Absorbing 5 gallons of beer with dry hops?

This might be my next wildly wreckless beer project. I want to dry hop a 5gal batch so heavily that I literally just have a large wet bucket-shaped hop ball that I have to squeeze out into my bottling bucket.

Any guesses on how many pounds I'd need and how much bigger the bucket would need to be? I guess I could try it on a gallon first. But that reasonableness would just be foolish.

I suppose I could skip the aroma addition during the boil. Solid cost savings right there. lol

No comment, comment.

beerandloathinginaustin said:

This might be my next wildly wreckless beer project. I want to dry hop a 5gal batch so heavily that I literally just have a large wet bucket-shaped hop ball that I have to squeeze out into my bottling bucket.

Any guesses on how many pounds I'd need and how much bigger the bucket would need to be? I guess I could try it on a gallon first. But that reasonableness would just be foolish.

I suppose I could skip the aroma addition during the boil. Solid cost savings right there. lol

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I would figure you would need at least an 8-10g bucket, just to be sure and oh i would say start with 5lbs of Dry Whole Hops maybe 10, i will say this much, you would NOT have to worry about hop flavor or Aroma that is for sure! Oh ya also make sure you sanitize your arms all the way to your arm pits for when you have to squeeze out the liquid, after all you would want some funky are hair bacteria ruining your brew!

why wouldn't you just throw a hop pellet in your mouth every time you take a sip.... I don't know how much money you make, but this seems like a complete waste of money, not to mention a complete waste of a good (maybe) batch of beer

^ +1

Just dry hop it with half a pound of good hop pellets for a week. Good to go!

5-10 lbs of hops, minimum of $50 or (much) more into a single hopping addition -- fun idea, but a bit maddening. Start with a gallon, if you're serious.

Actually I'm in the early stages of putting together a homebrewing tv show involving some solid techniques along with utterly ill advised things. Admittedly, I'm deep into the homebrew tonight and thought this up earlier while squeezing the beer out of 4oz worth of dry hops.

If I try it I'll start with a gallon and I'll just order something like Cascade in bulk to do it. Probably make it a barleywine or DIPA just to try to stand up to the hops. LMAO. Like that's even possible.

just do a smaller batch then, save some of the good hops for the rest of the world, lol.


is this where all the Amarillo hops are going? lol

what you need to make is a 5gal version of one of these:


Wouldnt be that hard and in fact since you are pushing the limits on materials, you could build one out of acrylic pipe so you can see the pressing happening.

call a local metal shop and find out what the cost would be for a stainless steel mesh press. easy build and easy to clean.

I say try things to find out what happens. Hope its fun!

ignoring the financial constraints of this idea:

use a grape press. put everything in a pressing bag and then put it in a grape/cider press. it would provide you with filtration, and enough pressure to ensure beer extraction. aeration might be a problem though, but the same could be said for any other methods.

1.) Get one ounce of hops
2.) Take a dry weight
3.) Soak it in beer
4.) Remove hops
5.) Drip dry
6.) Take a wet weight

Now you know how much beer is absorbed into one ounce of hops. Divide 5 gallons by that amount to know how much hops to buy. Buy an additional 10% just to make sure.

beerandloathinginaustin said:

Actually I'm in the early stages of putting together a homebrewing tv show involving some solid techniques along with utterly ill advised things. Admittedly, I'm deep into the homebrew tonight and thought this up earlier while squeezing the beer out of 4oz worth of dry hops.

If I try it I'll start with a gallon and I'll just order something like Cascade in bulk to do it. Probably make it a barleywine or DIPA just to try to stand up to the hops. LMAO. Like that's even possible.

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Your show will be about "how to ruin a beer by oxidation and waste $100 of hops in one batch!" Remember that squeezing/splashing will ruin the beer, due to oxidizing it. You could make a big French press and do it under co2, though, if you actually wanted a drinkable product when done.

Yooper said:

Your show will be about "how to ruin a beer by oxidation and waste $100 of hops in one batch!" Remember that squeezing/splashing will ruin the beer, due to oxidizing it. You could make a big French press and do it under co2, though, if you actually wanted a drinkable product when done.

