keg dry hopping

[bcmaui]

If I want to get a little hoppiness in a kegged beer that is 2 months old. It's malty and I think it could stand up to more hop flavor.

OK to purge the tank, drop in so hops in a small fine mesh, reseal the keg and fill w/ CO2?

Or am I risking oxidation andor infection doing this and opening the keg again when the hop flavor is strong enough to pull the hops out?

I've seen it mentioned that you can do this right after transfer to secondary, so would make sense you could safely do this later on?

[BadRock]

As long as you purge everytime you open the keg you should be fine. You will probably get some intense foam when you drop in the hops so be prepared to put the lid back on quickly. Also make sure you weight your sac as it will float with all the CO2 off gassing.

[BDawg]

also make sure you boil the bag before you put the hops in it to kill any nasties that are on it.

Alternatively, you can make a hop tea:

bring about a pint of water up to a boil.
turn off the heat.
put 1 oz of hops in a hop bag and add it o the water.
DO NOT bring it back up to a boil.
Let it cool down naturally
take the bag of hops out and add the tea to your keg.

HTH-

[BeerPal]

Here's how I'd do it:
1.- Clean and sanitize a receiving keg, mesh bag, marbles and a zip-tie
2.- Put dry hops and marbles in mesh bag and zip-tie it to the long dip tube
3.- Seal the keg and purge it well
4.- Rig a jumper line from supply keg bev-out to receiving keg bev-out
5.- Using low PSI CO2, push the beer over into the receiving keg, bleeding excess CO2 as you go
6.- Enjoy your dry-hopped ale

[bcmaui]

So if I zip tie high up on the dip tube and start drinking when I like the taste it soon will drop below the beer level after some point and I don't have worry about extracting the hop bag until the keg is empty?

And transfer under pressure sounds sanitary. I like the other ideas too, but am afraid of opening the keg and infecting things. I'll try this too down the road when I have a place with a door for growing yeast and the like, but still brewing in a shed at the moment.

[TheTodd]

Also make sure you weight your sac as it will float with all the CO2 off gassing.

You said "sack."

[SacoDeToro]

I dry hop in kegs all the time and have never had any issues with infection, etc... A lot of brewpubs out there stuff giant sacks of whole flower hops in their serving tanks for their IPAs and DIPAs.

My procedure's the same as many others out there:

1) Boil hop sack(s) with weights to sanitize them
2) Spray top of kegs with StarSan
3) Have clean hands (I also use hand sanitizer)
4) Add hops to nylon sack and tie off (I use the integrated cinch cord)
5) Stuff into keg
6) Purge with CO2 and wait a few days before serving

I always use whole flowers when hopping in the keg and never use more than 2oz total per keg. I've had beers sit on hops for several months with no adverse effects. In my experience, I've found that maximum aroma/flavor extraction occurs after 7-10 days. Keg hopping is a great way to double dry hop your beers. For my DIPA, I usually dry hop in the conical for a week and then dry hop the kegs after filling.

[bcmaui]

I'll give that a try Saco - thanks. In the future I imagine it is better to drop the hops before force carbonating?

What are your favorite hops to dry hop with? I have quite an assortment of whole hops from Freshops to play with.

Cascade seems to be used often. Any others that you enjoy the taste of?