I’ve long disliked the idea of putting hops into the fermenter. It seems like an unecessary step, and I’m always torn between getting the beer kegged fresh and letting the dry-hops have enough time to do their thing. This was further compounded by learning that firkins are often hopped in the cask (though their design allows the hops to settle below the outflow tap).
I decided to try using a hop bag in the keg, and I use corny kegs (or cornelius kegs), the standard 5 gallon soda kegs most homebrewers use. I wanted to use a mesh bag, something that was fairly benign and of natural fibers so that nothing bad would leach into the beer along with the hop flavor and aroma. I settled on the cotton mesh bags that many extract brewers use for their steeping grains. These are cotton and only run about 50 cents a piece. I tried it with my first Pale Ale of the summer (which turned out Amber, but whatever), and it turned out very well. I snapped some photos as I packed up the hops for my second batch of pale ale (and it’s actually pale this time).
Step 1 – sanitize the bag in star san, along with your hands.
Step 2 – gently pour your hops into the bag
Step 3 – twist the bag around the hops, gently so as not to stretch out the mesh. Double over and repeat until you run out of bag
Step 4 – Shove it into the keg, wedging it under the dip tube to hold it in place (the foam is star san)
You dry hop as the beer is conditioning, and it will continue to improve. I had the last hops in the keg for over a month, and could not perceive any negative effects from long term dry-hopping.
Prost!
Just a word of warning on this method, I have done it a whole bunch of times, it worked great. But my last beer was a pliny the elder clone, which had four ounces of dry hop for round one, then another two ounces on round two. When I went to transfer it, a ton of CO2 had built up, so when the top of the corny came off, so did about a half gallon of foam and beer.
When I was listening to a Brewing Network podcast I found out why, apparently the hops give the CO2 a ton of additional nucleation sites so that the CO2 builds up. With a corny there really isn’t a way to release that without keeping the bleeder valve open.
In summary, on incredibly heavily dry hopped beer, I will be dry hopping in a bucket/carboy so the CO2 can release.
Thanks for the info Greg. I haven’t had any problems with foam from the hops, but I have only done this when the beer is finished, not when I’m going to transfer to another keg.