Clintron3000
Member
OK, so I did a quick search and didn't come up with anything, but maybe I'm not asking the right questions.
So I did an IPA that turned out fantastic, but when bottling, I drew off a couple of bombers separate from the rest of the batch and did a little experiment...
I took an ounce of glacier hops that I had leftover and boiled them in a cup or two of water on the stove for about 30 minutes.... allowed to cool, then added a little of the "hop tea" to the bombers to top them off then closed them up. The idea was to add some additional bitterness.... although, Glacier is a low alpha hop, and the boil was only 30 minutes I figured it would be a good starting point to begin to dial it in.
On comparison a few weeks later, these experimental bombers actually tasted thinner than the others I'd bottled and didn't really exhibit any GOOD extra bitterness. Just a little subtle "something" in the mouth... not unlike the effect after eating a mint. But really subtle.
I assume the thinness was from the additional water... I basically just watered down the beer. I've not tried it again since, but I am just curious if anyone else has experimented with this... or sees a problem, or even a better way of adding bitterness after the boil and fermentation has taken place?
Edit: I am sure I'll get responses like: "well just add them at the boil, why bother doing it later?" So to nip that in the bud: this was an experiment just to see what was possible. And to see if when trying a new home-spun recipe, one could massage the result a little and improve the recipe accordingly next time around.
So I did an IPA that turned out fantastic, but when bottling, I drew off a couple of bombers separate from the rest of the batch and did a little experiment...
I took an ounce of glacier hops that I had leftover and boiled them in a cup or two of water on the stove for about 30 minutes.... allowed to cool, then added a little of the "hop tea" to the bombers to top them off then closed them up. The idea was to add some additional bitterness.... although, Glacier is a low alpha hop, and the boil was only 30 minutes I figured it would be a good starting point to begin to dial it in.
On comparison a few weeks later, these experimental bombers actually tasted thinner than the others I'd bottled and didn't really exhibit any GOOD extra bitterness. Just a little subtle "something" in the mouth... not unlike the effect after eating a mint. But really subtle.
I assume the thinness was from the additional water... I basically just watered down the beer. I've not tried it again since, but I am just curious if anyone else has experimented with this... or sees a problem, or even a better way of adding bitterness after the boil and fermentation has taken place?
Edit: I am sure I'll get responses like: "well just add them at the boil, why bother doing it later?" So to nip that in the bud: this was an experiment just to see what was possible. And to see if when trying a new home-spun recipe, one could massage the result a little and improve the recipe accordingly next time around.