Warm Dry Hop

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cheezydemon3

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As a chef. I usually "toast" many herbs and seeds. Not to caramalize the outside, but to activate the essential oils within.

In transferring my latest IPA to secondary, and intending to rack it onto 2 oz of Glacier for dry hopping, I had an urge......

I boiled the 2 oz of hops in 10 oz of water, just to heat it through, not to sanitize.

It just seemed right.

I placed the 10 oz or so of hop soup into my secondary and racked on.

I will report the results....


11 lbs pale 2 row
1 lb crystal 40L
1 lb caramunich
4 oz roasted
3 oz black malt (de-bittered)

1 oz Glacier 60 min
1 oz chinookm 59 min ;)
1 oz glacier 30 min

2 oz dry tea hopped......
 
I bet the difference in flavor will be similar to adding fresh basil to a saute dish and tossing before plating vs. sprinkling a healthy amount over the top of the finished product. I wanna know if hops act like a robust, earthy herb like thyme or a bright, sharp herb like cilantro. Let us know how it goes.
 
Your results will be similar to a flame-out add. No matter how short the boil, you'll lose the most volatile oils.
 
The reason you are toasting your nuts IS because you want to get the Maillard reactions on the outside which create more complex aromas and flavors. Heat your nuts in the microwave...it's most certainly not the same. Heating does allow us to better smell the volatile oils in foods though, which is a reason we tend to prefer warm food. With dry hopping, you are using the alcohol in the beer to leech the oils out of the hops, and you are relying on carbonation to carry the oils to the nose when you pour.
 
But wouldn't heat loose even more oils?

You mean "lose?" Yes. That's why you don't want your aroma hops to be heated much. Heat kills volatile aroma oils in hops. Now, if you were serving hops to eat in your restaurant (if people ate hops), you might heat them just before service, but this makes no sense with beer.

A good food analogy might be cilantro. You almost never cook it. It is mostly served cold or on top of warm food at the last minute. Why? Cooking cilantro drives off the oils that make it smell wonderful and it just ends up tasting like soap (to some people).
 
I kid, of course.

For what it's worth, after thinking about this for a while, I decided to try something when I dry hopped a batch last week.

I filled a bowl with hot tap water (122F) and put two ounces of hops in the water and let them soak for 15 min. I left them sealed in the packages. My thinking was that gently warming them up before using them would sort of activate the aromatic oils. In keeping them dry while doing this, I thought I might avoid some of the harsh, grassy flavors that some people report when making hop teas and whatnot.

I bottled this brew on Sunday and it smelled and tasted great. Without a control to compare it to, I'll never know for sure if this has a positive effect. I'll wait and see how it tastes when conditioned. However, this was such an easy step to add, I'll probably keep doing it.
 
There might be a problem with hot tap water containing bacteria from the water heater, but I doubt it.
 
I left the hops sealed in the packages so the hops themselves never touched the tap water. So really i used dry heat to warm them up. I'd considered throwing them in the microwave for a few seconds or warming them in a pan but both options made me too nervous. This was a painless, mess free way to get them warmed up after spending a few weeks in the freezer. Like I said, I don't know for sure how much of, if any, positive effect this has. The hops did seem a lot more aromatic when I opened the packages than they do when I just let them sit out of the freezer for a few hours before hopping. However, I didn't do a side by side so that's just anecdotal.
 
I left the hops sealed in the packages so the hops themselves never touched the tap water. So really i used dry heat to warm them up. I'd considered throwing them in the microwave for a few seconds or warming them in a pan but both options made me too nervous. This was a painless, mess free way to get them warmed up after spending a few weeks in the freezer. Like I said, I don't know for sure how much of, if any, positive effect this has. The hops did seem a lot more aromatic when I opened the packages than they do when I just let them sit out of the freezer for a few hours before hopping. However, I didn't do a side by side so that's just anecdotal.

....seriously????lol. I wouldn't imagine they would stay warm after going into the wort.;)

I boiled maybe 3 cups water, let it cool to 160 or so, soaked the hops in the hot water, dump in secondary.
 
I guess they stayed warm just a little less time than yours did. ;)

How did your method turn out?

Is that still how you add hops to the fermenter?

With how hard it is becoming to get some of my favorite aroma hops at a decent price (or at all), I've been interested in ways to maximize my dry hop additions.
 
I guess they stayed warm just a little less time than yours did. ;)

How did your method turn out?

Is that still how you add hops to the fermenter?

With how hard it is becoming to get some of my favorite aroma hops at a decent price (or at all), I've been interested in ways to maximize my dry hop additions.

I actually steep them for 10 min or so covered, but not boiling, not fermenting, and get tons of aroma from it.

Warm WET (dry) hopping might extract a hint of betterness, but probably not.

Re-using those hops from secondary for bittering are unquestionably the way to recycle.
 
Well that was what I was waiting to hear from you and the reason I responded to this thread. I had been thinking about steeping the hops in hot water and then adding the fluid and hops to the fermenter. All I seemed to come across were people warning not to do this so I wanted to hear how well it worked for you.

You say that you recycle your dry hops for use as bittering. To do this you must be bagging your dry hops. Right?

If so, I'm interested in the technique you use to get them into the bag while still using the hoppy liquid.
 
Well that was what I was waiting to hear from you and the reason I responded to this thread. I had been thinking about steeping the hops in hot water and then adding the fluid and hops to the fermenter. All I seemed to come across were people warning not to do this so I wanted to hear how well it worked for you.

You say that you recycle your dry hops for use as bittering. To do this you must be bagging your dry hops. Right?

If so, I'm interested in the technique you use to get them into the bag while still using the hoppy liquid.

I have NOT done that, I merely said that it would be the best way to cut costs and recycle.

If I was to do it, I would syphon my fermented beer off of the hops and toss them straight into the boil.

Saving them, even frozen sounds iffy for some reason.
 
Yeah. It wasnt until I attempted your wet dry hopping method yesterday that I realized how dumb of a question that was.

I dont know what i was thinking because there would be no way of bagging two ounces of hop sludge.

Im interested to see how this method turns out in a batch of Two Hearted. It smelled good right before I plopped it in to the fermenter.
 
Although, I suppose a person could bag the hops dry, steep them in the hot water, & then dump the whole mess into the fermenter if he/she is intent on bagging dry hops.
 
Although, I suppose a person could bag the hops dry, steep them in the hot water, & then dump the whole mess into the fermenter if he/she is intent on bagging dry hops.

......seal the hops in a bag and put the sealed bag in the fermenter?
 
I've been dry hopping in mesh bags because I was using whole hops and they don't like to sink. The mush from the warmed hop pellets sank after 5 days so no need when using this method with pellets. Just bottled the batch of Two Hearted clone. Smelled great! Love those Centennial!

:mug:
 
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