Dry hopping in serving keg

[Thirsty Boy]

Never dry hopped a beer before so I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing.

I have a keg of APA that I am taking to my families house for christmas/new year. I brewed it on the 12th of November and put it into its serving keg a couple of weeks later. Its been conditioning (sitting) at room temp since then.

I have just this afternoon put into that keg a fine mesh bag containing 5g of Amarillo and 5 g of cascade pellets & also a double handful of Pride of Ringwood whole hops (home grown). its suspended so it wont clog anything up.

I want to crack this keg for the first time on christmas eve. How long should I leave that bag of hops in there? Or should I not bother taking it out at all??

I was also thinking that I might pull the curent batch of hops out a couple days before cracking the keg, and replace them with a fresh batch. I have some really nice hersbrucker that I think would smell fantastic in there. Or would that be too much and make it all harsh and nasty.

Allyou BNers with dry hopping experience please save my family from drinking horrible beer due to my ignorance. The again, if its crap, I'll just save it for the inlaws on boxing day........

Thirsty

[Bugeater]

A beer in my regular brewing rotation is Denny Conn's RyePA. I put the hop bag in there when I keg and leave it until the keg is empty. I do like the idea of changing out the hops a couple days before serving. That will give you a more intense hop aroma that should impress the guests (unless they don't like the smell of hops).

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[Thirsty Boy]

Wayne,

I was hoping you would chime in because I knew from other threads that you dry hopped it the serving keg. Sounds like I am on the right track.

I'll give it the taste test a few days before xmas and if it hasn't got enough zing, I'll swap out the hops with fresh. That'll make my macro drinking family sit up and take notice.

Thanks

Thirsty

[DannyW]

Do you guys worry about introducing oxygen when you add dry hops well after fermentation is over?

[Thirsty Boy]

well..... I do now

[DannyW]

Glad i could help

I remember one of the BN guests - maybe Vinnie from Russian River, maybe O'Sullivan - mentioning they dry hop with a few points left to go in fermentation.

I think next time I do a late dry hop, like right before serving after the keg has been conditioning for many weeks, I will dunk in boiled cooled water first to push out much of the air, then drop the wet bag in the corny.

[JMUBrew]

It was O'Sullivan who said it, he was discussing how he dryhops the 21A and seals up the fermenter for the last bit. (My keg of this is getting light too! Going to be making it again, just bottled some of it up too)

[Homegrown Hops]

You could place your hops in a spare corny and purge with CO2 then counter-fill the empty keg to avoid any oxygen exposure. I would probably pressure it up 2-3 times then counter-fill. Just my $0.02 though.

HH