I figured I could leave the bag in there, but I feel like I have gotten some vegetal effects from larger dry hoppings when I leave the beer on dry hops in the fermentor longer than I intended. I can't wrap my head around why removing the bag would be an issue. Commercial hop aroma forward beers don't come with a hop bag in the keg or bottle still. Explanations? thoughts?
And as for yeast absorbing hop oils, yes that happens but its not an absolute. If the yeast is absorbing that much hop oil you should be able to use more dry hops to compensate. And if that was really the cause dry hopping in primary would result in no hop aroma because the yeast count is so large there. At least that's my impression.
Commercial breweries don't use hop bags in their kegs. Many of them get hop flavor and aroma from extended whirlpool hopping and when they dry hop, they crash and then closed transfer under CO2 off of the hop debris. Of course dry hopping in primary produces hop character - I just don't feel it lasts as long as dry hopping clear beer because yeast do absorb hop oils. Using extra hops is always an option.
Look, my methods are by no means the only way. I like to whirlpool hop American styles then dry hop in keg, but there are lots of ways to hop beers with good results. Personally, I wouldn't keg hop if my intention was to pull the hops, as air is the enemy of hop aroma. $0.02 .