I finally did it! It took a little longer than I hoped, (one stupid lack of foresight), but I'm quite pleased. It was a one hour mash and only a 20 min. boil. Chilling took a while though.
This is actually my second attempt at using hot oil to isomerize the AA in hops (and thus allow me to do only a 20 min. boil - pale malt was used to avoid DMS issues). My first attempt this Spring was battering and then deep frying hop pellets. The process worked fine, but when cleaning up I noticed that a lot of the bitterness ended up in the oil. I had hoped that the batter would not only keep the pellets together but also keep the AA in. My theory is simple chemistry. The hotter a reaction, the faster it occurs. If it takes ~1 hr to properly isomerize the AA @ 212 F, it should be a lot quicker at 350 F. For the deep fried hops I added them to the mash tun prior to added the grains. They were just floating there so I got out the stick blender and homogenized em up.
Now I know you all thinking, "What about all that oil??????" Humbug - better living through chemistry. I've been messing around with lecithin, an emulsifier, commonly purified from soybeans. I found that I could improve the head on a beer by putting a drop in the bottom of a glass prior to pouring a beer. Lecithin is not really water soluble and just kind of stuck to the bottom of the glass, but enough dissolved to make a difference in head formation and retention. So, to counteract the oil form deep frying I added some lecithin to the mash.
The deep fried pale ale turned out OK. Some of my friends really liked it, but I was disappointed in the lack of bitterness, since much of it appeared to have stayed in the oil. I had ZERO, NONE, NADA head formation/retention issues with this beer (now all gone) thanks to the lecithin.
So it ws obvious to me, that I would need to sautee the hops and add all of the oil to get the desired bitterness. So this past Saturday I did the next experiment - the Sauteed Hops Pale ale. One of my goals is to speed up the brewing process. And if frying hops weren't crazy enough, I decided to change yet another variable (As a scientist I know better, one should only change one variable at a time) and skipped the sparge and boiled the whole mash (with added water) and then drained it after only a 20 min. boil.
Yeah, nuts.
I set up a small pan with 3 Tbsp of canola oil and let it get hot and then added 17 gms of hop pellets (Nugget). These immediately absorbed all of the oil so I quickly added 3 more Tbsp of oil. The gave me a nice thinnish paste consistency I thought was good for the sautee. I cooked them for about 3 min. and then removed the pan from the heat. I did a quick little taste of the oil and man was it bittter!!!!! I thought I'd add the hops to the mash tun first and my mash water was up to temp., so I added the sauteed hops, oil and all, to the mash tun. I made a nice grey blob floating on top. That's the hops plus 6 Tbsp of canola oil. I added 2 Tbsp of liquid lecithin and gave it a good stir. The oil totally went into solution - no more slick! The lecithin did it's thing. Then I added the grain. No sign of any oil whatsoever. I had done a lot of stirring so my temp had dropped a bit so I had to apply more heat. It took about 10 min. to get back up to my target of 154 F. After a 1 hr mash I took off my mash tun's insulation and put it on my burner. (interestingly, the grains didn't settle like normal over the course of the mash, they were still up to the surface - 8.5 lbs grain in 3 gal).
I added 3 gal of hot water from my HLT and brought the whole thing, grains and all, to a boil (pH was in the desired range). As soon as it came to a boil I added some hops (Chinook), and then 15 min. later more hops (Cascade). The total boil time was only 20 min. Then stupid me, realized I had forgot one detail. I bring my pot back indoors and hook it up to my plate chiller like normal, and open the valve, only to see a big wad of grain go right into my plate chilller. Ooops, I had forgot about vorlaufing. (Idiot!!!!!) So I quickly dissamble the chiller and I re-plumb to voraluf mode and do a quick vorlauf (with the pump). Luckily a quick backflush and the chiller was fine. I quick also decided to use my hopback (w/Cascade) to act as another filter prior to the plate chiller. I get it all hooked back up and I'm in business. About halfway through it sticks on me - I had vorlaufed too long while getting the hopback set up - plus I meant to add some rice hulls but forgot. I unstick it, re-vorlauf and I'm back in business. I ended up with only 4 gal into the carboy - I should have added more water before boiling. Tasted pretty good. Definitely some bitterness in there. Pitched with a cake of White labs Pacific ale yeast. Was bubbling within 12 hrs. Has a nice 3" of krausen now.
So far there seems to be no issues with the oil and foam. I was a little concerned that the yeast might not like all that lecithin, but they seem to be happy so far.
