Dry Hop tube and hops

[Dr_Jeff]

I bought several of these dry hop tubes from Amazon.

First time I added about four ounces of “C” hops, left it in for the duration of the keg. I noticed that towards the end of the keg, he hops had diminished to some extent, as expected from how it was in the beginning. I put the empty keg in the garage where I keep the empties until I decide to clean them. (Keg was sealed and under pressure), fast forward a bit and I had brewed another beer, kegged all of it and had more than would fit in the two kegs. I ran the extra into a third keg, maybe two gallons or so. Thought, could be hoppier, just a bit underwhelming, (didn’t have another dry hop tube laying around) I decided to transfer it to the keg with the hops, thought, what the heck. I let it sit at room temperature for a week or so, then put it back on tap, to my surprise, there was still a lot of hop goodness left in there and the beer is much better now. Now this wasn’t something that I would normally do, I had planned on cleaning the keg and dumping the hops. But fortunately I had good results.

 

[Bubman]

What type hops, pellet or whole?

Did you have any issues with plugged posts?

 

[IslandLizard]

That mesh tube has a volume of 1.22 quart. That's a pretty good size!

How much hops did you put in that tube?
When you clean that keg, eventually , please take a look inside that tube and see how much compaction of the hop pulp there is inside, if any. Basically, how much volume is taken up by pulp on the bottom and how much space is left above it, roughly. That's a good data point for how much hops can be used in those tubes.

For dry hopping to work efficiently the beer should be able to permeate the hop pulp freely, so lupulin can be extracted and mix with the surrounded beer. I think agitation, swirling, rocking, even shaking or rolling help tremendously dispersing the hop goodness from the (contained) dry hops.

I use a mesh bag, similar in size to your tube, with a few glass marbles in them, for 1-2 oz of pellet hops in the keg. That seems to work well, and get no compaction inside the bag. Some very fine hop dust seems to make it out the bag, though.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

I used pellet hops, some of the fine hop dust did make it through, first several glasses were loaded with hops, looked terrible, drank them anyway.
First time had four ounces.
Second time there were at least eight.
I was interested as well as to how much they expanded, I will get some pics when I open the kegs.
I bought four of them and they are all in kegs now.
I agree about the agitation, but my concern is more hop debris in the keg.
I was considering putting the tube in a new nylon footie next time to better contain the debris.

The first time I used them, no debris got out. Worked fantastic.
I feel certain that some hops are ground finer than others.

I’ll update the thread when I clean the kegs.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

No problems with stopping up the dip tube.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Update.

So I cleaned kegs on Sunday.

The two that I had added four ounces to, the dry hop tube was about a third full of hops.

When I dumped them out, one was as expected a big glob of indistinguishable green hop gunk.
The other tube some of the hop goo, one could still discern the shape of the pellet on some of what was dumped out, not all of it just some.

The two that eight ounces were added to, still have beer in them.

My phone was in the house, so no pictures were captured for artifacts.

 

[IslandLizard]

Update.

So I cleaned kegs on Sunday.

The two that I had added four ounces to, the dry hop tube was about a third full of hops.

When I dumped them out, one was as expected a big glob of indistinguishable green hop gunk.
The other tube some of the hop goo, one could still discern the shape of the pellet on some of what was dumped out, not all of it just some.

The two that eight ounces were added to, still have beer in them.

My phone was in the house, so no pictures were captured for artifacts.

That's a good datapoint!
From that I'd say 4-5 oz per tube would be about the max to leave ample space for expansion and permeation. A "proper" form of agitation would surely help with extraction and dispersion.

I prefer to dry hop in the fermenter buckets, agitate once or twice a day under CO2. All hop debris has sunk after a few days, ready for a (near) closed transfer to kegs. Once in awhile I add dry hops to a keg, to correct somewhat underwhelming dry hop character, but the majority is generally done in the fermenter.

I guess the tube with some whole pellets left didn't get soaked through enough.

How did the dry hops perform in the beer this time?

Are you using closed transfers to prevent air (oxygen) exposure and thus oxidation?

 

[Dr_Jeff]

That's a good datapoint!
From that I'd say 4-5 oz per tube would be about the max to leave ample space for expansion and permeation. A "proper" form of agitation would surely help with extraction and dispersion.

I prefer to dry hop in the fermenter buckets, agitate once or twice a day under CO2. All hop debris has sunk after a few days, ready for a (near) closed transfer to kegs. Once in awhile I add dry hops to a keg, to correct somewhat underwhelming dry hop character, but the majority is generally done in the fermenter.

I guess the tube with some whole pellets left didn't get soaked through enough.

How did the dry hops perform in the beer this time?

Are you using closed transfers to prevent air (oxygen) exposure and thus oxidation?

Yes, I do closed transfers and ferment under pressure with very good temperature control, keeps it within a degree(beverage air back bar box), beer was great to the end. No vegetal flavors, keg lasted about a month, possibly less. Second keg from that batch, I felt was even better. It sat a room temperature for the time the other was serving.

The other two kegs have about eight ounces in each keg.

I’ll provide updates when those are opened.