Hop Hash vs Hop Pellets Experiment

So I have 10oz of Citra Hop Hash and would like to brew something to compare pellets and the hash. I am set up to brew 10 gal batches so was favoring the idea of doing an experiment where i could stick to one brew and split at end of boil into two 5 gallon batches. Here is what I am thinking. Open to changes or other ideas. I can then report back (happy to share the beer for feedback if your close).

Thinking of doing a Zombie dust malt bill. Bittering hop with something nuetral (warrior) maybe a small amount of another hop (amarillo, mosaic?) During boil, at end of boil transfer half to another pot for flame out and/or whirlpool additions of pellets in one and hash in the other and then dry hop with hash/pellets.

I am wanting to make a beer i hope to really enjoy and highlight the differences. Not looking to do SMaSH brewing or anything along those lines.

Thoughts?

 

It would be easier to do the experiment with dry hops. IMO, dry hops make a huge contribution to flavor and obviously aroma too.

Brew 10 gallons of the beer, then into seperate 5 gallon fermenters. Dry hop one with the hash and the other with whole pellets. Compare.

 

This. Keep the malt bill simple as heck, maybe smash. Clean yeast like 1056

 

I am thinking it would be fun to do more than just the dry hop. I like the info gained from SMaSH beers just not a fan of having 10gal of it. I am thinking i will probably use WLP090 as i have a bunch of vials frozen already.

Has anyone used the hop hash before? How did you use it and how did it come out?

 

I added 1 ounce (of 6 total DH ozs used) of Centennial hash to a Simcoe single hop DIPA & so far I'm not thrilled. Dirty, earthy taste

 

There are links to similar threads at the bottom of this very page.

 

Have you even read them? There is virtually no useful info in them at all.

 

Well this doesnt have me very optimistic. At least i will have another keg of just pellets. There are other threads I have read but not a lot of useful info and no direct comparisons that I saw (maybe i missed some) i really just wanted to do my own experiment with some insight (and maybe tasting feed back) from the great folks on HBT!

 

Well IMHO there is very little good data on hop hash available & whatever you decide to do will provide helpful info to the community. I'm looking forward to giving my DIPA a good week in the keg before final judgment so don't be discouraged by my early observations

 

Would be careful about doing anything that's going to contribute to IBUs as hop hash has higher AA than citra.

But am very very interesting to learn more about the best way to use this stuff.

 

FWIW, Sweetwater Brewing in Atlanta makes a hop hash IPA. Pretty good beer. Don't know if you could get any info from them.

 

Great idea. I have had this beer when on vacation in Florida last year. I sent them an email. Really interested in using this late (flameout/whirlpool/dryhop) and no idea at what ratio. Based on AA its around 2.5:1 (pellets vs hash) hopefully they will respond with some feedback.

 

No response from Sweetwater unfortunately and it looks like I will have some time this Saturday to brew so here is what I am planning. This malt bill is very similar to a Pseudo sue clone posted on this site and one I have used before and really liked. Also I already had all the ingredients.

the following is for a 13 gallon batch at end of boil. Im planning on leaving a lot of trub behind and splitting into 2 batches.

OG 1.062
FG 1.013
SRM 7
Yeast WLP007

13.5lbs pale 2row
13.5lbs golden promise
1lb honey malt
1lb flaked wheat
.5lbs Crystal 60L

Mash 60 min @ 153'

Boil 60 min with the following hop schedule

60 min - 1.50 oz Warrior 16AA (34 IBUs)
10 min - 3oz Amarillo 8.6AA (13.24 IBUs)

At end of boil recipe to be split into to two separate pots and chilled to 180'

Batch 1 (pellets)
5 oz Citra 14.1AA whirlpool for 20 min
3 oz Citra Dryhop for 3 days at day 14

Batch 2 (hop hash)
2.5oz of Citra Hop Hash 29.6AA whirlpool for 20 min
1.5oz of Citra Hop hash dryhop for 3 days at day 14

Cold crash, gelatin, keg, carb, and serve.

Thoughts?

 

My thought are, how the hell did you get 10 oz of citra hop hash? You lucky dog

 

I got a great LHBS that called me when they got some in. I am really excited to use them. So far I have not seen a lot of great reviews, but the information is really limited.

I would really like to get as much feedback on these beers as possible. If anyone has a club or anything that would be interested in comparing the 2 beers and offering feedback please get a hold of me.

 

Sweetwater hop hash session ipa is probably one of my favorite ipas

 

my first (and only) experience with hop hash was not good. very earthy & dirty flavor. i added 1oz to the dry hop in a 9% DIPA with no "sweet/crystal" malts. the recipe had 7oz Simcoe pellets in a 170* hopstand & 5oz Simcoe pellets in the dry hop.

So obviously the IPA is nearly all Simcoe with the exception of 1oz Centeniall Hop Hash in the dry hop. The Hop Hash i received from Yakima Valley Hops was not homogeneous by any means. Parts of it was powdery/resiny with a light color while parts of it were very solid & tar like with a dark color. I added 50/50 combination of these parts of the hash. It is my initial thoughts that hop hash might not be a very good product.

 

My lhbs guy just brewed a Citra/simcoe hop hash and I smelled the bucket he had it in and it was real nice but smelled no diff then if pellets were used. He used his exclusively in flameout and dry hop, he called the manufacturer before using to ask when to best use it and that's what they recommended, they also said it's very volatile like it reacts with o2 really fast so only open the bag when u use it, don't use some and put it back in the fridge cuz it'll go bad. Hope this helps a little.

 

Glad to hear as I am planning on only using in whirlpool and dry hop. Any idea how much he used compared to what he would have used for pellets.

