Any Disadvantages in using the 'Hop Tea' Technique?

I've been reading about this tecnique because i feel it will help me hit the desired IBU easier than using the late malt additions.

However from what i read, theres really not alot feedback / testimonies on partial brewers using this technique, which leads me to the question: Is it popular among partial brewers? Is there any obvious disadvantage to using this method, that i'm missing?

And on a side note: If im brewing extract, since the wort is sanitized after 15-20 min into the boil, and since theres no hops in the wort... There really isn't a reason for me to boil the full hour is there?

I know it's probably a stupid question, it's just that when you're a noob, you feel the need to have every step validated by the experts. :cross:

And i can't believe i posted in the wrong sub-forum AGAIN.

I haven't ever tried the hop tea, but from what i've read, it is mostly used to extract the hop aroma and flavour, not bitterness (IBUs). Hops need to be boiled to isomerize the bitter resins.

I haven't tried it yet but I've been thinking about it. I think it should be used to replace aroma hop additions though and not necessarily bittering additions. From what I've read you still need to calculate your bittering based on boil time.

emoutal said:

I haven't ever tried the hop tea, but from what i've read, it is mostly used to extract the hop aroma and flavour, not bitterness (IBUs). Hops need to be boiled to isomerize the bitter resins.

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Yes, but if you boil the hops normally in clear water as you would in a regular wort wouldn't you get the necessary IBU's out aswell?

Wouldn't it also be easier to max out to the 90 IBU limit?

Off-topic: If possible, could a Moderator move this to the Beginners sub-forum?.

jcarson83 said:

I haven't tried it yet but I've been thinking about it. I think it should be used to replace aroma hop additions though and not necessarily bittering additions. From what I've read you still need to calculate your bittering based on boil time.

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Yeah, what i meant is boiling the hops the same way you would do in a normal wort.

i'm pretty sure you need the sugars in the malt in order to extract the bitterness. What you can do is add about half the extract at the beginning and then adding the rest during the last 10-15 mins. This is assuming you are doing a partial boil.

emoutal said:

i'm pretty sure you need the sugars in the malt in order to extract the bitterness. What you can do is add about half the extract at the beginning and then adding the rest during the last 10-15 mins. This is assuming you are doing a partial boil.

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See, i did not know this. I guess i got my hopes up with this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/hop-utilization-there-minimum-boil-volume-23308/index3.html and this post in particular:

If you are limited in your boil size, the simple thing to do is prepare a couple gallons of pre-bittered cooling water the night before. A half ounce of 12% Chinook in 1.5 gallons for 30 minutes will hit 90 IBU.

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Is this wrong, or am i just reading it the wrong way?

Also, in the Beersmith program, if you do the IBU calculations for a 1.000 (no sugars... right?) Gravity it will turn out a higher IBU extraction than in a wort with higher gravity.

this is beyond my knowledge. I don't have much experience and I was just repeating what I have read.

I'm sure someone else around here will be able to answer

emoutal said:

this is beyond my knowledge. I don't have much experience and I was just repeating what I have read.

I'm sure someone else around here will be able to answer

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Ok, thank you for your time anyway.

Noone? I'd think there would be an easy answer for this.

I recently experimented with making a hop tea for my Indian Brown Ale (OG 1.062, 60 IBU) that's conditioning at the moment. I read the other threads on hop tea, which indicated that 170F is the optimal temperature to extract maximum aroma with minimal bitterness.

So, I bought a french coffee press and followed the instructions. I boiling 8 cups of filtered water (the size of the coffee press), let it cool to 175F, and poured it into the coffee press. I then added 0.2 ounces of Casade hop pellets and let it sit for ~30 minutes. I then extracted the hop tea.

The tea was very aromatic (floral like) and had a very slight bitterness. It was a light green color and had tiny hop particles floating around the solution. I asked my girlfriend to taste it and she thought it tasted like unsweetened Earl Grey tea.

I added the cooled tea to my primary, along with gelatin to clear the tiny hop particles. It's cold crashing (50F) right now, but I'll give it a taste in a few more days when I rack.

Hop utilization maxes out around 90-100 IBU, so if you make a hop tea for bittering or do a small boil, you limit the IBUs of the final batch to a much lower level. As an example, 90 IBU in 1.5 gallons diluted to 5.5 gallons is 24 IBU.

If you can only do small boils, you can do late extract additions AND bitter your makeup water ahead of time.

