Big hop flavor with 1/3 the hops

[NorCal]

Found a the text below which essentially summarizes the results of a similiar experiment. These guys (Boeing employees home brewing club) boiled hops for 10 minutes and added the resulting tea to Coors Light. Unfortunately their experiment didn't produce good results. Here's the money quote, "Coors Light tasted better without it, and we all know how that tastes! Everyone's assessment was that the water technique seemed like a bust."

Puney's technique (the originator of this post) is to steep for 60 minutes and he gets good results (big hoppy flavor and aroma). These guys boiled for 10 and got bad results. Just wondering if anyone can make sense of this?




Hop Tea Experiment Summary

The point of this experiment is to find out if making a concentrated hop tea and then dosing a relatively neutral beer with a representative volume of the tea allows you to evaluate the aroma and flavor characteristics imparted by the hop. We weren't sure if this was going to work, but wanted to give it a shot to see what people thought.

We were looking to see if there was a fast and cheap way to assess the flavor and aroma components of a bunch of different hops in beer. While it is possible to brew a bunch of small batches, the time and consistency required to conduct such an experiment become burdensome. So we were thinking it might be possible to brew up a bunch of concentrated hop teas in acidified water (pH 5.2-5.4) with hop additions at 10 minutes and at flameout (total boil of 10 minutes). This tea would then be dosed into a neutral beer like Coors Light to see if you could actually get any of the hop aroma and flavor profile into the beer. We tried to scale it to represent a 1.25 oz hop dosage at 10 and 0 minutes, which is a fairly significant amount.

Tea Preparation Methodology

We boiled a volume of water (with pH adjusted to 5.0 for wort like conditions as it has been noted that attempts at using hop teas at neutral water pH extract "grassy" flavors) for 10 minutes with additions of hops at the beginning of the boil and at the end of the boil (10 minutes later, steeping for 10 minutes). The desired concentration of addition was aiming for the equivalent of 1.25 oz at 10 minutes and 1.25 oz at 0 minutes in a 5 gallon batch of beer (scaling was based off of ratios of hops to wort volume in a batch of homebrew concentrated to dose 1 oz into a 12 oz beer). After steeping for 10 minutes, the tea was poured through a strainer into bottles and was capped. For this experiment, we used pellet hops of several different varieties (focusing on typical flavor and aroma hops):

Cascade

Kent Goldings

Hallertau

Saaz

Perle

Willamette



Tea Reconstitution Methodology

In order to attempt recreation of a comparable concentration, we used the following steps to mix the tea and the test beer.

Equipment:

2 pint glasses (7 for the entire experiment)

1 shot glass

Sampler glasses

2 12 oz bottles of Coors Light

1 bottle of cold hop tea

Cold water (in order to simulate equal dilution and effects on maltiness)

1. Pour 1 oz of hop tea (~2/3 shot glass) into one pint glass

2. Pour 1 oz of cold water (~2/3 shot glass) into other "standard" pint glass

3. Pour a bottle of Coors Light into each of the pint glasses

4. Pour a small sample of each into your sampler glasses (you can use the "standard" sample for all samples)

5. Compare aromas and flavors seeing if you can notice anything

6. Write down observations for the different styles if you do notice anything (back of sheet)

Notes:

1. The hop dosed beers will be very cloudy (ignore that as best as possible)

2. There is a significant change in bitterness, despite the low boiling time (ignore that as best as possible)

3. We have no idea what effects the boil concentration of the tea have on flavor and aroma extraction

We are not sure if this actually works! You are running the experiment so please write down anything that you think you notice on the back of this sheet. There may be better ways to try this so give your suggestions! If you think this works, try it at home with the hops of your choice!



SUMMARY

So we made up the teas. Same acidified water, same dosage rates, same times on the stove, all pellets. Didn't really matter. All we got was a vegetal tea (still pretty bitter) but the hop aromas and flavors were totally dwarfed by that profile. Coors Light tasted better without it, and we all know how that tastes!