 

Sorry that I have no idea I understand they are more potent though, heck with 10 oz if it were me and I'm experimenting say I normally do a 6oz hopstand Id use 5oz of hash and then maybe 4 or 5 in the dry hop.

 

Im going to start with 1/2 as much i think and then see how it turns out. Based on AA, total acids, and oils it appears its about twice as strong. At least its a place to start.

 

So the Citra showdown brew day begins. Got everything set up and recruited some help to grind the grain (the 3 year old just eats it). To quote my 9 years old, who is quoting Christmas vacation, "I'm freezing my baguettes off". Everything seems to be going smooth

 

So brew day is complete. Here are a couple of pics of me finish the boil in one pot and boiling water in the other to sanitize before we transferred half over for the whirlpool. Then a pic of both draining into fermenters. OG was 1.064 and yeast has been pitched. At this poiint there was no noticeable differences, even the trub looked very similar.

 

BTW I ended up keeping grist as posted but doing 2:1 pellets vs hash. I edited original recipe post to reflect this.

 

Looks wonderful, really looking forward to the final results.

 

So brew day ended with an original gravity of 1.064 and gravity reading today has me down to 1.011. Planning on dry hopping on wednesday. Im going to drop hop with 3oz pellets/ 1.5oz hash on wednesday. Planning on dry hopping loose. Looks like i may end up kegging this on christmas.

 

Brewing an all Hop Hash IPA tomorrow. Will report back with recipe, and results.

 

Please do. Love to hear recipe and how it turns out. What hash are you using?

 

Sub'd got some hop hash I wanna use soon. Results are sparse. I read a few suggestions of soaking it in ethanol to pull out all the oils and make an extract. Curious to see how just loose turns out.

 

10 gallon batch

Mashed at 152

20 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs Crystal 60
2 lbs Carapils
1 lb Dextrose at 15 min

I'm not gonna sugar coat it for you guys, we went to far with it. We just went stupid with the hash and oil. I split the batch with my roommate I brew with, and between the two of us we got over zealous. We were packaging a 100 gram can of hop oil in 5 ml syringes, and when we ran out of syringes we just threw the rest of the hop oil in the boil. We have no idea how much, but it was a **** load. The consensus was that it was probably 14 to 21 grams. That being said:

75 minute boil

5 ml of oil and an ounce of hash thrown in at 75 minutes.
(This is where we may have had a few drinks)
14-21 grams of oil at 30 minutes.
3 ounces of hash at 1 minute.

The smell was amazing. The oil has a definite pine and spiciness to it. The hash is super pungent with a lot of citrus. There was some leftover residue on the side of the boil kettle from the dumb amount of oil we used, but other than that there was literally no hop debris save a few random leafs in the hash. A whirlpool, and swift cold crash left nothing but pure wort in the fermenter. That's a big plus in my opinion. Planning to "dry hash" with some other stupid amount, and see if it tastes awesome. It will probably wind up being a skin irritant because of the IBU's. We had a different recipe completely planned, but life throws curveballs sometimes. Who cares, right?

 

So I am hoping to post alot more feedback but thought i would give an update on the initial findings. Honestly it is crazy how similiar these two beers are. I have served this beer to 5 people. Some claim to immeditletly be able to pick a favorite for whatever reason but then I do a triangle test and not 1 person has been able to reliably pick the the odd beer out. I am planning on taking these beers to a local home brew club meeting next weekend for more feed back. I was really hopping for a big difference but it just not there. I have done a triangle test 3 times and failed all three times.

 

That's interesting that hear. I wonder if it would be a different story if you used them in the boil rather that at FO and DH. Waiting to hear back from the other folks I guess. Still have 4oz in the freezer.

 

so I just picked up 5 ounces of Idaho 7 Hop Hash from the brew shop today. Never had the hop and excited about it being in Hash form. So much hash so little time!!!

Anyone got any ideas for next batch?

 

shawn, can you give us an update on your experiments with the hop hash? did you use the Idaho 7 yet? if you were to brew the citra batch again would you still use that much in at flameout and dryhop? thanks

 

Sorry double post

 

The experiment with the Citra hop hash and pellets was very interesting. Only 1 person could reliably tell the beers apart and he admitted they were close (with out know wich was wich he prefered the pellets). This could easily be attributed to highly untrained pallets. Your timing on the Idaho 7 is impecable. The beer i brewed with the Idaho 7 was just ready tonight. I again figured hop hash as being twice as stong as regular pellets. While I dont love the beer and I have never used Idaho 7 before i still think that figuring hop hash as twice as strong as pellets is about right. Maybe this is because of the diminishing returns of the amount of hops at a certain point. I still have some citra hash bit havent figured out what to do with it yet. I hope others continue to post feedback as they try hash.

 

How did this turn out?

 

This beer turned out great! We were scared it was going to be too bitter, but it was a juicy delight. It made grown men pee their pants and weep.

 

I brewed an extract IPA last summer using hop hash that went well;

6 lbs. mallard malt gold
3 lbs pilsner DME
.5 oz Chinook hop hash (60 minutes)
2 oz Simcoe whole cone hops at flame out
2 oz Amarillo whole cone hops at flame out
US-05 yeast

The hop hash has about double the IBUs of regular pellet hops; so I figured I could use about half as much and get the same IBUs. I've used it in place of chinook pellet hops at 30 minutes in other recipes I've made, and have noticed it does taste slightly dirtier.
The late hop additions at the flame out in the recipe above give it a fruity aroma and taste that has a bit of earthyness to it that balances well with a piney finish. I'm about to brew it again except this time all grain.