dry hopping in the keg - how long is ideal?

[moti_mo]

I've got a party coming up in two weeks where I'll be serving a keg of dry-hopped (soon to be, in the keg) pale ale. I want to toss a couple of ounces in the keg, and I'll be using a hop bag to keep the hops from clogging the dip tube.

How many days ahead should I toss the hops in there to get optimal flavor and aroma? Ten days? Seven days? Four days?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Yooper]

If the keg is at room temperature, 7-10 days is perfect. If it's in the kegerator, three weeks is closer. It seems like the dryhopped flavor and aroma take forever at fridge temperature!

 

[Wayne1]

If the keg is at room temperature, 7-10 days is perfect. If it's in the kegerator, three weeks is closer. It seems like the dryhopped flavor and aroma take forever at fridge temperature!

Absolutely dead on, YooperBrew.

When dry hopping in a cold conditioning tank @ 40 F, 21 days is optimal. At 70 F 7 -10 days is about right. I have also noticed that if you dry hop at 70, the aroma and flavor fade away faster than the longer, colder dry hopping.

 

[moti_mo]

Cool, thanks for the advice. The keg is already in the fridge and I have 14 days, so I'll go ahead and pop those suckers in there. If need be, I'll take it out to room temp over next weekend to accelerate the process just a bit...or I could just increase my fridge temp a bit to 45-50 or so.

 

[Shaggyt]

My favorite part about dry hopping in the keg is pulling off samples and tasting the change in flavors as it ages...way cool.

 

[moti_mo]

My favorite part about dry hopping in the keg is pulling off samples and tasting the change in flavors as it ages...way cool.

Exactly what I was looking forward to for the next couple of weeks!

 

[1620HBC]

Just dry hopped the same way adding 1 oz of cascades, I pulled a glass last night and it was so cloudy and full of hops any suggestions??? filter??

 

[moti_mo]

Did you use whole leaf or pellets? I put 2 oz. into one keg and 2.5 oz. into another keg of whole leaf hops in a hop bag, and I'm not getting any cloudiness or debris at this point.

 

[coastwx]

I just did this for the first time (Cascades) to a PA and it was in the cooler for a week so it's nice to hear it will get better over the next week. I tasted last night and this will be a must do for now on, Wow, my best beer yet.

 

[egurney]

Yooper, I have a question:
In this thread you say

If the keg is at room temperature, 7-10 days is perfect. If it's in the kegerator, three weeks is closer. It seems like the dryhopped flavor and aroma take forever at fridge temperature!

but in the Dogfish 60 Clone thread you say

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops

Is there a reason for the difference? And for the DFH 60 recipe should I still be only doing 3 days?

Thanks,
Eric

 

[david_42]

Just dry hopped the same way adding 1 oz of cascades, I pulled a glass last night and it was so cloudy and full of hops any suggestions??? filter??

How long ago? Hop particles will settle out in a week.

Until then pass it off as a "Hazed and Infused" clone.

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, I have a question:
In this thread you say

but in the Dogfish 60 Clone thread you say


Is there a reason for the difference? And for the DFH 60 recipe should I still be only doing 3 days?

Thanks,
Eric

No, after doing the recipe dozens of times, I have to say that 7 days at room temperature seems to be the "sweet spot". I should go change that now that I think 7 days is better.

 

[incutrav]

I always leave my dry hops in there for the life of the keg, which last keg, I think was a little over about a month and a half. Lot of people freak out that you will get "grassy" flavors if you DH too long, never been an issue here.

 

[Shaggyt]

Just dry hopped the same way adding 1 oz of cascades, I pulled a glass last night and it was so cloudy and full of hops any suggestions??? filter??

+1 to david_42...it will clear up pretty quickly after a few more pulls. Don't move the keg after that or you'll be in the same boat.

I took mine to a party after tasting at home for a few days...dropped it off early to let it settle, but the sediment shifted in transit (unavoidable). Good thing was that it cleared quickly thereafter.

Did you use whole leaf or pellets? I put 2 oz. into one keg and 2.5 oz. into another keg of whole leaf hops in a hop bag, and I'm not getting any cloudiness or debris at this point.