Everyone's assessment was that the water technique seemed like a bust. If someone wants to give it a shot with adding some malt extract in, that is probably the only other way to get it to work. Unfortunately then you've violated the cheap and easy premise of the experiment and now have an unstable, sweet product to worry about that should probably be cooled and used immediately.

While it was pretty much a failure, we wanted to pass it on because it is good to let other people know about failures so that they don't have to recreate them!

One last note, when boiling the hops, we boiled 64 oz of water with what ended up being a total of 3 oz of pellet hops. After absorption and evaporation losses, we ended up with roughly 36 oz of tea. Boiling the hops at that concentration was a little troublesome. You had to continuously stir the "sludge" in order to prevent boilovers.

 

[Danek]

Thanks for sharing, that's a really interesting post. I'm not entirely sure how to account for the discrepancy between these guys' experience and Puney's - obviously they did slightly different things so there are a number of possible explanations for the different outcomes. But from their description, it doesn't seem all that surprising that adding a "bitter, vegetal tea" to a beer wouldn't improve it much. I've never had the pleasure of trying Coors Light, but I wonder if they'd have had better luck if they'd just steeped the hops instead of boiling? The extra bitterness might have knocked an otherwise delicious beer out of balance. And I wonder if adding the tea to secondary - before bottle conditioning - would lead to a nicer and more integrated hop flavor?

I'm also curious to read their comment that using water with a neutral pH extracts grassy flavors. I'd not thought about that before, but I wonder if it would be better to treat water before steeping hops?

I still think this'd be well worth a split-batch experiment. I would envisage that adding a hop-tea at secondary would be like adding flame-out hops, but with no loss from CO2 scrubbing during fermentation. Of course, that might be total bollocks - so once my carboys are freed up, I'll try to find out.

 

[MikeFlynn74]

cliff notes?

 

[Danek]

Just found an excellent post on a beer blog about the effect of different temperatures on hop teas: http://www.brookstonbeerbulletin.com/hunts-hop-tea/#comments . It's well worth a read, but here's a summary:

"Brian brought out seven examples of his hop tea made with water of different temperatures: 60°, 120°, 130°, 140°, 160°, 180° and 185°... Although you can’t see it in the photo, the hotter the water, the more hop bitterness and at the upper range, tannins begin to emerge. Here’s what I found:

60°: Fresh, herbal aromas with some hop flavors, but it’s light.
120°: Bigger aromas, less green more vegetal flavors.
130°: Also big aromas emerging, flavors beginning to become stronger, too, but still refreshingly light.
140°: More pickled, vinegary aroma, no longer subtle with biting hop character and strong flavors.
160°: Very big hop aromas with strong hop flavors, too, with a touch of sweetness. Tannins are becoming evident but are still restrained.
180°: Big hop and vinegary aromas, with flavors becoming too astringent and tannins becoming overpowering.
185°: Vinegary aromas, way too bitter and tannins still overpowering."

and from a follow-up experiment that the blogger himself conducted:

"Brian [Hunt] was kind enough to let me take a small bag of fresh hops with me so I could recreate his experiment at home. I had enough for four samples and made tea at 100°, 140° and 160°. Using two dozen hop cones made the jars look light so I used three-dozen in the last jar, also using 160° water. I tasted them with my wife, hoping to get a civilian opinion, too. Here’s what we found:

100°: Hops still green and floating. The nose was very vegetal and reminded my wife of the water leftover in the pot after you’ve steamed vegetables like broccoli or Brussels sprouts. The mouthfeel is somewhat gritty with light, refreshing flavors and only a little bitterness, which dissipates quickly.
140°: Hops turned brown, but still floating. Light hop aromas with some smokey, roasted aromas and even a hint of caramel. Fresh hop flavors with a clean finish. My wife, however, made that puckering bitter face signaling she found it repugnant.
160°: Hops turned brown, but most has sunk to the bottom of the jar. Strong hop aromas and few negatives, at least from my point of view. My wife was still making that face, cursing me for dragging her into this. Hop bitterness had become more pronounced and tannins were now evident, with a lingering finish.
160° Plus: This sample had 50% more hops. The hops had also turned brown but, curiously, they were still floating. The nose was vegetal with string hop aromas. With a gritty mouthfeel, the flavors were even more bitter covering the tannins just slightly, but they were still apparent, and the finish lingered bitterly.

