Dry hopping in the keg (continual while drinking)

[pava]

With my kegging system scheduled to arrive tomorrow, there has been a questions that I have meaning to ask for awhile.

I hear a lot of folks talking about throwing some hops in a tea ball and leaving them in the keg while hooked up to gas and drinking in order to maintain that beautiful hop flavor while drinking the entire keg. I also know that when it comes to dry hopping conventional wisdom states no more than 10-14 days or you risk getting vegetal/grassy flavors in your beer. So how do I reconcile these seemingly 2 completely different techniques? I guess what I am wondering is if more than 2 weeks on dry hops risks these off flavors, how do we not get these off flavors when the 'tea ball' technique is used in the keg while drinking...are these people going through their keg within 2 weeks? Are they changing out the tea ball/hops every 2 weeks? Does the cold temperature diminish the off flavor?

 

[david_42]

I remove the hops after a week or two. If necessary, I'll add more at a later date. I've re-hopped an APA three times over 5 months. Also, read up on randalls.

 

[humann_brewing]

I have never done this yet but may start doing it soon. I am really just wondering how the circulation is. I mean once you have a keg in one place and the hops are sitting in one place. How well is it going to distribute? Also, seems like you would need a really long change to reach the bottom especially if you pulling the SS balls out like David.

 

[Yooper]

I have never done this yet but may start doing it soon. I am really just wondering how the circulation is. I mean once you have a keg in one place and the hops are sitting in one place. How well is it going to distribute? Also, seems like you would need a really long change to reach the bottom especially if you pulling the SS balls out like David.

I don't pull mine out, but just like when you dryhop in a carboy, you don't have 100% of the beer in contact with the dryhops. The dryhopping still permeates the entire volume.

I leave my dryhopping in the keg the whole time. Of course, a keg never lasts longer than three weeks at my house anyway, so I don't know what would happen over a period of months! My impression is that kegerator temperatures slow down the dryhopping effect, so that there is no problem with dryhopping in the keg in the kegerator the entire time, though.

 

[BadgerBrewer]

When doing this method, do people generally use whole leaf hops in the tea ball or can you use pellet hops? I use gelatin when kegging, plus a cold crash method to make the beer crystal clear. I want to avoid clouding the beer up again if I try this method with pellets as they tend to turn into a sludge material that I suspect can get through the tiny holes of the ball.

Pellets? Whole? Either?

 

[Yooper]

When doing this method, do people generally use whole leaf hops in the tea ball or can you use pellet hops? I use gelatin when kegging, plus a cold crash method to make the beer crystal clear. I want to avoid clouding the beer up again if I try this method with pellets as they tend to turn into a sludge material that I suspect can get through the tiny holes of the ball.

Pellets? Whole? Either?

Well, in the tea ball, I'd use 1/2 ounce of leaf hops. That's about all that fits. For pellets, I use those "thicker' hops bags. The pellets will disintegrate and go right through the metal strainer of the tea ball and make a huge mess in your diptube-
-signed the Voice of Experience

 

[humann_brewing]

When doing this method, do people generally use whole leaf hops in the tea ball or can you use pellet hops? I use gelatin when kegging, plus a cold crash method to make the beer crystal clear. I want to avoid clouding the beer up again if I try this method with pellets as they tend to turn into a sludge material that I suspect can get through the tiny holes of the ball.

Pellets? Whole? Either?

this is my burning question too. I don't have much leaf and don't really want to buy leaf to dry hop only. I suppose I could buy a hopback and use them there too

 

[calpyro]

I use a Surescreen which slides over the pickup tube of a Corney Keg. It allows you to put whole hops loose in the keg. It works better than bags or tea balls because the hops have 100% contact with the beer. When you hit the hop level you want, just transfer to another keg: http://www.northernbrewer.com/default/catalogsearch/result/?q=surescreen&x=14&y=14

this is my burning question too. I don't have much leaf and don't really want to buy leaf to dry hop only. I suppose I could buy a hopback and use them there too