the juyce of hops

There is a pre-1669 recipe for a mead that includes "one measure of the juyce of hops"
What is hop juice??? For those that grow, how much liquid could you press out of freshly picked wet hops? Do you think you could squeeze out 4oz of liquid (2.5 - 3 shot glasses worth)?

Joose man... Joose. It's like... Drink. And stuff.

Assuming that "juyce of hops" means what you can squeeze out of a cone, let's figure it like this:

• From Hops Production, (Rybacek 1991): 100 fresh hop cones weigh 1.6 to 2.6 oz...we'll just say 2 oz.
• Cones are picked at 80% moisture content, meaning they are 4/5ths water
• 100 cones could yeild 4/5 x 2 oz = 1.6 oz of "hop juyce" if you were able to really squeeze the buggers

So in theory, you could get 4 oz with only 250 cones but you would need at least a 12:1 compression ratio to make sure you burst the lupulin glands to get out all the oils and alpha acids.

Of course, this assuming everything was perfect, which it never is, so let's figure you would need double that or about 10 oz to start.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Now let's do assumption #2, he's talking about the oils.

When we bring in our hops, we need to do analysis which includes boiling down the hops to extract the oils for measurement. I'm not a chemist nor do I do this part but I believe industry standard for many varieties is around 1.5 grams per 100 grams of hops.

Converting that to ounces, that means to get 4 ounces of oils, we would need to start with 267 ounces of hops.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Assumption #3, "Hop juyce" was actually some liquid produced by boiling the hops in water to isomerize the acids, extract the oils, and turn it into a liquid that could be easily stored for long periods of time. The more I think of it, this makes more sense. Instead of trying to store bales of hops in the back of my lagering cave or wherever, I just boil down the hops into a tea and store that bacteriostatic fluid in a barrel to add to my beer toward the end.

I'm not sure how thick of a tea they would make, so its hard to say how many hops would be needed.

I have no idea if they did this or didn't back then but it would be interesting to find out.

Where did that recipe come from and can you post more?

Be happy to!
It is from "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened"
The entire recipe is:
A Most Excellent Metheglin
Take one part of honey, to eight parts of Rain or River-water; let it boil gently together, in a fit vessel, till a third part be wasted, skiming it very well. The sign of being boiled enough is, when a New-laid-egg swims upon it. Cleanse it afterwards by letting it run through a clean Linnen-cloth, and put it into a woodden Runlet, where there hath been wine in, and hang in it a bag with Mustard-seeds by the bung, that so you may take it out, when you please. This being done, put your Runlet into the hot Sun, especially during the Dog-days, (which is the onely time to prepare it) and your Metheglin will boil like Must; after which boiling take out your Mustard-seeds, and put your vessel well stopped into a Cellar. If you will have it the taste of wine, put to thirty measures of Hydromel, one measure of the juyce of hops, and it will begin to boil without any heat. Then fill up your vessel, and presently after this ebullition you will have a very strong Metheglin.


The entire collection can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16441/16441-h/16441-h.htm


I'm thinking that juice of hops is a hop tea. But pressed hops is an option as well. I knew I could get some info here as to how much liquid could be squeezed from hops.

Good gosh, he has so many recipes for...mead, I presume. My favorite are the ones with titles like "ANOTHER RECIPE" or "AN EXCELLENT GOOD COLLOP". Its not just good, its not just excellent...its excellent good.

Halbrust said:

If you will have it the taste of wine, put to thirty measures of Hydromel, one measure of the juyce of hops, and it will begin to boil without any heat.

Click to expand...

This seems to indicate a sort of secondary fermentation taking place. Under that assumption, hop juice has to contain some sort of sugar. Maybe he means fresh wort?

Hydromel is a water/honey mix, so there's your fermentable.
I think the "juyce of hops" may be some kind of hop tincture...

Cheers!