I used pellets and whole leaf in my kegs at the same time. Pellets in a tea infuser, whole leaf in a bag (larger grain bags from my lhbs). Pellets created more debris in the final product (obvious right?).

This definitely created a GREAT beer...patience required, lol.

 

[JMass]

I always leave my dry hops in there for the life of the keg, which last keg, I think was a little over about a month and a half. Lot of people freak out that you will get "grassy" flavors if you DH too long, never been an issue here.

Right. I'm not about to de-pressurize my keg and fish around for a hop bag when I don't need to. The topic is interesting, but I haven't given it much consideration. Once the hop flavor is in the beer, I'm not sure why it would deteriorate after a certain time.

 

[Beavdowg]

I've left my hops in the keg for the whole life of the keg and I've taken them out after a couple weeks. I have to say that the best hop aroma and flavor that I got was when I left the hops in the keg for the whole time. I didn't find any "grassy" flavors and I was really trying to notice that because I'd heard about it here before.

My $.02

 

[BadgerBrewer]

Since I am not at home and can't look inside the keg, how do you all attach a hop sack inside of a sealed and pressurized keg? I am interested to try this approach to get a more robust hop aroma.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Since I am not at home and can't look inside the keg, how do you all attach a hop sack inside of a sealed and pressurized keg? I am interested to try this approach to get a more robust hop aroma.

I use unflavored, waxed dental floss. Tie it around the hop sack, lower it into the keg (about halfway down), then simply seat the keg lid as usual with the dental floss slack hanging out. The floss is so thin that it won't affect the seal. When done, just open the lid and pull it out by the floss. The other advantage of doing it this way is that the hop bag can't sink to the bottom and block the diptube.

Of course you need to depressurize each time, but that won't hurt the beer since a CO2 blanket stays in place even after you depressurize.

 

[BadgerBrewer]

Very cool idea. Gonna try this on my next IPA as I bet the aroma will be awesome! Much appreciated!

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

What's the best way to sanitize a bag that's going into the keg?

Is the bag sinking and blocking the diptube really a big concern?

I only have pellet hops on hand and will be serving my sixpoint sweet action clone in just over 2 weeks. I have a dozen or so cloth bags (not nylon) that would be perfect size and thread count to keep the hop particles out of the beer but don't want to screw myself by infecting the beer or blocking the diptube...

 

[Beavdowg]

What I do is clean the hop bag really well. You could boil it for 10 minutes but what I've done is just soak it in my Iodophore sanitizer for 5-10 minutes. I scrub my hands really well with the Iodophore, wring out the excess Iodophore out of the bag put my hops in , tie the opening into a knot and drop it right in the keg. It'll float to the top when you rack your beer into the keg. Some people like to put sanitized SS washers or marbles into the bag to get it to drop down into the beer but I haven't tried that yet.

 

[lamarguy]

FWIW, I gave up on "bags" for dry hopping long ago. In my experience, you get ~50% of the potential hop flavor/aroma when using bags.

My recommendation:

1. Toss leaf/pellet hops (leaf preferably) directly into an empty corny keg (no bags).
2. Rack beer to keg.
3. Let age for ~7 days @ 65 - 70F.
4. (Optional) Cold-crash for 12 hours.
5. Flip keg on its side and push the beer out via the gas-in port (liquid-out becomes the gas-in).

The hops will compact at the bottom of the keg after a week, allowing clear beer to flow out the gas-in port.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I took a piece of stainless steel mesh (I'm pretty sure this was from a collander I tore up years ago), rolled it into a tube, bent one end of the tube all the way back, then secured the whole thing with zip-ties. That's my corny-hop-blocker. I always boil it to sanitize it. When I am assembling the keg (all parts still wet with Starsan), I insert the long dip tube into the keg port, then slip the hop-blocker over the end of the dip tube inside the keg and then assemble normally from there. After I'm done dry-hopping I just do a closed keg-to-keg transfer. Other than that I do what lamarguy outlined above sans bullet #5. Works pretty well so far and the price was right.

