There are many cool devices for dry or cold hopping, engineered to capture those precious essential oils released from lupulin powder. Some of our faves include Paul Mueller’s maxxLūp infusion system. It’s super portable and safe with a cool removable screen design that allows for handling a wide variety of adjuncts (not just hops), all aimed at reducing time and ingredients. There’s BrauKon’s HopGun and HopGun Pro — the latter engineered for larger operations, fully automated and with a special agitator that guarantees efficient dissolving of hop pellets.
Then there’s the Rolec DH line developed by Ampco Applied Products division. Again, these portable Rolec DH45, DH90 and DH250 units eliminate those safety concerns with dry hopping on a ladder at the top of a two-story fermenting tank. Powered by Ampco’s in-line SBI shear blending pump, the Rolec DH models recirculate the fermenter while inducing dry hops and other induced media directly into the stream of beer — all from an oxygen-free environment. From the website:
The DH90 and DH250 are built with a pressurized carbon dioxide chamber to mitigate oxygen intrusion. The DH45 is a smaller scale version offering a non-pressurized vessel utilizing a “blanket” of CO₂ to protect the product from oxygen intrusion. The DH45 is capable of induction on fermenters with a maximum height of 20 feet and can be used additionally as transfer and CIP pumps.
Ampco has also created the extremely nice animated video above showing the DH45 unit in action. It nicely explains the entire dry hopping procedure from CIP cleaning to cold hop induction. Feel free to zone out to the calming music and hoppy vibes of this mini movie. You might even learn something along the way.
Scott Stokes says
Ryan Blondell