"adding" bitterness after brewing - during fermentation

I brewed a beer using wild hops that I recently harvested near my place. I read a lot about wild hop AA% and presumed they should be 1.5 to 2.0%

I used 6 oz (!) of these hops in this beer. Hop aroma from the fermenter is very nice and interesting. Unfortunately, the beer is not bitter enough. I tried a sample....


I thought of "adding" some bitterness by making a hop tea from bittering hop pellets that I have (maybe target or magnum) and just tossing it in the fermenter... I thought of one cup of this tea....

Do you think this would work? Any suggestions? Thanks!

short of buying an extract, you can't really.

You can only really get about 100 IBU's out of hops. So, if you made a 1L hop tea, you'd hit that limit, even if you used a large amount of high alpha hops. Diluting 1L of 100 IBU tea into 20L of beer would add about 5 IBU's. Use more hop tea, and then you start diluting your beer noticeably.

prosper said:

short of buying an extract, you can't really.

You can only really get about 100 IBU's out of hops. So, if you made a 1L hop tea, you'd hit that limit, even if you used a large amount of high alpha hops. Diluting 1L of 100 IBU tea into 20L of beer would add about 5 IBU's. Use more hop tea, and then you start diluting your beer noticeably.

Click to expand...

but if I boil it for an hour?

400d said:

but if I boil it for an hour?

Click to expand...

There are also hop bitterness extracts you can get from various sources. ISOHOP is probably the most common one.

Wait until you carb it. That will boost the perceived bitterness.

Hop extract will work the best of the options.

The tea you propose could, theoretically, work. But why risk it? And it would be better to make it with wort, but you would be diluting it when you add it to the fermenter.

Or you could make a super hoppy beer with the same recipe and blend it.

suprchunk said:

Wait until you carb it. That will boost the perceived bitterness.

Hop extract will work the best of the options.

The tea you propose could, theoretically, work. But why risk it? And it would be better to make it with wort, but you would be diluting it when you add it to the fermenter.

Or you could make a super hoppy beer with the same recipe and blend it.

Click to expand...

what exactly is at risk if I decide to make this hop tea and just add it to the beer in the fermenter?

Oh I don't know, risk of:
Infection
Off flavors
A mishap
Bugs - but that usually only happens when you let your drunk brewing buddy 'wash' the bottles

Any number of things could potentially go wrong. But maybe I'm the only person who thinks putting extra stuff in when the wort is vulnerable is something to worry about.

suprchunk said:

Oh I don't know, risk of:
Infection
Off flavors
A mishap
Bugs - but that usually only happens when you let your drunk brewing buddy 'wash' the bottles

Any number of things could potentially go wrong. But maybe I'm the only person who thinks putting extra stuff in when the wort is vulnerable is something to worry about.

Click to expand...

sorry, but I'm kinda desperate, because I have a hopless beer and no other option but to do like I said. hm.... maybe I'll just buy this extract and wait for it....

thanks anyway. is there anybody there who tried hop extracts? any suggestions where to buy it online? what brands? thanks!

If you are going to boil the hop tea I wouldn't worry about infection. On the other hand, it might be easier to get some hop extract and add that.