Dry Hopping In The Keg

I wouldn't do it. If your beer's already carbonated, and it's a full keg with little headspace, you're going to have a hard time getting the lid back on before the foam comes flying out of there. How do I know this? I tried it once myself and wound up cleaning a couple gallons of foam off the garage floor. And if you manage to get past that problem, you will still get some hop residue floating around in there. Could be a lot, or just a little, but some of the hop pellets are going to make it through the cheesecloth when they dissolve.

Sorry to so negative. Maybe others have done this successfully. But based on my experience, I'd say either keg hop before you carbonate or not at all.

 

I've done this to two separate beers now with great results.

What happened to me was that I dry hopped an IPA with Citra / Amarillo in the keg, and after 10 days I used a sanitized spoon to pull the hop bag out of the keg. After about a month the hop aroma had totally faded on me, and I had an extra 2oz of Sorachi Ace hops from a brett amber that I was dry hopping in the keg. So I used my standard keg hopping method which went something like;

sanitize two muslin hop bags from the homebrew store, one large and one small. Use about 10 marbles that are also sanitized and tie them up in the smaller bag, then add your hops to the larger bag and add the marble bag to this (you will thank me later for not having to seperate hop sludge from marbles). Add this to your beer.

I've only done this with fully carbed kegs that are about 2/3 full at most, and I've never had any problems. Your first few pints (I'd say the first 32 ounces or so) will contain hop particulate, and it won't be as bright as you'd like for the party, but you will get great aroma.

As long as your keg isn't too full (and if it is just growler / bottle / drink some), you should have no problems.

Cheers!

 

I've never done this with an already carbonated keg. But I recently threw a nylon bag with about 5 ounces of Nelson and Simcoe into a uncarb'd keg. Let it naturally carbonate and it was fantastic. Drank it about a week after adding the dry hop addition and the priming sugar. Didn't clog, no floaties. Just tie it up pretty good.

 

Every time I have released the pressure from the headspace the beer did not foam everywhere, at least from my experience, no different than opening a bottle of beer in terms of foaming.

I also keg hop before carbonating and it works great, I have not tried keg hopping after carbonating.

 

I've done this before with wet hops. I brewed some beer, carbed it, and a few weeks later did a hop harvest. I wanted to wet hop one of the beers I already brewed. I released the pressure from the keg, opened it up, added the wet hops, sanitized the cover and surrounding areas, and then recarbed. I didn't have any problems with infection or foam.

 

I dry hop like this all the time, except I don't bother with the 'tube' dance. I simply spray a large muslin (cheesecloth) bag with StarSan, put the hops in the bag, tie the top of the bag, leaving plenty of room for the hops to swim, then drop it in the keg. Put it in the kegerator and don't jostle it before the party. Pour a pint or two before your guests arrive to get the initial gunk out. Never had an issue with excessive floaties or clogged dip tubes with this technique As a bonus, draw a pint about twenty minutes or so after you put the hops in. The hop flavor and aroma are insane! I'm guessing some hop 'dust' settles around the dip tube and is getting picked up in that first pour.

 

This is my keg hopping regimen:

I use a 1 gallon paint strainer bag and something to tie it closed with. I boil them for ~10 minutes and then fill it and chuck it in the keg. I have done this to carbonated beer forgetting about nucleation points, and you do have to be quick. The weight of the hop sludge pulls it down to the bottom, covering the dip tube but I have never had an issue with clogs

The problems I have with it is that every time I move the keg, some hop particles (or more than some depending) get out. The first pour or two will be sludgey and then the rest clean. If you have to move your keg for the party try to get it done a day before so the particulate that will get out (it's unavoidable, there are tiny tiny little particles) will settle. I guess the other option is dry hop for 5, remove, cold crash, pour off the first few green pints.

 

It's not opening the keg that does it. It's putting the hop pellets, with their many nucleation sites, into the carbonated beer.

 

Instead of doing this why not build a randall? for ~$20 at HD/Lowes you could get everything you need, AND avoid the sticky mess

 

Cant you just keep an eye on the pressure and release pressure when it gets too high?

 

its when you open the keg AND then add the hops, before you close the lid it will start foaming like mad

 

Alright I see what is being said now... that makes sense, I did not realize that the foaming would get out of control that quickly.

 

I've done it before.

Go buy a hop bag, it's a bit finer mesh but allows the beer to flow through it better. They are like... $3 bucks and reuseable.. Works better at keeping pellet junk out it.

Open the lid, allow the beer to settle if it foams a bit. Put hops in the bag, pull it closed tight and then I like to loop the string around it again into another loose knot across the top to insure it's closed up for floaties.

Get a SS 1/4in hose clamp. tighten it down enough to fit on the pressure relief valve, pull it off, and hook the string from the bag through the ss clamp, and push the clamp back on the pvr. It'll be dangling from it down. No need for any marble or other shit, it'll get wet and sink soon enough.

Drop the bag in and in one motion you can push the lid in, and up and lock it. Even if it does foam up a bit, you shouldn't lose any.. or much at all in my experience. No mess.

No tying, no weights, no hop sludge at all. When you are done dry hopping, pull the lid, slide the ss clamp off and pull the bag out of the keg and close it back up.

 

It's easy as hell. I have 3 kegs that are "dry hop" kegs. They have cut dip tubes, screens over the end, and all are outfitted with a SS clamp on the PRV. I never dry hop in anything BUT the keg. Saves time to carb and dry hop, and in some cases, I want more aroma, so I'll change out the spent hops and toss in fresh. I'll use leaf or pellet in this fashion and I never get a single green floatie in my beers that I've yet to see.

 

Agreed that's a brilliant idea! That makes the removal before movement easy.

FYI from experience (my watermelon wheat where where some bits of flesh made it in this time), you have ~10-15 seconds. I wasn't expecting it and lost ~1 inch of foam. If you know it's coming, you'll lose nothing (unless your corny is full to the top - mine was a ~4.8-5 gallon batch that I had pre-carbed)

 

Use whole hops and it reduces the floaties. As far as the tying the bag off I never have and never had a clog and I use a couple of large stainless steel utensils to weight it down a little bit. I've never had an infection either.