pre-soaking hops to deter wort absorption

hey everyone,

So, it can always be a pain trying to do the math to figure out how much extra grain to buy and water calculations to make up for the wort absorption by hops when making IPAs and other wonderfully hoppy concoctions.

So, I am curious, if you soaked hops even at room temp for say 15-20min before adding them to the boil (or even secondary since most likely infection wont occur due to hops natural antimicrobial abilities), would that keep from from absorbing wort? (at room temp, the hops shouldn't lose

I am not talking about soaking them in a large vessel either, say just like the absorption rate most people use, soak the hops in about .5-.75qt/oz. That way you don't strain the hops out or worry about AA or bittering loss since the hops shouldn't have left much water and you could pitch the whole thing into the boil.

I did a quick search and didn't find much on this, but I am sure someone would have had to try it by now. Please let me know what you think. If no one has done it, I might try it with my next hoppy beer.

Thanks
Kyle

I never heard of doing a 'pre-soak' for hops, I would think you would loose some of the bitterness you are looking for. I would stick with normal additions during the boil, to extract all of the alpha acids, but you may want to consider making a 'hop tea' for your secondary since you are only gaining the aroma.

Don't see how this really helps. The hops don't have a way of holding on to only the H20 while in the BK. They will wind up with wort that has been ever so slightly diluted by the additional moisture you have introduced.

I'm no scientist but at least that's the way it makes sense to me. I also agree you would be losing some of the hop bitter and flavor in the soaking water.

And finally with brewing software, purchased or used online for free it's a pretty simple matter to up your recipe by any amount you want with the click of a button.

During the hop crisis of '08 many folks were using their used dry hops for their bittering additions to save a few bucks. What you lose when dry hopping/soaking is the aromas. Boiling is needed to extract the bitterness. So presoaking your bittering additions shouldn't be an issue. I just don't know if it's going to do what you want it to do.


Edit-
Ironically in another thread someone posted this thread from '08 about re-using your dry hops. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/how-account-aa-when-re-using-hops-dry-hopping-53332/

LOSE not loose. Sorry.

It would be just as easy to add a cup of water to the finished beer to make up for the volume you lose.

Sorry about that cheezy...typing fast on my lunch break! Lots to do...

"Boiling is needed to extract the bitterness. So presoaking your bittering additions shouldn't be an issue."

No it won't extract bitterness, but it could separate the Lupulin from the cone and leave you with less bitter hops. Never done it but you surely can tell by looking at the bottom of a bag of hops for the yellow powder that remains.

samc said:

"Boiling is needed to extract the bitterness. So presoaking your bittering additions shouldn't be an issue."

No it won't extract bitterness, but it could separate the Lupulin from the cone and leave you with less bitter hops. Never done it but you surely can tell by looking at the bottom of a bag of hops for the yellow powder that remains.

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So what?

The OP is not suggesting seperating the hops from the soak water. He is actually suggesting that it all be pitched into the boil.


OP. YES. pre-soaking the hop will mitigate absorption via re-hydration of the material but, physics will balance the world back out in the kettel as the sugars re-distibute to maintain a solution. So, all you would be doing is diluting the wort which is NO DIFFERENT than accounting for the volume loss after the boil UNLESS you guess right enough pre-boil to get your system dialed in.

But, here is the thing about brewing VOLUME is less important to the style than the post boil gravity. If the gravity is right after the boil then the balance you calculated for with the hop charge will be reasonably accurate. Any volume compensation not considered in the boil will only serve to vary the BU:GU ratio post boil.

Make any sense?

KyleWolf said:

hey everyone,

So, it can always be a pain trying to do the math to figure out how much extra grain to buy and water calculations to make up for the wort absorption by hops when making IPAs and other wonderfully hoppy concoctions.

Click to expand...

I have never even thought about this, because I use a brewing software to tell me how much water to use at dough-in and sparge. If you are doing all this by hand for every brew, you must not be aware of how cheap and easy brewing software is to buy and use. Your IBU's from each addition, water volumes and beer color are done for you. You are making this way harder than it needs to be.

Check out Beersmith and Promash.

ShortSnoutBrewing said:

Sorry about that cheezy...typing fast on my lunch break! Lots to do...

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Lol, wouldn't have said anything but it wasn't just you.

IT WAS RAMPANT!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

cheezydemon3 said:

Lol, wouldn't have said anything but it wasn't just you.

IT WAS RAMPANT!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

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Buncha loosers they are.

HenryHill said:

I have never even thought about this, because I use a brewing software to tell me how much water to use at dough-in and sparge. If you are doing all this by hand for every brew, you must not be aware of how cheap and easy brewing software is to buy and use. Your IBU's from each addition, water volumes and beer color are done for you. You are making this way harder than it needs to be.

Check out Beersmith and Promash.

Click to expand...

It isn't the math as far as gravity, color, IBU, etc. etc. I am really talking about. I use BeerSmith. What I am saying is the amount of change to your recipe (which beersmith doesn't account for in my experience) that will be required to actually have the 5.5gal of beer beersmith originally calculated.

Meaning you have to increase both your water and grain bill in order to compensate for the loss due to hops. Basically, I am saying, I don't like the idea that if I wanted to make a beer using, say 12oz of hops (my little maharaja clone uses just that), and I wanted a final volume of 5.5gal, and had a boil off rate of 1 gal/hour for a 60min boil, pre-boil, I would have to have 8gal of wort at the same gravity as what beersmith would tell me I had if I made this at a 6.5gal pre-boil. which means you would also have to purchase enough extra grain to compensate for the extra 1.5 gal of beer.

However, I do believe the people here are correct, after thinking about it, the water would most likely just be transiently replaced with wort and all I would be doing is diluting my wort/beer and screwing up my gravity.

Well that answers that question. Thanks for the info.