Alternative to Pelletizing Home Hops

Until Recently, I've written off the idea of growing hops at home because I really prefer pellet to whole hops. Pellet hops just work much better with my system. So after researching pelletization of homegrown hops, it seems that such a process would not be feasible but I'm looking at an alternative.

What we really want out of a hop cone is the yellow lupulin powder, and I notice that much of this powder falls out (all over my hands, etc.) when handling hops. Why not dry our home-grown hops as normal and then attempt to separate the lupulin from the rest of the cone. A possible methodology would be to cut the bottom off a bucket and replace it with a sieve of some sort with a receptacle to catch the good stuff.

As far as usage of lupulin powder, one could weigh the hops before and after lupulin extraction. I'm not sure how well lupulin stores.

Anyone tried this or have some idea whether or not it would work?

My reason for why it would not work is that although you get some powdery residue from the cones, it would be impossible to get a high percentage of the stuff from to separate.

What is it about your system that makes whole hops such a bother? It might be easier to modify it, than to invent a homemade device that would only extract a small percentage of the value of the hops.

Lupulin isn't just a ball of stuff stuck to the hops that falls right off. There is quite a bit of it spread all across the surface of the cones, and pretty much impossible to extract mechanically.

Also, I suspect, with no proof to back it up, that the green part of the cone contributes to the subtle aroma or flavor as well.

If it were possible to extract the essential oils and lupulin that easily, I would imagine that the brewing industry already would have developed a technique for it. It would be way cheaper for hops suppliers to have some kind of processing facility for that on-site and then just ship the extract than to pay to ship tons of hop leaves or pellets.

As for the question of how much powder will be lost in the transfer, I won't know till I try it. But I do have reasonable expectations because of the large pile of yellow powder that accumulates at the bottom of backs of hops.

The thing about my system that makes it difficult for me to use whole hops is two-fold: 1) on highly hopped beers (i.e. more than 6 oz) most of the hops float on the surface and I feel I don't get proper utilization, 2) whole hops soak up wort and clog up my racking cane, both of which make it difficult to leave hot/cold break in the kettle.

How do you deal with those pesky whole hops?

I think a better solution then trying to extract the lupin would be simply to powderise (from a lack of a better word) whole dry cones. After all, pellets are simply powderised dry hops, pressed into pellets. Once you throw them into water they become powderised again. Therefore I think you could just throw dry whole hops into a blender, powderise them, and store them and use them that way. I never tried it, but IMO I can't see why it wouldn't work.

Seems like thousands/millions have brewed before with whole leaf hops and for the most part is works pretty well. Stick them in a nylon bag that is extra large and gives them room to float around. Pellets on the other hand are a no go for me.

some hop hash anyone????

Scooby_Brew said:

I think a better solution then trying to extract the lupin would be simply to powderise (from a lack of a better word) whole dry cones. After all, pellets are simply powderised dry hops, pressed into pellets. Once you throw them into water they become powderised again. Therefore I think you could just throw dry whole hops into a blender, powderise them, and store them and use them that way. I never tried it, but IMO I can't see why it wouldn't work.

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That's a good idea, and has a better chance of working than mine. I'm thinking of using a coffee grinder, perhaps even on brew day. I bet that'd work.

samc said:

Seems like thousands/millions have brewed before with whole leaf hops and for the most part is works pretty well. Stick them in a nylon bag that is extra large and gives them room to float around. Pellets on the other hand are a no go for me.

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That's a good point too. I use a 5 gal paint strainer bag from the Home Depot. They last for ever and are reusable. I use whole hops, because pellets would clog my counter-flow chiller.

It is undeniable that whole hops have worked for 10,000 yrs or so, but how do you keep them circulating throughout the wort? Maybe I should just boil harder. And I lose more than a gallon of wort if I use 7 oz of whole hops. Am I the only one with these issues?

To explain more clearly from my previous post, the bag I use is the largest size that Northern Brewer sells and it allows my hops to freely circulate the entire keggle. With a vigorous boil they circulate, get wort-logged and drop. The advantage of the bag is if you so choose you can pick the bag up at end of boil and squeeze out some of the wort - HOT very very HOT. You can wait to the wort cools, just sanitize your tools or hands for this. It's not like squeezing grain so you don't have the tannin issues and as far as I know you only wind up squeezing out some trub and break materials.

My neighbor did this on the end of one of our split batches and his beer did not suffer from doing this.

Just buy a cheap coffee or spice grinder and grind as needed. I'd store them whole to help minimize oxidation. Should work just fine and if you don't grind too fine you should be able to use hop bags to catch most of the particulates.

I used the coffee grinder method and it worked great. The hops swirled nicely throughout the boil, and their remnants didn't clog my autosiphon.

Bingo...that's perfectly fine way to do it.

Grinding it up does 5 things for the commercial growers/brewers:
1 significant decrease in storage volume (main reason)
2 Allows it to be pelletized for easier handling
3 reduces the mess in the bottom of the brew kettle and lost wort
4 Allows easier blending so batches of the same variety from different fields can be blended to get a desirable alpha acid instead of brewers needing to redo their calcs every year.
5 Hides stems, leaves and ugly cones that may have made it through the separation process.

The reasons we pelletize is, again, for handling and to reduce oxidation. The compact pellet form keeps oxygen from reaching the center of the pellet. But if you are grinding and then vacuum sealing it in individual use bags, it is the same thing. Just figure out your recipes and vacuum pack the ground up hops in 1, 2, etc. oz packages.

The only downside to a powder over a pellet is the pellets will sink and break up where as the powder will tend to float. Not a problem during the boil but you may need to stir it if dry hopping.

So much for the KISS method...

mew said:

It is undeniable that whole hops have worked for 10,000 yrs or so, but how do you keep them circulating throughout the wort? Maybe I should just boil harder. And I lose more than a gallon of wort if I use 7 oz of whole hops. Am I the only one with these issues?

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We all share these issues, and generally pellets work better with IIPAs for the beginning additions. You can't match the nuances of whole hops in late additions, but I digress.

With a vigorous boil and a gentle stir (i.e. the long stainless spoons that they sell at the lhbs) they'll settle in, even the flameout additions. They'll soak in during cooling. And we all deal with wort absorbtion. You'll have to scale up the recipe a bit when using all whole hops. It is always recommended that homegrown hops be used for only late addtions anyways since AA% can't be detirmined. Just grow the varieties that you like to dry-hop with or add late in the boil and use pellets for the rest of the additions.

As far as your siphon goes, you can wrap the end in cheesecloth or something similar to keep them from entering the tube and shutting off flow.

mew said:

It is undeniable that whole hops have worked for 10,000 yrs or so, but how do you keep them circulating throughout the wort? Maybe I should just boil harder. And I lose more than a gallon of wort if I use 7 oz of whole hops. Am I the only one with these issues?

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Actually just a thousand years.

And you hit it, my boil does keep them rolling back into the wort. I imagine I do lose quite a bit of wort but I love what a great filter bed leaf hops make. Granted, I do 5 G batches so I am actually able to pick up the whole kettle and pour the contents through a mesh colander lined funnel into my carboy. The pouring does a great job of oxygenating while the hops filter nicely.