Keg Hopping Question

[jmich24]

After fermentation, I cold crashed my IPA and racked it on to 4 oz of hops in the keg. I am not happy with the aroma and I think it is because the beer was dry hophed at cold temps.

I was thinking about bringing the keg inside and letting it warm up into the mid 6o's for three days or so. My hope is that this will allow the aroma to really come out before putting my keg back in to my serving fridge/temp.

Has anyone done this with any success?
Any potential problems im not thinking about?

Thanks in Advance

 

[ChillyCheese]

What kind of hops did you use? Have you ever used 4oz before? That's really a lot, and with the hops sitting in the cold keg, hop oils are going to be constantly falling to the bottom of your keg, making it a hop oil explosion in every glass.

Anyway, I can't imagine it will hurt anything to let the dry hop process warm up for a while, but I also don't know that it will help. In my experience you shouldn't leave a large amount of hop pellets for more than 7 days or you'll start getting a vegetal aroma/taste, so you might want to consider removing them once you've done some days at room temperature.

 

[bja]

In my experience you shouldn't leave a large amount of hop pellets for more than 7 days or you'll start getting a vegetal aroma/taste, so you might want to consider removing them once you've done some days at room temperature.

I do it all the time. I've left the hops in the keg for over a month and never had any "vegetal flavors".

 

[Yooper]

I do it all the time. I've left the hops in the keg for over a month and never had any "vegetal flavors".

Yep, me too. Keeping the keg cold makes a huge difference apparently, because I normally only dryhop for 5 days at fermentation temperatures!

 

[Golddiggie]

I typically use 1oz of whole hops in a 3 gallon corny keg (when dry hopping a batch). I also use the two week, set and forget, carbonation method. If you did a rapid forced carbonation, that could be the aspect that's making it less than you desire.

I've also had the keg last for 2-4 weeks (after carbonating) and not had any flavor issues. That is, IF you use good hops to begin with. Of course, I also put the hops in a nylon mesh bag (sanitized first) before adding them to the keg. As soon as I've added them to the keg, it goes into the brew fridge. 24 hours to chill down, then the gas gets connected to carbonate.

BTW, 4oz in a 5 gallon keg is a bit much, IMO. Of course, that does depend on the hop you used and what you wanted. If you didn't want it to have a strong aroma, you should have used less hops.

 

[tre9er]

I've thrown pellet hops in a voile bag (sanitized) with a sanitized plastic-coated twisty-tie, while the beer was cold (crashed, then racked) and I felt there was hop aroma almost right away. The keg stayed cold the entire time, no issues.

 

[Yooper]

I also use the two week, set and forget, carbonation method. If you did a rapid forced carbonation, that could be the aspect that's making it less than you desire.

Oh, that is a good point! When "burst carbing" is done in a keg, by giving the keg a higher psi than a regular serving psi, and then purging (or shaking and purging), it's possible that alot of hops aroma will "blow off" with the co2 also. At least, that's been my experience.

I've had two IPAs side by side, kegged on the same day. For one, I put it in the kegerator at 12 psi and for the other I gave it the 30 psi for 24 hour treatment. I ended up purging it a few times to get it right and reset at 12 psi. Two weeks later, the 'set it and forget it' keg was noticeably more aromatic while the burst carbed keg was good but had lost some of the hops aroma. Both kegs were dryhopped in the keg, and kept at 40 degrees.