ohad

Recipes 

Hi,
I've read some threads regarding the use of of a coffee French press in order to make a strong hop tea, to be added after the boil\fermentation.
Some threads say to put the hops in near-boiling water (or weak wort) and steep for an hour.
Now, I thought I might be able to save some hops by reversing this process - do a tea, let it steep, seperate hops from tea, add partialy used hops at the start of the boil, after cooling - add tea.

How will I be able to estimate IBU this way?
should this affect utilization at all? The only reason I see that could change utilization here is if the AA goes into solution and has to be boiled, but I think it is boiled while in the hop and becomes soluble only after it's boiled.

HairyDogBrewing

Recipes 

I use 1 pint of 170F water for 0.5 ounce hops for 15 minutes, then drain and repeat.
Some use hotter water, some add vodka.

I put the used tea hops in the refrigerator until I'm ready to boil the next batch.
I think I get some bittering from this, but I don't know exactly how many IBUs.
I also do first wort hopping, and I don't know the IBUs for that, either.

The alpha acids are not soluble in water.
A rolling boil is needed to isomerize them into iso-alpha acids.
So I think hop tea extracts hop flavor and aroma compounds, but not much bitterness.

I think your plan might work, let us know how it turns out.

ohad

Recipes 

So I have something here?

a few advantages I thought of:

1. less hops - less $$ per batch
2. less hops - less plant matter. When making a very hoppy beer the use of lots of hops puts more tannins into the beer.
3. less hops - less kettle trub. the hops (when using pellets like I do) are a main ingredient of the trub that causes beer loss when racking (also hops suck up wort).

I never thought I'd say this about my good friends the hops, but is it possible that less is more?!?!?

HairyDogBrewing

Recipes 

Here's a link for info on hop teas.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/big-hop-flavor-1-3-hops-55721/