I screwed up my hop tea.

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dipflop

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I brewed Northen Brewer's Double IPA tonight and I screwed up my hop tea. I added the first two hop additions into the hop tea and the last two into the wort. When i went to add the hop tea to the wort there was no tea, just wet hops (fyi i suck at explaining this). Not knowing what to do I poured a quart of water over the hops. Will I have any bitterness in this what so ever? Is there anything I can do now?
 
RDWHAHB

I am sure it will be fine. What do you mean by hop tea? I have never heard that term before.
 
How long were you cooking your hops with no liquid before you realized? Taste it when you take a hydro sample or transfer, you can always add more to the fermenters.

I think it should be ok, the bittering compounds were extracted by the water, but don't evaporate. So as long as you still had A LITTLE water in there, and the bittering compounds should be there still.

If you had no water left, you may have some FUNKY tasting hops on your hands due to them getting burned. Guess you'll need a little more water next time.
 
usnsti said:
RDWHAHB

I am sure it will be fine. What do you mean by hop tea? I have never heard that term before.

A hop tea is adding the first two hop additions in boiling water rather than the wort boil. The recipe calls for a hop tea because there would be a poor hop utilization with a partial boil since there is so much malt in the recipe, 12 lb LME.
 
ok i get it now. So I can see why you might be worried. Hopefully it turns out ok, let us know how it tastes.
 
You could have added your LME at the end of the boil and just hopped as you normally would per the recipe.

Can you post the recipe?

Hop tea's are usually added after the boil to bring the bitterness up from underhopping.

I've made several hop tea's. I start off with 1/2 gal of water and it reduces over the hour so water has to be added. If you use the reduced water the hops are more concentrated, which I think is a good thing, because you are not diluting your beer with more water.

Another thing about hops is if you double up on the hops you only need to boil the water for 1/2 hour to get the same amount of bitterness extracted.
 
Either you cooked off most of the tea or you didn't have enough water to start, but since the hops were still wet, the bittering isomers were probably still dissolved. The thing to remember, the max. IBU water can hold is around 90; then you dilute it. So, unless your tea batch is large you probably won't get the bittering you wanted.
 
Apparently a few HBS's are now selling kits that require you to make a hop tea rather than add hops to the boil. I suppose that allows them to get away with giving you less hops. What a copout.

FYI, a hop tea is a small volume of water boiled with hops, then added to the wort (or fermenting beer, depending on the application).
 
Specialty Grains


* 0.75 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
* 0.25 lbs. Briess Caramel 120

Fermentables


* 12 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup

Boil Additions


* 1 oz. Yakima Magnum (60 min)
* 1 oz. Liberty (30 min)
* 1 oz. Yakima Magnum (10 min)
* 2 oz. Northern Brewer (Leaf) (0 min)

Special Ingredients


* 1 oz. Cascade Hops (dry hop)

Yeast


* Wyeast #1332 Northwest Ale Yeast.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
I'm confused. What part of that recipe requires you to make a hop tea?

It called for boiling 2 quarts of water for 60 minutes and adding the first two hop additions to the water rather than the wort.
 
Hey, i just brewed the same exact kit last Wednesday. I ended up with the same problem, but not as extreme. It definitely tells you to make a hop tea. I was a bit confused by this as well, being that it was only my second batch. I started with alittle under 3 quarts, by the time 30 minutes was up, i knew my tea was going to be out of water by the time 60 minutes was up. I didn't know whether or not to add water in the middle of the boil, so i didn't. The end result was almost a paste. No burning, and alittle bit of water. I kept it stirred. Hopefully it works out ok.
Let me tell you one thing... It will be 7 days tomarrow and my is still bubbling away like nobody's business. (nice and steady at 68 degrees). Strangely, my original gravity was only 1.065, and was supposed to be 1.090. Maybe i didn't get an acurate reading....?? who knows. I will be racking to a secondary... well i was planning after 10 days. The way things look, it may be a bit longer. I hope this batch turns out as good as the first! Next is going to be a summer brew. Anybody have any recommendations? Something light, fruity, and refreshing??
Cheers!
 
ilikestuff said:
Taste it when you take a hydro sample or transfer, you can always add more to the fermenters.

:ban: You can always make more tea and adjust

Yuri_Rage said:
Apparently a few HBS's are now selling kits that require you to make a hop tea rather than add hops to the boil. I suppose that allows them to get away with giving you less hops. What a copout.

FYI, a hop tea is a small volume of water boiled with hops, then added to the wort (or fermenting beer, depending on the application).

It's also a technique discussed at length and practiced by members on several other forums (including NB's).. so it could also be viewed in a not so negative context.
 
If I made another batch of the hop tea (with more water of course) when would be the best time to add it? ASAP? once the krausen starts to fall a bit?
Thanks for all your help. This forum has been so informative for me.
 
Wait until you taste it, add a little, taste again, add a litlle more if needed. I would adjust as you are taking you hydrometer readings over the course of a few days. I doesn't really matter when, you just may want to make sure you don't add too much.
 
I realize this post is a little old but, when making hop tea you should always have another gallon or so of boiling water so that you can keep adding H2O to your hops while the water boils off. This will keep the "paste" effect from happening. :mug:
 

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