Dry Hop - compact

[Murph69]

G’day all, I pulled my dry hop basket from a spent leg, cleaning out the hops, (pellets) it was not an easy task - it was hard and compact.
I can’t imagine there would be much flow of beer in or around this cake?
Anyone else experience this ?

 

[IslandLizard]

Simple: put less hops in them.
Hop pulp (from pellets) expands tremendously when re-hydrated. Like 5x or so.

Yeah, there won't be much extraction when it compacts like that.

I use mesh bags for keg hopping, with a few glass marbles in them to weigh em down. I never overstuff them, but I'm still not convinced they give all that much extraction either unless you agitate or roll the keg. Some fine dust will come out but it will settle over time. I prefer to dry hop, instead, added "commando" to the fermenter, no bags, no baskets. But a keg hop may save a beer that's a bit lackluster.