My current batch of Porter, I boiled an ounce of Nuggett in 2 quarts of water for 5 minutes for aroma extraction. The hops then went into the boil for 60 minutes for bittering. I cooled the tea and added it to the fermenter. Only day 4 at this time.

david_42 said:

Hop utilization maxes out around 90-100 IBU, so if you make a hop tea for bittering or do a small boil, you limit the IBUs of the final batch to a much lower level. As an example, 90 IBU in 1.5 gallons diluted to 5.5 gallons is 24 IBU.

If you can only do small boils, you can do late extract additions AND bitter your makeup water ahead of time.

My current batch of Porter, I boiled an ounce of Nuggett in 2 quarts of water for 5 minutes for aroma extraction. The hops then went into the boil for 60 minutes for bittering. I cooled the tea and added it to the fermenter. Only day 4 at this time.

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So, i can use Hop tea for bitterness also right? (Presuming i'm boiling it like i would otherwise do in the wort.) Thats really what i want to know, I'm getting conflicting responses on this and need to know if this is doable and relliable.

I do know the theoretical limitations; My plan would be to boil X gallons for the bittering tea (maxing out the IBU's) and a wort boil of X gallons. So the estimated IBU would be around 45-50, which is perfect for the English IPA, i'm thinking of brewing.

That seems like a lot of extra work when all you need to do is add your hops during the boil.... I'm curious what benefit you see in this.

Well, i'm stuck with partial boils for now and so my only other option would be the late additions of malt extract.

The problem is, i'm having a bit of a hard time calculating the estimated IBU's of the wort using the late addition, and i don't want to get the IBU's wrong. That's the main reason.

MrShake said:

That seems like a lot of extra work when all you need to do is add your hops during the boil.... I'm curious what benefit you see in this.

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The benefit is an increased hop aroma that you can't achieve during the boil since the more volatile aroma oils are evaporated/decomposed at boiling temperatures.

The two options for achieving a strong hop aroma are (1) dry hopping or (2) hop tea. In my experience, dry hopping doesn't extract nearly as much aroma as making a hop tea does at 170F. Also, dry hopping results in a loss of wort due to hop expansion and more vegetal flavors. The vegetal flavors mellow out over time, but I don't have time!

I think he was refering to the bittering water method.

I've done this to a few IPA's, DIPA's, and Barleywines i've made and i didn't like it. Your much better off with dry hopping for great aroma. I mean it's much much better than hop tea from what i've done. I would boil longer for extra bitterness, add a little extra durring the last 15 minuets for flavor, or dry hop for aroma. The hop tea has added little aroma and added the risk of contamination, oxidation, and clogges the dip tube in the keg a lot more than dry hopping.

Endovelico said:

Well, i'm stuck with partial boils for now and so my only other option would be the late additions of malt extract.

The problem is, i'm having a bit of a hard time calculating the estimated IBU's of the wort using the late addition, and i don't want to get the IBU's wrong. That's the main reason.

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I believe you shouldn't have a problem doing this in Beersmith.

Endovelico, I haven't had any experience with this, so my information is purely academic. If I were you I'd try it and report back to let us all know! The thing about needing "sugars" or "malt extract" in the water being necessary for AA isomerization in my opinion sounds like BS. I would just use beersmith to figure out how much hops and for how long you should boil to get the IBU's you want. And yes, you are correct in not needing to boil the wort for the full 60 minutes since you're not hopping it. If you wanted some flavor/aroma you could hop the wort at the beginning and only do the 10/15 minute boil you're planning on.

I remember one thread where someones beer was too sweet, I forget why, maybe they measured the hops wrong. They made a hop bitter tea and added it to the keg and said the beer was much more balanced and were happy with the results.

Good luck!

JoMarky said:

Endovelico, I haven't had any experience with this, so my information is purely academic. If I were you I'd try it and report back to let us all know! The thing about needing "sugars" or "malt extract" in the water being necessary for AA isomerization in my opinion sounds like BS. I would just use beersmith to figure out how much hops and for how long you should boil to get the IBU's you want. And yes, you are correct in not needing to boil the wort for the full 60 minutes since you're not hopping it. If you wanted some flavor/aroma you could hop the wort at the beginning and only do the 10/15 minute boil you're planning on.

I remember one thread where someones beer was too sweet, I forget why, maybe they measured the hops wrong. They made a hop bitter tea and added it to the keg and said the beer was much more balanced and were happy with the results.

Good luck!

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Thank you very much for your time, you cleared some things up for me.

The "sugars being needed for IBU extraction" thing does sound like BS. I mean wouldn't Beersmith account for this? Even if the IBU extraction is calculated by using some mathematical distribution and the distribution is not valid for values above or bellow X, that would be pretty easy to hardcode into the source.

hammacks said:

I believe you shouldn't have a problem doing this in Beersmith.

