How Do You Dry-Hop/Carb Your Kegged IPAs?

Don't forget about pouring hop tea in the keg in lieu of dry hopping. Works great in my experience.

Yesfan said:

I dry-hop in primary, after a few days I then rack to keg, force carb, then serve.

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This is what I do as well... and nowadays for some IPAs I run the beers through whole hops in my water filter Randall

pvpeacock said:

Don't forget about pouring hop tea in the keg in lieu of dry hopping. Works great in my experience.

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I tried this a few months ago with Mosaic and got a keg full of bitter grass. What kind of amounts of hops and water do you use and what temp do you steep at?

I use 2-3 oz of hops, put them in a French press with water approx 140 - 150 degrees and let it sit for an hour. I then press it and pour the tea in the keg. I've never had any grassy flavored, just delicious hop goodness.

I've never been able to get much aroma from dry hopping in a secondary so once I started kegging I started dry hopping in the keg and love it.

I've tried suspending the bag a few times and even weighting it down with shot glasses (can't remember why I tried it, must have read it somewhere) and now I just tie up the bag and toss it in. The way I see it, if the bag gets next to the dip tube I end up with hop-filtered goodness in my glass.

I haven't had any issues with clogged dip tubes or grassy flavors but like others said it takes a little longer to notice the aroma in a cold keg. It seems to start coming through after about a week.

pvpeacock said:

I use 2-3 oz of hops, put them in a French press with water approx 140 - 150 degrees and let it sit for an hour. I then press it and pour the tea in the keg. I've never had any grassy flavored, just delicious hop goodness.

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Your place must have smelled magical!

I dry hop in the primary and then cold crash and rack to the keg for force carb... I don’t dry hop in the keg.

The aroma on my IPA’s are extremely intense, more than most commercial IPA’s. I don’t see the point in trying to get more aroma by keg-hopping when it’s already at insane levels.

Kegging my first beer soon, a two hearted clone and my tentative plan is this. Does this make sense or should I just dry hop entirely in the primary or keg for times sake?

1. 1oz centennial pellets loose into primary for 3-4 days
2.cold crash primary in kegerator for 1-2 days
3. Rack cold crashed beer into keg on top of 1 oz centennial pellets in a voile bag. Let sit for a few days at fermentation temps and add to kegerator to carbonate.

Not sure if the two cooling cycles could negatively impact the beer...thoughts?

Ps...being my first keg experience I'm also a bit apprehensive about transferring a significant amount of trub or hop debris to the bottom on the keg and potentially clogging the dip tube or pouring sludge for many pints...please talk me off the ledge either way haha

Not sure there's much merit in this plan. 1oz of Centennial isn't going to provide much character to begin with (I grow it and use a lot of it) and it'd certainly be less of a pita if you used all of the Centennial pellets in one dry hop in the primary, then cold-crash and rack to your keg.

As well, if this is your first kegging experience, it might be prudent to dial things down a notch and take a simpler path.
Save the heroics (and likely failures) for the next keg

Cheers!

Thanks for the reply. I've brewed this beer successfully a few times in the past and I wanted to see if the keg dry hop would add any additional aroma vs just in the primary. I agree it is more of a pita but it sounds as though several folks double dry hop like this. As you stated 2 oz isn't a ton regardless so it may be lots of work for little gain[emoji3] it's not like I'm adding 5 oz of citra here

I dry hop quite frequently but I also (dare I say it) secondary the majority of my beers! That is when I dry hop. Usually 5-7 days. It depends on the recipe.
If you're going to dry hop in the keg I'd advise you shorten your dip tube about 1/2-3/4" and add a filter screen.

Dryhop in the primary @ room temp for 5-7 days, Cold crash, keg.... Always get great results.

I did my DH once as cold conditions and I got no aroma...Tends to go with the general consensus

BilboBrewin said:

I know dry-hopping while primary fermentation is going on is a futile effort

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Why do you say that?

"(Matt) described a process where the hops were introduced in the primary fermenter and allowed only a specific contact time before being racked off. He stated that the action of fermentation was needed to “scrub” some of the undesirable flavors from the hops and leave the fresh hop character that was desired. As soon as the head of the primary fermentation starts to crash, this is the time to dry hop. (approx 3-4 days into fermentation)"

Credentials: Matt started working in the lab of the Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Company, and he was soon sent over to Chicago’s Siebel Institute, where he continued his education in organic chemistry.

Sounds like he knows what he's talking about, or at least more than us.


The recent (2016) article from west coast brewers (Stone, RussianR, and others) seems to prove that even the pros don't know everything about hop usage. I've read articles advocating pretty much every method conceivable from multiple whirlpool additions, multiple dry hop additions, water chemistry, temperature considerations (stone dry hops at 60F), and countless other variables and combinations.

So, find your own way and what works for you.

Personally, I only late hop (never use hops prior to 30 mins anymore), whirlpool, add at least one dry hop addition and sometimes two, then usually keg hop in a nylon mesh bag.

My understanding of why you don't dry hop early in the fermentation is the volatile oils of the hop, which provides aroma, are easily removed with the CO2 of the active fermentation. I find it best to dry hop as most do within the last 5-7 days before bottling/kegging as the CO2 activity has greatly reduced hence leaving the aroma oils within the beer.

I just dump them into the fermentor loose and DH for usually ~5 days. Rack to keg and hit with 16-20 psi for about 4-5 days