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Good point about the CO2 blanket.

You could experiment with CO2 vs O2 exposure to determine oxidation rates.

Yooper said:

Your show will be about "how to ruin a beer by oxidation and waste $100 of hops in one batch!" Remember that squeezing/splashing will ruin the beer, due to oxidizing it. You could make a big French press and do it under co2, though, if you actually wanted a drinkable product when done.

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I love the idea of a 5 gallon French press!

Why not just use a Randall machine like this one? 10" Hop Randall

All of the hoppy goodness with none of the oxidation!

I think a better experiment would be to see how many flameout/whirlpool hops it would take. This way the oxygen introduced would be consumed by the yeast during propogation.

IMO, I would do a IIPA in a big arse brewpot and add 3 pounds of whole hops at 3 minutes as the only addition. If the hops are hardcore like columbus, in a 10 gallon batch you would get around 100 IBU.....IMO, it would be a tasty experiment.

I recently did a 10 gallon batch with 16 oz of cascade at flameout and the whole hops consumed up about 1/3 the volume of the brew kettle after they expanded and absorbed wort. I used a sterilized colander and my mash paddle to "smash" the wort out of the hops and into the fermenter. I am anxiously awaiting this brew to finish up so I can taste the results.

It really isn't a waste of money , I buy my whole cone hops once a year from a place in Oregon (not hopsdirect) and if I order eneough, willamette, cascade and columbus come out at about $7 a pound.

Another option, just do it like they drink Yerbe Mate in Argentina. They have ss straws with a paddle shaped filter on the end and they pour the crushed tea leaves into the cup surrounding the ss straw. Next, they pour hot water over the tea leave and drink the tea through the straw. For your experiment pulvirize/grind hops and fill a glass with a stainer straw in it. Pour your beer over the hops and start sucking! Makes me think that girl drinking beer from a staw, in a recent thread, was onto something.

Nearly sprayed my computer screen with coffee when I read the OP in this thread. Seriously there are folks who make hop tea, but this would likely be far worse than that. It's all about balance.

Yes you could drink a cup of maple syrup, but it's better on a stack of pancakes. Well, try a couple hop plugs with one bottle if you really want to know...

Brew-Happy said:

what you need to make is a 5gal version of one of these:

Wouldnt be that hard and in fact since you are pushing the limits on materials, you could build one out of acrylic pipe so you can see the pressing happening.

call a local metal shop and find out what the cost would be for a stainless steel mesh press. easy build and easy to clean.

I say try things to find out what happens. Hope its fun!

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This looks pretty cool and I think I could make one pretty cheap too.

+1 on doing this with a 1 gallon batch and whole hops. WOuldn't cost me much of nothing to pick them straight off the vine in a 1 gallon container and siphon beer straight on top of it. Need to drink fast afterwards

Stevo2569 said:

This looks pretty cool and I think I could make one pretty cheap too.

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call a French Beer Press. lol

Yeah materials wise not hard at all. In fact could cut the top off a corny and make a stainless steel screen for pressing. All stainless press to make it easy to clean.

Use 5 lbs. pellet hops, don't secondary or filter--- go straight to the keg or bottle and then have fun picking the hop crap out of your teeth. Oh and get ready to puke, cause it's coming !

This is a gag I know but "come on man". LOL !!

Did you ever try this? I'm curious if it was drinkable. I figure there's a maximum absorption rate that would make it so this could be tolerable.

scooterunderwood said:

Did you ever try this? I'm curious if it was drinkable. I figure there's a maximum absorption rate that would make it so this could be tolerable.

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My guess is that once he saw how much it would cost just to ruin 5 gallons he probably chose not to.

EROK said:

Use 5 lbs. pellet hops, don't secondary or filter--- go straight to the keg or bottle and then have fun picking the hop crap out of your teeth. Oh and get ready to puke, cause it's coming !

This is a gag I know but "come on man". LOL !!

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Go for the keg. Instead of a pint glass, serve it in a soup bowl and call it Hopspacho.