Experiment - Ethanol humulone extraction

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I crushed the pellets once they had thawed out, then did a 3 min wash as recommended which worked much better than shaking frozen whole pellets in a jar of vodka, which didn't even change the color of the vodka.
 
Okay, doing both leaf and pellet hops with sub-zero ethanol, the leaf extract liquid turned out a nice light yellow, while the pellet hops (which I did leave as pellets rather than smashing up, though I am not sure why I decided to do that) ended up a very dark green color. I have not yet evaporated away the ethanol.
 
Last night I did a pretty unscientific test run, with 2 oz Everclear in 1 oz hallertau leaf in a french press (all about 0F from the freezer). I got some beautiful aroma, especially when I just dipped my finger in and licked it off (a direct sniff was obviously just booze smell). When I put about 1 tsp in my beer it translated pretty well to a big, big dry hop (also I got a little tipsy. but word has it I might have been already, since that's not very much extra alcohol).

The french press only got about 1 oz out, since obviously that's a lot of leaf. I then put the leaf in a hop bag and squeezed maybe out another 0.5 oz, and then I said what the hell and threw the hop bag in my fermenter along with the extract.

Since I added the leaf along with the extract this is pretty unscientific, as I said, but the beer I added it to is one half of a 9 gallon batch (two 5 gallon buckets) of a session (1.048) saison that I decided needed a little more dry hop kick. It's already below 1.000, so I'm going to go ahead and crash, gelatin and and bottle as soon as I think the leaf has had its chance to do some good. I'll taste again tonight and report back, along with tasting notes after bottling.
 
OK--I haven't tried this bottled yet, but I have to say the ethanol lent a little more burn than I'd like in such a low-gravity beer, which is weird because my math says I only raised the ABV by about 0.3%. So I think that's something that may mellow. It's also hard to judge a small saison uncarbed because the carbonation is such a big part of a beer under 1.000 FG.

I did however blend the test sample with the "control", and that's reasonably pleasant already. But if I do this method again, I'll probably do it with a medium-to-high OG pale ale or maybe a big IPA where the alcohol burn has more to hide behind.

Burn aside, I get a pretty big whiff of hallertau from this, especially from the "test" batch alone, and that's not a hop that tends to punch you in the face. Certainly more punch than you'd get from 1 oz dry hop alone. I will try it again sometime, probably with centennial in a pale ale.
 
@fearwig, that's great feedback! I'm getting more and more hopeful of this :)

I'm not brewing anything hop-forward again for probably another month, but when I do, I'm definitely going to give this a shot...

I especially like the idea of using this as a dry hop replacement. I'm hoping I can use hop extract after the beer is fully cleared so that I can pick up the aroma without adding haze/cloudiness.
 
It may be that there is a sweet spot between the oxidation and blow-off that comes with thorough evaporation and adding the full volume of everclear. Maybe you'd even get a better result from vodka even with its worse selectivity, because I found the leaf was very dry with my 1:2 leaf:everclear ratio, which is why I gave in and dry hopped with the "leftovers".

I think I'd straight-up drink a vodka-proof hopped liquor, though. Maybe with tonic.
 
OK, I'm enjoying one of these saisons now. It's nice. I don't know why I decided to give this a test run on a session saison with hallertauer, it's such a moderate variety I don't think it is a good testing ground. That said, it's good, and there's a good bit of hops character.

Rough recipe stats, for reference:
Batch: 9 gal
81% pilsner
19% sucrose
OG 1.048
FG 1.000
IBU 33.5
1oz Saaz T-90 8% 60 min
1oz Saaz T-90 8% 20 min
2oz Hallertauer 4.8% 5 min
1oz Saaz T-90 8% 5 min

1oz hallertauer extracted as described, then dry hopped with remainder.

I think there's a perception of bitterness well over 33 IBU and there was a profound yeast bite before it was completely conditioned (I always try a couple, sue me, it's a 9-gal batch). Now that the yeast has floc'd out it has mellowed and is very pleasant. If I repeated the recipe I'd add some lemon juice to the bottling bucket, it's great with a squeeze of lemon.

It's hard to isolate the source of the bitterness, but I can narrow it down to either the extract or the use of the remaining hops from the extract for dry hopping. Before bottling, I sampled both the extract-plus-dry hopped half of the recipe (two fermenters, they were mixed) and the un-dry hopped half, and the extract-plus-dry hopped half was considerably more bitter, specifically it had a sort of sharp bitterness not like that of boiled hops, more harsh and "cheap boozy" (maybe the Everclear?). The extract was not boiled, as I mentioned.

I did not notice a considerable bitterness in the extract itself, but it was 190 proof, so I wasn't exactly taking sips.

As I said, the yeast seem to have absorbed the unfavorable bitterness and taken it to the bottom of the bottle, so I don't have any lasting complaints at all, but my unscientific approach to the recipe means I don't have complete info. If I were to do it again, I'd probably work on a moderate-strength APA, dry hopping one half, and adding the extract to the other half. I would discard the remaining hops so I can isolate the flavor I noticed.
 
Your observations are consistent with mine. I expect to kick my Columbus extract hopped red ale tonight. At first the beer was sharply bitter. I also did not boil the extract, just added it to the keg before racking the beer over. That sharpness mellowed out a lot after a few weeks in the keg and the beer is now pretty excellent.

