smoked hops...

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roastglint

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Anyone use them? Anyone heard of them?. Never done any reasearch. Just sitting here drinking a beer waiting for my next hop addition when the thought of smoked hopps popped into my head. Smoked grain is a thing so why not hopps?
 
I wonder if the heat from the smoking process would damage them? Maybe not useful as a true hop addition, but maybe an interesting flavor addition?

I honestly have no idea.

would they just brown and burn?
 
I mean you can cold smoke them just like you cold smoke cheese. That would be probably the only way to do it. If no one knows anything about it maybe i'll try it out next brew. Maybe dehydrate/smoke some fresh hopps for an addition?
 
Seems interesting enough...

But, what would they REALLY add? I mean, if you want smoke flavor, why not just use those smoked grains? Or even wood/barrel aging?

I'm not saying don't try it, cause I'd be very interested in the outcome! Maybe a smoked hop dry hop addition?
 
*Channels Tommy Chong* I tried smoking hops once....seeing how they're related to cannabis....the coughing fit totally turned me off man! :drunk:

Cheesh And Chong.jpg
 
You could cold-smoke some fresh hops as part of the drying process. If you would do it before you dried them, they'd absorbe more smoke and be less harmed by the process, I think.
 
*coughing fit*It's....It's not bad man! :drunk:

Kinda grabs ya by the boo-boo, doesn't it? :D It does sound like cold smoking them to dry them would be the better route. They used to roast malted grains on either wood, straw or straw & wood fires in earlier centuries.
 
an interesting smash experment could be making a smash with smoaked grain and unsmoked hops and then unsmoked grain with hops smoked with the same wood as grain. see if the hops would bring a more delicate smoke flavor or equal or more harsh smoke.

i would think a cold smoke hop would bring less smoke to the party and thus would be a cool thing to play with in more delicate beer styles, but that is just a hypothosis
 
Keep in mind the REASON grain is smoked -- it's because drying malt requires heat, and a couple hundred years ago (and beyond) they had no way to separate the smoke from the malt like they do now. So there's a tradition of it (specifically, every beer on earth was smoked). Oh, and it works.

Doesn't strike me that getting your hops all wet then smoking them, then drying them in the oven, would be good for the hops. And you'd need to use a lot of hops to impart enough smoke flavor. (Note - if you try smoking the hops without wetting them first, you're wasting your time.)

I also wouldn't be surprised if you got some real harsh flavors from the smoking process due to the chemical reactions occurring during smoking.

And besides, what could you possibly gain from this? If it tasted any better than smoking the grain, breweries would do it.

I'd rate this Very Low Probability of Success. But heck, go for it!
 
Smoked hops, the new brewing fad...here we go. Makes me want to make a Smoked IPA now.

The idea sounds interesting, not sure what exactly would be gained from it.
 
Think about how much grain (10+ lbs) you use in a batch compared to hops (a few ounces). IMO the contribution will likely be minimal considering the relatively small amount of hops that are used in a batch.

I'd say try it, though. You never know.
 
Keep in mind the REASON grain is smoked -- it's because drying malt requires heat, and a couple hundred years ago (and beyond) they had no way to separate the smoke from the malt like they do now. So there's a tradition of it (specifically, every beer on earth was smoked). Oh, and it works.

Doesn't strike me that getting your hops all wet then smoking them, then drying them in the oven, would be good for the hops. And you'd need to use a lot of hops to impart enough smoke flavor. (Note - if you try smoking the hops without wetting them first, you're wasting your time.)

I also wouldn't be surprised if you got some real harsh flavors from the smoking process due to the chemical reactions occurring during smoking.

And besides, what could you possibly gain from this? If it tasted any better than smoking the grain, breweries would do it.

I'd rate this Very Low Probability of Success. But heck, go for it!

Why would the hops have to be wet? I smoke sea salt and don't have to wet it. Where would the harsh flavors come from? I smoke meat, fish, vegetables, cheese, fruit and salt and don't get harsh flavors. Maybe breweries don't do it because they think like you, nobody does it so it won't work. I say dry a gallon of your next batch and a side by side taste. If it doesn't work nothing lost. If it works in five years it will be the next Hot thing breweries are doing.
 
Why would the hops have to be wet? I smoke sea salt and don't have to wet it. Where would the harsh flavors come from? I smoke meat, fish, vegetables, cheese, fruit and salt and don't get harsh flavors. Maybe breweries don't do it because they think like you, nobody does it so it won't work. I say dry a gallon of your next batch and a side by side taste. If it doesn't work nothing lost. If it works in five years it will be the next Hot thing breweries are doing.

I was gonna say if your getting harsh smoke flavor your smoking wrong. Also you can smoke things like cheese and veggies so I dont see a problem with actually destroying or burning the hops. I'm just curious is the AA would get messed with or not. If i did it it would be a could smoke (about 150-200F). I just really figured someone had thought of or done this before....original thoughts are hard to come by these days lol.
 
