JoMarky

Recipes 

Endovelico, I haven't had any experience with this, so my information is purely academic. If I were you I'd try it and report back to let us all know! The thing about needing "sugars" or "malt extract" in the water being necessary for AA isomerization in my opinion sounds like BS. I would just use beersmith to figure out how much hops and for how long you should boil to get the IBU's you want. And yes, you are correct in not needing to boil the wort for the full 60 minutes since you're not hopping it. If you wanted some flavor/aroma you could hop the wort at the beginning and only do the 10/15 minute boil you're planning on.

I remember one thread where someones beer was too sweet, I forget why, maybe they measured the hops wrong. They made a hop bitter tea and added it to the keg and said the beer was much more balanced and were happy with the results.

Good luck!

Endovelico

Recipes 

Thank you very much for your time, you cleared some things up for me.

The "sugars being needed for IBU extraction" thing does sound like BS. I mean wouldn't Beersmith account for this? Even if the IBU extraction is calculated by using some mathematical distribution and the distribution is not valid for values above or bellow X, that would be pretty easy to hardcode into the source.

Endovelico

Recipes 

Well i did two separate IBU calculations: One for the first addition, and another for the second addition (taking into account a higher gravity). But i'm not entirely convinced of the accuracy of this. It feels like i'm dismissing some variables.

Jonnio

Recipes 

If your using beersmith your most accurate way is to just plug in the time that your going to add the bulk of your extract and let it calculate the ibu for you. I used to do this for all of my batches. As long as you have the correct times boil volume and final volume you will be good to go

Regarding the sugars for hop extraction I have read that in numerous places so I wouldn't just discount it. I think the reason software doesn't account for it is that the way it works is the mathematical formula is valid at a certain sg and below that the utilization drops in an unpredictable manner so it isn't mathematically representable.

Before I tried this I would look around for a late extract addition recipe that has you add none until the last 15 minutes. If it worked it I would think it would have been done during the hop shortage. That way you can see someone else's experience before spending your money.

__________________
------------------------------------------------
Official member of HBAMAP (Home Brewers Against Murder and Pedophilia)

Beerbeque

Recipes 

As I read this thread I am drinking my first experiment with hop tea. I steeped 1oz of cascade in ~1 liter of hot water in a french press for ~30 mins and added the tea to my bottling bucket. As I now sip the finished brew I can tell you that the result is dramatic! I only used 3oz total in brewing this ale and then the 1oz tea at bottling and I got as much hop aroma and flavor as I get with dry hopping with double the hops. The hop tea technique saves me money and hassle.

__________________
Give us this day our liquid bread

homebrewer_99

Recipes 

I've done several hop teas in the past.

I do 1 hour boils starting with 1 gal of water. Most of the water evaporates off. I put the tea in at 1/2 cup intervals, slowly stir it in and sample.

You know it's good/close when you take a second sample without adding any more tea.

You can also buy hop extract and add it to a keg/fermenter without the additional water volume.

__________________
HB Bill

GilaMinumBeer

Recipes 

Okay, Okay, Okay TMI. Let's leave our SadoMasochistic tendencies out of the subject of brewing please. I mean, Ouch!


OP: I cannot speak intelligibly about Hop tea for bittering. I have read somewhere that the sugars and other compounds are necessary to increase the extract potential but, cannot substantiate that.

I do have personal experience with Hop Tea for Aroma and Flavor as a replacement to Dry Hopping. While it does provide a much more intense experience (opiniatively) compared to dry hopping it seems to me that the tea technique doesn't have the staying power that dry hopping does. That is. the flavor and aroma fade much more quickly, IMO.

I will still use it exclusively, as I have issues with dry hopping kegs (to lazy to pull the hops) but I still think it's inferior in the long haul.

homebrewer_99

Recipes 

Freudian slip of the tongue...oops!!

__________________
HB Bill

beethirtyone

Recipes 

I am in the same predicament as the original poster. I'm surprised that there is no difinitive answer yet but it sounds like a good way to go would be to use 1 gallon boil volume, add some DME and boil the hops for 60 minutes? I don't want to add a lot of extra gravity to my already sweet beer, any idea what the minimum DME addition would be to ensure AA isomerization?

jtrainer

Recipes 

What I did earlier this year....

Brewed 10 gallons APA and hopped with magnum at 60 min for get 25 IBUs just to ensure there was something there and remain drinkable.... just in case.

I took 4 cps and froze it in a tupper ware container. Once the ferment was complete or maybe somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks the frozen wort was pulled and boiled up...

2 cups were poured in to a french press with 2 oz of Amarillo. Let rest 15 min and poured liquid off cooled and added to a fermenter.

I repeated the above with New Zealand Riwaka,

The results were a faint aroma and faint flavors I expect from these hops.

To do it again I'd save 6 cps wort per 5 gallons of wort. Infuse 1 oz hops in press for 5 min.... pour off, infuse again for 5 min pour off. Boil the next 2 cups with the hops from the press for 10 min. Pour over 1 oz of hops in the press for 10 min.... pour off to collection.... cool and pitch to fermented wort at 1 week.

I should note my APA hop tea goal is to make tasty APA with plenty of bitterness / flavor / aroma from 2 Oz of hops.

__________________
I brew the best beer around.... don't believe me, ship me a keg of your finest and I'll email a picture of me testing your beer with a write up....

OnTap: sCider (Hi-tess)
OnTap: Scale Fail Pale Ale
OnTap: Air
Fermenter:
OnDeck: J's Stout, Vanilla Porter, Js Pale Ale, Js Strong Ale, Js Vienna Lager
Most of J's Recipes here >>> Iron Pony Brewing