Dry hopping in the keg

[Evan B]

I brewed up my ESB recipe on the system of a guy from my club last month. We brewed up 12gal and split the final product.... I didn't take in to account that on his system, he uses hop sacks, and because of that, and for whatever other reason, my 38IBU beer came out at around 15-20 IBUs.

I have it in a keg that I'm taking to a camp out/party later this week. I am a bottler, so my kegging knowledge is slim to none... But I have heard of guys adding a sack of hops to the keg. The beer is cold and already carbonated, so would those more experienced with this kegging thing advise for or against adding a sack of dry hops? I'm worried about not getting the right character from the hops if it's cold. So perhaps I should leave it at room temp until I depart for the trip?

Any advice is much appreciated!

[Weenie Boy]

I do dry hop in the serving kegs. I have some small muslin bags with drawstings on them that came off of ebay. The routine is to put a 1-2 ounce piece of stainless steel (you can use a rock or other heavy object) inside of the bag, boil it for a minute or two, remove from the boil, add hops secure the string and place into the keg.
I would not worry about the beer already being carbed or cold. Just de-pressurize the keg, pop the lid, dump in the hops, replace the lid, purge the air out and repressurize the keg w/ co2.

Works like a charm,

Weenie Boy

[Evan B]

I would not worry about the beer already being carbed or cold. Just de-pressurize the keg, pop the lid, dump in the hops, replace the lid, purge the air out and repressurize the keg w/ co2.

How would you go about purging 02 out of a full keg?

[SacoDeToro]

I would not worry about the beer already being carbed or cold. Just de-pressurize the keg, pop the lid, dump in the hops, replace the lid, purge the air out and repressurize the keg w/ co2.

How would you go about purging 02 out of a full keg?

Simply do a short burst of CO2 into the keg and purge it by pulling up on the PRV. Repeat several times then fully repressurize the head space.

[ipaisay]

I dry hop all the time in a keg. However, I usually tie a disposable muslin bag of hops to the dip tube. I am actually having a simple stainless steel clamp made so that I can keep the hop bag about 3/4 of the way down dip tube. In your situation, you could just float your hops in a bag, it wouldn't hurt it. Using a stainless steel weight that was sanitized would work too. I would not expect you to increase the IBU's of your beer through dry hopping though.

[Evan B]

Not so much looking to increase IBUs as I am trying to give another dimension to an otherwise boring beer that wasn't what I was shooting for.

I put a half ounce each of US Goldings and Sorachi Ace in a nylon hop bag, and put some weights in there to get it down. Hopefully it was worthwhile

[brewcrew]

+1 to tie the bag to the dip tube. I have used the bag with a weight in it without tying to the dip tube and it plugged the dip tube before. Learned blowing Co2 down the dip tube would unplug it but muddy up the beer for a day or 2.

[Evan B]

I would've tried to tie it to the dip tube, but it's hard to do that with a keg that's already full