Maintaining IPA flavor and aroma in keg

I use knee high panty hose to dry hop kegs. I also add a handful of sanitized glass marbles to the bag, so they sink to the bottom of the keg faster.

I use leaf hops or a combination of leaf and pellet hops in those. Never pellet hops alone. If I do use only pellet hops, I place them in a stainless steel tea ball, and stick that inside a panty hose stocking.

Sometimes I will rack the keg to a fresh keg using the jumper cable method after a couple of weeks, and will add a new hop sack to the new keg to jazz up the hop aroma a bit. But more often than not, I don’t. I usually will kill an IPA keg in a month.

I don’t see the purpose of hanging the bag. I throw them in in a muslin or paint strainer with a couple shot glasses for weight. No problems getting sucked up. I guess if you plan on pulling them you would need the string. I like the idea of pushing into another keg with fresh hops. I transfer to a 2.5 sometimes to make more room in my keg fridges so that would make sence. I like the tea ball idea for the pellets

Something I do is put em in two (2) bags. One inside the other. Although the bags are the coarse weave kind, very little hop material escapes. Pellet Or leaf either one works well. Shot glass in the bag. I usually hang mine with a couple strands of sewing thread from the top/lid handle - no problems with leaking.

[quote=“Brew Cat”]I don’t see the purpose of hanging the bag. I throw them in in a muslin or paint strainer with a couple shot glasses for weight. No problems getting sucked up. I guess if you plan on pulling them you would need the string. I like the idea of pushing into another keg with fresh hops. I transfer to a 2.5 sometimes to make more room in my keg fridges so that would make sence. I like the tea ball idea for the pellets[/quote]If you do it long enough, you’ll have a bag or two get sucked into the opening of the dip tube. I have and it requires opening the keg and pulling the bag away with a long sanitized spoon.

Each teaball holds a half ounce of pellets due to the swelling of the pellets.