Dry Hopping in Keg Question

I brewed a keg of pale ale. It's been aging for 6 weeks. I dropped a stainless herb ball into the keg with 1 oz of Cascade pellets.

A few days later I tasted the beer. It had a very intense, almost medicine like taste. I ended up pulling the hop ball out of the keg, and the beer tastes fine now.

My question is: Should I have waited for the hops to mellow a bit, or was 1 oz too much? I'm a big fan of IPA, but this flavor was pretty bad. I would like to try this method again in the future, but I'm wondering if anyone has had similar experiences in the past.

Thanks

I dry hop with the stainless herb ball and leave it in the keg the whole time it is on tap. I've had no problems.

If you took the hops out and the beer turned out fine, it sounds to me like it just needed to mellow out a little.

If the pale ale was very light/weak then the 1 oz could have been pushing it a little.

Hope it helped a little. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say...

I also have my pale ale on tap right now that is dropped hopped. I put 1 oz of cascade leaf hops in a hop bag and tied it to the dip tube.

It tastes great.

I dry-hop in a hop bag tied to the dip tube. However, I do not leave for the entire serving of the keg...

I dry hop and age at the same time, then take a second keg, sanitize, purge, and pressure transfer the beer to it. The reason I do not leave it in, is that near the end of the keg I get a very "vegetable" type flavor.

Now I could also drink the beer faster... that would solve this, and many other, problems!

Not to distract from the original question, but what's the reason the hop bag is tied to the dip tube?

It's just to keep the bag from getting sucked into the dip tube and clogging it. I never noticed that happen though. I just weigh my bag down with 4 stainless ball bearings. The first few days on dry hop tastes pretty bad. It's almost astringent.

I've also heard of people using sanitized marbles. I think I'll try that next time and see if there is a difference.

Bobby_M said:

The first few days on dry hop tastes pretty bad. It's almost astringent.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. Next time I'll wait.