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Well i did two separate IBU calculations: One for the first addition, and another for the second addition (taking into account a higher gravity). But i'm not entirely convinced of the accuracy of this. It feels like i'm dismissing some variables.

If your using beersmith your most accurate way is to just plug in the time that your going to add the bulk of your extract and let it calculate the ibu for you. I used to do this for all of my batches. As long as you have the correct times boil volume and final volume you will be good to go

Regarding the sugars for hop extraction I have read that in numerous places so I wouldn't just discount it. I think the reason software doesn't account for it is that the way it works is the mathematical formula is valid at a certain sg and below that the utilization drops in an unpredictable manner so it isn't mathematically representable.

Before I tried this I would look around for a late extract addition recipe that has you add none until the last 15 minutes. If it worked it I would think it would have been done during the hop shortage. That way you can see someone else's experience before spending your money.

As I read this thread I am drinking my first experiment with hop tea. I steeped 1oz of cascade in ~1 liter of hot water in a french press for ~30 mins and added the tea to my bottling bucket. As I now sip the finished brew I can tell you that the result is dramatic! I only used 3oz total in brewing this ale and then the 1oz tea at bottling and I got as much hop aroma and flavor as I get with dry hopping with double the hops. The hop tea technique saves me money and hassle.

I've done several hop teas in the past.

I do 1 hour boils starting with 1 gal of water. Most of the water evaporates off. I put the tea in at 1/2 cup intervals, slowly stir it in and sample.

You know it's good/close when you take a second sample without adding any more tea.

You can also buy hop extract and add it to a keg/fermenter without the additional water volume.

homebrewer_99 said:

.... I put the teat in at 1/2 cup intervals, slowly stir it in and sample.

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Okay, Okay, Okay TMI. Let's leave our SadoMasochistic tendencies out of the subject of brewing please. I mean, Ouch!


OP: I cannot speak intelligibly about Hop tea for bittering. I have read somewhere that the sugars and other compounds are necessary to increase the extract potential but, cannot substantiate that.

I do have personal experience with Hop Tea for Aroma and Flavor as a replacement to Dry Hopping. While it does provide a much more intense experience (opiniatively) compared to dry hopping it seems to me that the tea technique doesn't have the staying power that dry hopping does. That is. the flavor and aroma fade much more quickly, IMO.

I will still use it exclusively, as I have issues with dry hopping kegs (to lazy to pull the hops) but I still think it's inferior in the long haul.

Freudian slip of the tongue...oops!!

I am in the same predicament as the original poster. I'm surprised that there is no difinitive answer yet but it sounds like a good way to go would be to use 1 gallon boil volume, add some DME and boil the hops for 60 minutes? I don't want to add a lot of extra gravity to my already sweet beer, any idea what the minimum DME addition would be to ensure AA isomerization?

What I did earlier this year....

Brewed 10 gallons APA and hopped with magnum at 60 min for get 25 IBUs just to ensure there was something there and remain drinkable.... just in case.

I took 4 cps and froze it in a tupper ware container. Once the ferment was complete or maybe somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks the frozen wort was pulled and boiled up...

2 cups were poured in to a french press with 2 oz of Amarillo. Let rest 15 min and poured liquid off cooled and added to a fermenter.

I repeated the above with New Zealand Riwaka,

The results were a faint aroma and faint flavors I expect from these hops.

To do it again I'd save 6 cps wort per 5 gallons of wort. Infuse 1 oz hops in press for 5 min.... pour off, infuse again for 5 min pour off. Boil the next 2 cups with the hops from the press for 10 min. Pour over 1 oz of hops in the press for 10 min.... pour off to collection.... cool and pitch to fermented wort at 1 week.

I should note my APA hop tea goal is to make tasty APA with plenty of bitterness / flavor / aroma from 2 Oz of hops.

I am considering a hop tea to balance a beer that finished too sweet. I have some US Magnum. Say I wanted to add 5 IBUs to a 5 gallon keg. How would I determine how to make the tea?

I did this about a year ago with a christmas ale. I boiled some hops (I just used the 'feel' method, I felt how much I should use and added that much) in a french press for 60 minutes then added the water directly to the keg. It had the desired effect, the beer lost its cloying sweetness and regained it's balance, now if I could just figure out how to do the same thing with myself I could probably makes something of myself someday.

I found this equation Grams needed = (2 IBU x 23 litres x 10) / (5% alpha x 10% utilisation) @ http://www.absolutehomebrew.com.au/?page_id=28

The website gives all the details. I'll try it if the champagne yeast doesn't get my SG down enough.