I apologize if this has been covered. I have had two commercial brewers (both went to Siebel) tell me to dry hop with the beer at room temp. When the one guy told me about it, I didn’t make much of it because I wasn’t dry hopping at the time. The second guy (who I know better) mentioned it on a recipe he gave me for his Amarillo-Citra pale ale. He specifically mentioned dry hopping with the beer at room temp. When I asked him about it, he said that dry hopping with the beer cold will bring out vegetal flavors from the hops. I was out with some homebrewing buds last week and I mentioned it and a few of them were surprised and a couple didn’t believe it. One asked, “what about putting hops in the cold serving keg?” and I didn’t have an answer. Anyone care to chime in?
I only dry hop in the keg these days. The hops stay in until the keg is kicked and I have never experienced any vegetal characters. I don’t hop at as high of rate as most though…
I believe there was an exbeeriment which tested this and there were no perceptible difference between warm or cold dry hop.
EDIT - found it:
I keg hop these days, too - at room temp initially for a few days, but sometimes by adding extra hops to the (cold) keg after the hop aroma has faded. I don’t get the elusive ‘vegetal’ character that gets talked about at cold temps. I think it’s subjective and wonder if a beer sometimes gets critiqued for having vegetal hop character when it’s just hoppier than the drinker cares for.
Edit - I’ll add though that extraction is slower at cold temps vs room temp dry hopping.
Dry hop at fermentation temp, so for ales around 67F. I will do keg hopping as well when I feel the dry hop wasn’t enough.
And in the following exbeeriment, they COULD taste the difference, although it wasn’t clear at all what that difference actually was (vegetal or otherwise). So, the jury’s still out as far as I can tell. Seems to me like there is likely some difference that has not yet been explained by science.
Also, in general, I would select a much higher p value of 0.15 or thereabouts. p=0.05 is super convincing when the exbeeriment is under that, but… p=0.10 or 0.15 is “good enough” in my opinion. And in that case, a huge number of exBmts actually affirm whatever the p=0.05 says they do not. How’s that for silliness / wide-open to interpretation kind of stuff!
Ha! Didn’t know there were two and with different results. Thanks.
I’ve been doing 4-7 days at room temp in a keg, crash under CO2 for 48hrs and then jump to fresh kegs. My GF said she could smell my IPA from across the room last night, so its definitely working lol.
Is it better than cold dryhopping? I have no idea. I used to do that as well, and only switched because the way I do it now works for my process/logjam.
Hops and their character can be very unusual sometimes. I admit that I have tasted some not-so-great hop character when dry hopping (at whatever temp) and my guess is that the hops just weren’t in very good condition when I used them. When I dry hop (just did it a couple of minutes ago… 2 ounces of Saphir in a blonde ale), I try to use hops that have not been opened and preferably from a vacuum-sealed, O2-purged foil pack. It’s interesting that the jury is out on this because for some amount of time I assumed this was another homebrew myth… especially with so many people I know who have hops in the keg until the keg is gone. I have encountered “grassy” flavors where the keg has been on tap for too long and the hop character just turned but that’s a different story.
This is what I do now too… rack beer to keg, dry hop it in the keg at room temp for 5 days or so, remove the hops and then crash cool and carb (I do not jump to a new keg however).
There is no substitute for trying things like this for yourself. IMO the results are not the same but not hugely different at same time. I prefer warm and longer and nowadays post cold crash/racking off yeast and regular swirling to resuspend. In the end, everyone has their own preference and there is no right or wrong IMO.
As Village said, hops variety and also QUALITY(centennial fans out there?)/quantity are also factors.
How the heck do you guys keg hop? My experience with whole and tea balls was good but messy/lots of loss.
Surescreen on the diptube.
A muslin bag with pellets, tied up with a piece of thread that I let hang out of the main hatch so I can pull it out when the dry hop is done.
I do wonder if the dry hop temp has some parameters… like under 40° is a no-no. I also wonder if certain hop varieties are more likely to create vegetal flavors. I didn’t read the exbeeriments but I will… they’re great.
Double layered 5 gallon paint stainer bags currently.
I did have my first issue with keg hopping recently. I bag the hops in small muslin sacks and just knot it off to keep the hops in. I don’t worry about cutting off the extra material above the knot and that happened to get caught in the dip tube after a couple of weeks. It took me a while to figure out that this was the problem.
I’d add that I think that vegetal character largely comes from letting fine hop debris into the bottle/keg. Crashing and jumping to another keg helps, as does double layering the paint strainer bags. I found that using one bag was letting some fine hop debris into some pints. Those pints were more harsh (some might say vegetal), where the ones that showed no hop debris (double layered bags) were great.
I’ve heard of that happening. Connect a length of thread to the muslin bag and let it come up and out of the main hatch so you can pull it out of the way (or out completely if you’re done with them).
I don’t want to go on a loosely-related tangent but I usually use a gel solution once the beer is cold in the keg. This will bring hop material, yeast, etc. down and the first pint is usually very cruddy but pint #2 flows clear. You guys know that I’m all about the clear beer but I also realize that some claim that the gel strips out that precious hop character you just worked so hard to get. 
I have had issues sealing the keg this way. What kind of string? I will probably just start removing that extra material.
Teflon tape works better, IMO
Using the muslin sacks does let some hop material into the beer but it usually settles out within the first week. I am okay with this as the beer is usually carbing and continuing to clarify anyway.
My current pale ale has improved drastically from week 1 to week 2 due to this. I was very worried as it was extra pungent and almost savory with a modest amount of hops. My continual lack of patience bit me again…