I didn't do a control batch so I'm not sure how different it is due to the extract, but from memory of my previous batches of this recipe, the extract did make for a more bitter beer.
 
Anyone make any progress on creating the extract or doing hop experiments with the stuff?

I'm really intrigued by extract and am going to have to make some soon.
 
I attempted a modified version of the OP's method using vodka instead of grain alcohol (not available for retail in VA) and with a couple liters of honeysuckle from my backyard. I found the honeysuckle extract to be awesome after about half of the liquor evaporated (used a small fan to blow over the dish), but it turned nasty (oxidized?) well before all the liquid evaporated.

Looking forward to trying it with some of my backyard hops in the month or so. Going to pick up some grain on one of my trips to NC.
 
I know this is kind of an old thread and the focus is about creating hop extract for aroma, but it is the most extensive of the hop extraction threads so I figured it was the best place to post about making hop extract for bittering.

I've tried so many hops so I have well over a pound of pellet hops that I will probably never use and figured I could make some hop extract out of it. I have 191.2 proof grain alcohol from Technical Reserve that my sister bought me because they told her it could be used for extracting hops.

Just figured I'd see if anybody had some success or a good method that produced something somewhat close to CO2 extract using pellet hops and grain alcohol.
 
I know this is late, but last I visited ICD dave was working on an extract himself with a rotovap. You might want to email them and ask them about their process. Technical reserve is some pricey stuff though so use it in good health :) and find a way to reclaim it after evap.
 
So the filter wasn't the problem. I did not use enough ethanol for the mass of hops.
I used about 500ml of 93% in a mason jar packed with Chinook leaf hops. It should have been much more ethanol to leaves.

Anyway the stuff dripped out slowly and even more slowly evaporated the ethanol.
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So now I have this
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So is this a waste of time? yes.
 
I know this is kind of an old thread and the focus is about creating hop extract for aroma, but it is the most extensive of the hop extraction threads so I figured it was the best place to post about making hop extract for bittering.

I've tried so many hops so I have well over a pound of pellet hops that I will probably never use and figured I could make some hop extract out of it. I have 191.2 proof grain alcohol from Technical Reserve that my sister bought me because they told her it could be used for extracting hops.

Just figured I'd see if anybody had some success or a good method that produced something somewhat close to CO2 extract using pellet hops and grain alcohol.
Revival an old post.

I tried a hop tincture with polaris. 1g/50mL 95% grain alcohol. 5 hours extraction. (Next time I will try 2 or 3 hours)
Straight to the pint, it turns an ordinary pilsener into something nice. In the other hand, kills the foam and had an strong ouzo effect.
I tested 2, 4 and 6 mL tincture adition in a brown IPA, at bottling. Just one bottle each. It had an persistent hazeness, due to the ouzo effect. While the regular ones were crystal clear. Ironically when I refrigerate them, a cold haze appear, turns the beers identical.
I open a 2 ml test and a regular today. They look like the same, no problems with the head retention. But tasted somehow different. The regular was bitter with an caramel touch. The test bottle had that too, plus an improvement in aroma and flavour, as well a little more bitterness.
I surely will do that again, in my next batch. Is easier and more efficient than dry hopping.
Hope I give you guys some ideas. If you had some experiments in that way, I would like to know.

Cheers!

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i did a freezer extraction with some older pellet hops in some 'grain alcohol' 95% or so. i left it for a week or two and extracted a bit too much leafy type green flavors.

dropped into a glass of beer, it doesn't want to mix at all into the carbonated beer, but instead foams up into a wierd green pond scum glob. a bit of stirring encourages things a bit, but still not very easy to emulsify.

it really does boost the bitterness and hop flavor of anything you stir it into. The way i did it, isn't great for aroma or fresh fruity hop character, but i could see using it as a homebrew 'hop-shot' in getting a quick and easy bittering addition or in bottling as adding a unique layer to hop forward beers.
 
If and when I try this again, I'll stick to a quick extraction time and use a very high proof whiskey instead of the neutral spirit to try and get a bit more character overall.
 
I'll contribute. I used steam extraction to pull a vial of hop oil out of 5 ounces of Citra hop buds. Result was very bitter, but I have no idea if it would have been useful in beermaking. You can see the hop oil collecting in the separatory trap there in second pic. That's a Graham condenser, a soxhlet would be better I think, but I did not have one. I did look a bit into CO2 extraction systems, but their is a LOT of pressure involved there and I figured too much effort for a hobbyist.

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I'll contribute. I used steam extraction to pull a vial of hop oil out of 5 ounces of Citra hop buds. Result was very bitter, but I have no idea if it would have been useful in beermaking. You can see the hop oil collecting in the separatory trap there in second pic. That's a Graham condenser, a soxhlet would be better I think, but I did not have one. I did look a bit into CO2 extraction systems, but their is a LOT of pressure involved there and I figured too much effort for a hobbyist.

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Cool. You can put some high proof alcohol or vodka in your extract, and then use direct in the beer or at bottling. Just test before, because it will be very concentrated.
In the co2 case, it's only viable in industrial scales, and worth only in certain conditions. Extract by solvent, ethanol, or steam is easier at home, and has similar results.
 
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