hop tea with beer instead of water to dry hop in keg

[rshortt]

Hey all, I have a keg of ESB that could use some dry hopping. I've read about making a hop tea with boiling water in a french press. Doing it this way I'd add almost a litre of water, diluting my beer. I was thinking of dispensing the same amount of beer from the keg, and heating it up on the stove for the hop tea that would go back into the keg (or fermenter in other cases).

Does anyone see a problem with that?

Thanks!

 

[Skyforger]

I suspect you wouldn't get the same degree of flavor. Beer will resist taking on new aromas more that water. Not sure if it's to the degree that it would make a practical difference.

Anyways, I think heating the beer on the stove would change the flavor of the beer substantially. You'd be diluting the main batch with that. It would be less of a change, probably, but still a change.

I think the conventional dry-hopping method is is pretty elegant. Is there a reason you don't want to go that way?

 

[rshortt]

My only concern was diluting my beer.

I was also wondering if heating / cooking the beer would change it in any way. It my loose some alcohol if boiled. I was thinking since the wort has already been cooked it might not change much; then again there's yeast in it now.

 

[edecambra]

forget the tea and just throw the hops in.

 

[iijakii]

forget the tea and just throw the hops in.

That's what I'd do.

Also, maybe you could infuse some vodka instead of water/beer if you're wanting to experiment. I'm sure someone here has done it before if you want to search.

 

[LKABrewer]

I would think trying to make hop tea out of beer would oxygenate the beer, giving much more off flavors than water. My $.02.

 

[terrapinj]

i thought hop tea is usually added to help with bitterness

if you want to DRY hop for aroma put the hops in Dry

 

[rshortt]

I am after flavor and aroma. I think you'd need to boil to extract much bitterness. Anyhow, I made a hop tea with water in a french press and dumped it all into the primary. On another batch I did the same with leaf hops in a nylon bag and dumped into a keg.

I did one on Saturday, other on Sunday, trying to wait until this weekend to sample them.