Also, unless it's a really flocculent yeast I often will gelatin the beer first, then dry-hop. Hops seem to want to cling to everything so getting the yeast out helps. This is what Russian River does with Pliny (and prob others) so I figured that's good enough for me.

 

[lamarguy]

Also, unless it's a really flocculent yeast I often will gelatin the beer first, then dry-hop.

I usually just cold-crash and rack prior to dry-hopping, which removes the vast majority of the suspended yeast.

However, I do filter with a 5 micron (nominal) filter after dry hopping to remove ~90% of the remaining yeast and organic matter without stripping the hop character. The resultant beer is crystal clear (no "hop haze").

Bottom line - do whatever provides you with consistent results and makes you happy.

 

[moti_mo]

Is the bag sinking and blocking the diptube really a big concern?

I only have pellet hops on hand and will be serving my sixpoint sweet action clone in just over 2 weeks. I have a dozen or so cloth bags (not nylon) that would be perfect size and thread count to keep the hop particles out of the beer but don't want to screw myself by infecting the beer or blocking the diptube...

Same question here. I didn't tie off the bags that I just put into my kegs. My reasoning for not worrying about it was that if I were to put loose hop leaves in there, without a bag, I could envision them wreaking havoc with the dip tube near the end of the keg since they're small and could easily get sucked into/onto the mouth of the tube.

However, I wouldn't think that the full bag would block the dip tube since its large and bulky and should just settle to the side (in my mind at least). Of course I don't have any proof for this, since its my first time dry-hopping in the keg. Anyone have personal experience with an untied bag blocking the dip tube? Thx.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Anyone have personal experience with an untied bag blocking the dip tube? Thx.

Yes. It didn't block the flow completely, but made it very slow to pour a pint. Nothing that a good shake couldn't take care of, but that, of course, also re-suspended a lot of the settled out yeast and hop particles and made for a couple of chunky pints. The taste also started being very green/grassy/vegetal after a few weeks, which is why I decided to remove the hop bag after 3-14 days, depending on the beer and judging by taste.

 

[moti_mo]

OK, status update. We're a week in, and here's the verdict. I dry-hopped two kegs exactly 9 days ago. Both were the same pale ale recipe (right on the border b/w pale ale and IPA - 6.5%, 41 IBUs, fairly malty - depending on your leanings, you may call it a pale ale, you may call it an IPA), one is on beer gas and one is on straight CO2. For the beer gas keg, I hopped with 2 oz. of Centennial - it tastes very very good, and it keeps getting better each day. I've been trying a couple ounces each day and tasting the aroma enhancement with each day. By next Saturday, it will be amazing.

But...the straight CO2 keg, I haven't had that hooked up to the output of my 3-tap kegerator yet b/c I wanted to give it some time and see if the taste difference just smacked me in the face. I dry-hopped this one with 1 oz. Simcoe and 1.4 oz. Centennial. I am drinking the first pull off of this one (since dry-hopping 9 days ago) right now, and...good lord, I think I am in heaven. This beer is out of control. The aroma that addition has imparted is sublime. Of course there are too many variables to fully nail down why this one blows my mind while the beer-gas keg is just really damn good - different gas make-up, different dry-hop schedule, different kegerator temperature (CO2 kegerator is actually much colder than the beer-gas kegerator for the past week)...but this beer is by far my best hoppy beer I've turned out.

Anyway, I'll try to update again before the week is over and the beer gets served at the fundraiser on Saturday, which will be 14 days total dry hop time in-keg. But for anyone new to dry-hopping in the keg - do it and do it big if you want huge, clean hop aroma.

Thanks to everyone who has posted with advice on this topic!

 

[Wayne1]

If the beers last, it would also be instructional if you could note when and if you start to lose that wonderful aroma.

Dry hopping in conditioning gives you the aroma and flavor faster(7-10days) but I find it fading away after about two weeks in the keg.

Anyone else have similar results?

 

[taylorjohn11892]

What kind of aroma will I get in about 3-4 days keg hopping? I am trying to fast track a pale ale of mine so I had to dry hop while I am carbonating.