spigot on my fermenter via tube routed to bottom of keg like any other careful transfer.


The hope here is that after another day or two and the beer hits FG, I can cold crash under pressure in the keg (see side question below) and then jumper to the serving keg hopefully without all the hop matter clogging everything up with the filter around the dip tube… I would use external CO2 to push on the “spunding tank” to move the beer into the serving keg.


Side Question - If I am at a high spunding pressure (given typical 65F ambient temps or so, so let’s say 25-30psi) and then crash the beer down to say 40F… Do I need to re-adjust the PRV to the pressure required for my desired volumes at 40F, (13psi or so) prior to the crash, or will it all balance itself? Hope that makes sense… I would assume given the minimal headspace and the temp change it will be fine all by itself without adjusting the spunding pressure, but just want to double check…


How does this all check out?

 

So you just allow the yeast/trub to sit in your serving keg? Since the beer is not at FG yet in primary and the yeast not floccuated out, you don't have issues with clogging or anything when you do serve? Ideally, sure, I would prefer not to have to transfer a second time if not needed. Just trying to prevent serving issues.

Did you modify your dip tubes or anything?

 

Thanks!

So I guess I had my process mixed up a bit, which is fine, as I still have time to refine it before I brew next Monday and try it out!

So the plan would be to ferment as usual in my bucket and with a few points left, rack into the (purged) keg and then set the valve for desired pressure/temp. Allow the beer to finish, then cold condition a few weeks as usual and then just serve from that keg. Easy enough if I'm all square on that now. I just assume there will be quite of yeast/trub potentially in the keg as it won't have floccuated out completely until FG was reached. Perhaps it's not as bad as I expect?

Which is fine for lagers without any dry hopping, it will be fun to try, but I will have to think about the best method to do this for IPA's. I believe it will require the use of a second keg just to move the beer off of the dry hop. While yes, it will not be as sound as a single keg for O2 pickup, if that secondary keg is purged carefully it will still be better than the hop aroma venting away via airlock and also allow for natural carbonation vs. all forced. So some potential benefit there (time will tell!).

Juat pondering... I don't have issues with aroma/flavor as is with my IPA's, but curious if it can be even improved further through the use of spunding.