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Dry Hopping In Kegs

bribrisprings

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I am brewing an American Pale Ale which ferments for about 7 days.  After primary fermentation I transfer into a Cornelius keg.  In this keg I am dry hopping with pellet hops in a mesh bag for three days.  My problem is that when I open the keg after three days to remove the hops, beer goes everywhere.  I try to let the pressure out of the keg using the release valve but I am still loosing way too much beer as foam and beer spews out everywhere.  Any suggestions on how to get the hops out and leave the beer in?  Also, I feel that I should mention that I am carbonating naturally and have not crash cooled the beer at this point. 
 
I dry hop in a secondary carboy, no exploding mess that way. Also, if you are naturally carbonating, when you open up the keg would you not lose some of your carbonation? Why not transfer to secondary, dry hop, transfer to keg with the priming sugar, then you never have to open it? If you dont have a second carboy, you could dry hop in primary if you need to as well.
 
I agree with Oddball, you could dry hop in primary or in secondary instead.

Another option is to leave the hops in the keg.  I put them in a muslin bag and tie it towards the top of the "out" stem so that it's not in contact with the beer the entire time I'm working on the keg, and so it won't clog the "out" line.
 
Why don't you just try leaving the hops in the keg? If you need  7 - 10 days at room temp to carb, I don't see any issues with that. Then you can put in the fridge days to crash it and at that point I don't see the need to remove the hops either but you prob could at that point and not get any spraying. Some say that they don't want any astringent or vegetable off flavors from the hops, but I believe that's more of an issue caused by the condition of the hops and the amount of hops. I always leave my hops in the keg from 3-4 days at room temp, then until it kicks and never noticed any issues with the hop flavors, and I don't use any bags or containers for the hops, just toss them in.
 
I agree with Bucknut. I've not had a problem with "the dreaded vegetal flavors" when leaving hops in the keg. Others have not been so fortunate.

or

If you apply only a couple of pounds of pressure to the keg - just enough to seat the lid - you shouldn't have excessive foaming.

or

Transfer from the dry hop keg to the serving keg using a hose with liquid disconnects on each end. Apply pressure to the source keg and relieve pressure from the CO2-purged destination keg. It's quick and easy with no danger of oxidation and no mess. A jumper hose is also handy for transferring cleaning solution and star san between kegs as well as for transferring beer. If you cut the hose in the middle and reconnect with a push-on connector, you can use it to transfer from the fermenter into a purged keg to avoid oxidation in that process. I have a gas disconnect I can attach to the liquid disconnect so I can push cleaner and star san through the gas disconnect when cleaning. I know, the lid and gas port aren't supposed to have contact with the beer, but when I lift the keg into my freezer/keezer I slosh beer around a lot.

 
I have an extra corny lid that I cut a hole for a fermentation luck into. I use that lid until fermentation is finished and then transfer to a serving keg and carbonate.
 
Thank you for all the great replies and ideas.  I just brewed a new batch yesterday.  At the end of the seven day primary fermentation, I am thinking that I will just drop the hops into the primary fermentor, leave them in contact with the beer for three more days, then transfer to a keg.  This will make ten days in the primary fermentor.  I assume the pellets will dissolve well and have good contact with the beer.  From there I will add sugar and carbonate naturally.  I'll let you all know how it goes.  I also like the idea of using a jumper hose to transfer form one keg to the other.  I'm happy to see that no one is reporting tasting grassy off flavors from too much contact time as this was one of my big fears.  Thank you! 
 
I tried dry hopping in a keg once, and they got loose. Clogged up the works.

Now when I do it I add them to the secondary, unbagged, and leave them there until they settle. That could take as long as a few weeks. I do it that way because I figure the reason they float is that they are picking up little CO2 bubbles, and when they no longer float then I know fermentation is complete. Being that I've got several carboys that I use for secondary fermentation, it doesn't stop me from making another batch.
 
I add dry hops to primary in a loosely tied hop bag with a sanitized marble in the bag, this sinks the hops to the bottom of the fermenter.  Sometimes it can be hard to get pallet hops to saturate and sink. After my desired contact time I simply rack to secondary for conditioning, or keg. Then I will wash and dry the bag and reuse it.
 
Oddball said:
I dry hop in a secondary carboy, no exploding mess that way. Also, if you are naturally carbonating, when you open up the keg would you not lose some of your carbonation? Why not transfer to secondary, dry hop, transfer to keg with the priming sugar, then you never have to open it? If you dont have a second carboy, you could dry hop in primary if you need to as well.

1.- Why carbonate naturally if you are kegging your beer?

2.- You could dry hop in the keg, then instead of opening the keg to remove the hops, simply rack the beer to another keg for additional conditioning or serving.

3.- Use a dip tube screen over the end of your corny keg bev-out tube.

surescreen.jpg
 
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