This is actually my second attempt at using hot oil to isomerize the AA in hops (and thus allow me to do only a 20 min. boil - pale malt was used to avoid DMS issues). My first attempt this Spring was battering and then deep frying hop pellets. The process worked fine, but when cleaning up I noticed that a lot of the bitterness ended up in the oil. I had hoped that the batter would not only keep the pellets together but also keep the AA in. My theory is simple chemistry. The hotter a reaction, the faster it occurs. If it takes ~1 hr to properly isomerize the AA @ 212 F, it should be a lot quicker at 350 F. For the deep fried hops I added them to the mash tun prior to added the grains. They were just floating there so I got out the stick blender and homogenized em up.
Now I know you all thinking, "What about all that oil??????" Humbug - better living through chemistry. I've been messing around with lecithin, an emulsifier, commonly purified from soybeans. I found that I could improve the head on a beer by putting a drop in the bottom of a glass prior to pouring a beer. Lecithin is not really water soluble and just kind of stuck to the bottom of the glass, but enough dissolved to make a difference in head formation and retention. So, to counteract the oil form deep frying I added some lecithin to the mash.
The deep fried pale ale turned out OK. Some of my friends really liked it, but I was disappointed in the lack of bitterness, since much of it appeared to have stayed in the oil. I had ZERO, NONE, NADA head formation/retention issues with this beer (now all gone) thanks to the lecithin.
So it ws obvious to me, that I would need to sautee the hops and add all of the oil to get the desired bitterness. So this past Saturday I did the next experiment - the Sauteed Hops Pale ale. One of my goals is to speed up the brewing process. And if frying hops weren't crazy enough, I decided to change yet another variable (As a scientist I know better, one should only change one variable at a time) and skipped the sparge and boiled the whole mash (with added water) and then drained it after only a 20 min. boil.
Yeah, nuts.
I set up a small pan with 3 Tbsp of canola oil and let it get hot and then added 17 gms of hop pellets (Nugget). These immediately absorbed all of the oil so I quickly added 3 more Tbsp of oil. The gave me a nice thinnish paste consistency I thought was good for the sautee. I cooked them for about 3 min. and then removed the pan from the heat. I did a quick little taste of the oil and man was it bittter!!!!! I thought I'd add the hops to the mash tun first and my mash water was up to temp., so I added the sauteed hops, oil and all, to the mash tun. I made a nice grey blob floating on top. That's the hops plus 6 Tbsp of canola oil. I added 2 Tbsp of liquid lecithin and gave it a good stir. The oil totally went into solution - no more slick! The lecithin did it's thing. Then I added the grain. No sign of any oil whatsoever. I had done a lot of stirring so my temp had dropped a bit so I had to apply more heat. It took about 10 min. to get back up to my target of 154 F. After a 1 hr mash I took off my mash tun's insulation and put it on my burner. (interestingly, the grains didn't settle like normal over the course of the mash, they were still up to the surface - 8.5 lbs grain in 3 gal).
I added 3 gal of hot water from my HLT and brought the whole thing, grains and all, to a boil (pH was in the desired range). As soon as it came to a boil I added some hops (Chinook), and then 15 min. later more hops (Cascade). The total boil time was only 20 min. Then stupid me, realized I had forgot one detail. I bring my pot back indoors and hook it up to my plate chiller like normal, and open the valve, only to see a big wad of grain go right into my plate chilller. Ooops, I had forgot about vorlaufing. (Idiot!!!!!) So I quickly dissamble the chiller and I re-plumb to voraluf mode and do a quick vorlauf (with the pump). Luckily a quick backflush and the chiller was fine. I quick also decided to use my hopback (w/Cascade) to act as another filter prior to the plate chiller. I get it all hooked back up and I'm in business. About halfway through it sticks on me - I had vorlaufed too long while getting the hopback set up - plus I meant to add some rice hulls but forgot. I unstick it, re-vorlauf and I'm back in business. I ended up with only 4 gal into the carboy - I should have added more water before boiling. Tasted pretty good. Definitely some bitterness in there. Pitched with a cake of White labs Pacific ale yeast. Was bubbling within 12 hrs. Has a nice 3" of krausen now.
So far there seems to be no issues with the oil and foam. I was a little concerned that the yeast might not like all that lecithin, but they seem to be happy so far.
My wife however did grow up here, and is a PSU alumni. We met at MSU, then spent some time in CA and IN before ending up here