Why would the hops have to be wet? I smoke sea salt and don't have to wet it. ..
You could smoke dry, but it won't work even remotely as well. Smoke deposition needs to have water available on the surface in order to condense effectively (refer to "Smoked Beers" by Ray Daniels). Even with "dry-grain" smoking, the grain is still wet, just to a lesser extent. So smoking hops dry will give very little smoke pickup, and since you'd be using fairly little hops anyway, you just won't get much smoke flavor into your beer. It takes a few POUNDS of wet-smoked malt for a smoked beer. A couple ounces of dry-smoked hops? Fuggetabouddit.

...Where would the harsh flavors come from? I smoke meat, fish, vegetables, cheese, fruit and salt and don't get harsh flavors. ...
Smoking is an incredibly complex set of chemical reactions, so who knows how all of those volatiles in the smoke might react with hop's acid compounds. May be bad, may be fine.
 
You could smoke dry, but it won't work even remotely as well. Smoke deposition needs to have water available on the surface in order to condense effectively (refer to "Smoked Beers" by Ray Daniels). Even with "dry-grain" smoking, the grain is still wet, just to a lesser extent. So smoking hops dry will give very little smoke pickup, and since you'd be using fairly little hops anyway, you just won't get much smoke flavor into your beer. It takes a few POUNDS of wet-smoked malt for a smoked beer. A couple ounces of dry-smoked hops? Fuggetabouddit.
I don’t have Ray’s book so I don’t know what he says. If he is telling you things have to be wet he would be wrong. You don’t need to wet the food, it’s the moisture in the smoke that condenses, this is how they make liquid smoke. If you can smoke grain why can’t you smoke hops? I don’t know the moisture content of grain but commercial hops are 10%, I don’t think grain is that high. Yes a couple of ounces of lightly smoked hops who knows. A couple ounces of highly smoked hops? Bada bing.

Smoking is an incredibly complex set of chemical reactions, so who knows how all of those volatiles in the smoke might react with hop's acid compounds. May be bad, may be fine.
I agree but you don’t know until you try.
 
I was gonna say if your getting harsh smoke flavor your smoking wrong. Also you can smoke things like cheese and veggies so I dont see a problem with actually destroying or burning the hops. I'm just curious is the AA would get messed with or not. If i did it it would be a could smoke (about 150-200F). I just really figured someone had thought of or done this before....original thoughts are hard to come by these days lol.

I don't know what would happen to the AA at that temp. I was thinking more like this where the temp would be closer to ambient temp 60 to 90F.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=320916
Now to build the prototype so I can sell them to Home Brew Stores. I can see it now. You go get your hops and they ask smoke or not smoked.:ban:
 
I don’t have Ray’s book so I don’t know what he says. If he is telling you things have to be wet he would be wrong. You don’t need to wet the food, it’s the moisture in the smoke that condenses, this is how they make liquid smoke. If you can smoke grain why can’t you smoke hops? I don’t know the moisture content of grain but commercial hops are 10%, I don’t think grain is that high. Yes a couple of ounces of lightly smoked hops who knows. A couple ounces of highly smoked hops? Bada bing. .
Ray is saying, and my experience shows this to be true as well, that the grains need some added moisture beyond what's typically in the grain. They just don't pick up much smoke flavor if they're bone dry.

Let's step back for a minute here. *What* you smoke probably isn't even relevant -- it's not like smoking your grain/hops/whatever creates some mystical new compounds unique to what you've smoked. Rather, it's a matter of collecting the smoke compounds and getting it into the beer. If you're going thru all this hassle of smoking your ingredients, why wouldn't you just use what you know will work? What could you possibly gain by using hops, seriously? You're not going to create some new flavor -- it's just smoke after all. There's no "smoked hop" flavor; it's just smoke.

But go ahead and smoke the hops, but you won't detect any smoke in the final beer unless you use a TON of those hops.
 
If you're going thru all this hassle of smoking your ingredients, why wouldn't you just use what you know will work? What could you possibly gain by using hops, seriously? You're not going to create some new flavor -- it's just smoke after all. There's no "smoked hop" flavor; it's just smoke..

If everyone thought like that nothing new would come out.
 
If everyone thought like that nothing new would come out.

There's nothing wrong with trying it, but there's pretty much no way that a smoked hop will add a flavor or aroma to a beer that can't be accomplished by using another smoked product.

By the way...smoked beers are awful.

:ban:
 
There's nothing wrong with trying it, but there's pretty much no way that a smoked hop will add a flavor or aroma to a beer that can't be accomplished by using another smoked product.

By the way...smoked beers are awful.

:ban:

Have you tried this

Hooka.png
 
The British beer company did a smoke infusion tasting event last night. My buddies went but I didn't. If I understand it correctly from the pictures they burned hops in something like a pipe, chilled the smoke and poured it into a pint then poured a beer in

Not necessarily the same idea as in this thread but something to think about
 
There's nothing wrong with trying it, but there's pretty much no way that a smoked hop will add a flavor or aroma to a beer that can't be accomplished by using another smoked product.

By the way...smoked beers are awful.

:ban:

I think a well-done smoked beer is quite tasty, actually. You just have to properly balance the smoke out with sweet malts and really, anything more than an ounce or two is too much.
 
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