It seems like either 140° or 160° is the right temperature. Lower than that and you don’t get enough hop character (I’m sure that’s why the hops remain green) but above that the tannins become too pronounced. It appears you have to already like big hop flavor or you’ll hate hop tea. I found it pretty enjoyable and even refreshing though it’s still probably best in small amounts."

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Wow, great info on the follow up posts.

I agree that the teas that I extracted have imparted some grassy and vegetal flavors. To me they seem to be the same flavors that can be extracted from dry-hopping, just more pronounced, just with less hops. However, the vegetal flavors seem somewhat transient , just like in dry-hopping. After adding the tea to the keg and chilling it for a week or so, much of the vegetal and grassy flavors settle to the bottom of the keg and get drawn off in a few pints of greenish cloudy beer. After that point the remaining beer has a pleasant hoppy flavor similar to a dry-hopped beer.

Since my original post, I continued to experiment with the advice of a professional brewer. His suggestion was to acidify the water to a PH of 5.4, reduce the temperature of the water to 170 degrees and add some vodka to the press. So I added a pinch of Five Star 5.2 to the water, a couple of ounces of vodka and reduced the temperature. The result was a reduction in the grassy, vegetal flavors and more of a sweet hoppy flavor. Again, I let the beer sit in the keg for a week or so to let the beer settle and I pumped off a few pints of greenish cloudy beer before getting to the good stuff.

Side-by-side, I like the beer made with the acidified 170 degree water. It is less harsh and more pleasant hoppy flavor. I don't know what factor contributed to the difference. I changed three variables: temp PH and added alcohol to the tea. I did not take the temperature of the tea in the french press, just the water prior to adding it to the hops.

Overall, I am happy with all of the experiments. I am fortunate to have lots of storage and still have every experimental beer in a keg to compare. My desire was to extract more hoppy flavor with less hops. To that purpose, the experiment was a success. My conclusion from all of this is that I can get a dry-hopped flavor, with less total hops. Additionally, I learned that the grassy flavor of dry-hopping is somewhat transient and can be altered with techniques like finning with gelatin and cold storage.

 

[miatawnt2b]

So this technique is strictly used in place of dry hopping, or are you substituting the tea for your flavor and aroma additions also?

-J

 

[puney_the_youkel]

My original thought was I could replace the late-boil and dry-hop additions with just the Hot French Randall technique. Well, it did not give the same flavor and hops in the late-boil. It seems to just seems to impart the same flavor as dry-hopping, just with with less hops.

The only exception was my first experiments where I added boiling water and let it sit for a long time. That experiment is now a couple of months old and it has aged into the most hoppy beer that I have. But it does have a lingering grassy undertone to the flavor. I still like the beer. When I want to drink a tongue-numbing hop-bomb, that's the beer I go to. In that experiment's defense, it is the same hoppy and grassy flavor that you will find in Russian River's Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. I took all of my beers to the bar at RR and compared them side-by-side and confirmed that this technique can be used to achieve super hoppy beers.

My suggestion to anybody that wants to try this technique, would be to start small (1/4 to 1/2 ounce) and add a tea made from 170 degree water and a couple ounces of vodka directly to a keg of beer. Give it a good shake and let it sit for at least a week. Draw the gunk off the bottom of the keg and enjoy.
If somebody wants an extreme hop experiment, Start with a giant beer 10-12% alcohol IPA, add two ounces of hops to the Hot French Randall. Follow the same steps, but after a couple of days, add gelatin and transfer just the clear beer to another clean keg. That beer will have an equivalent hop flavor that Russian River's extreme beers, with a fraction of the dry-hops. That beer will get better with age. It will have enough hop flavor to numb your tounge!

 

[NorCal]

Puney, thanks for the update. I am definitely going to try your method instead of dry hopping my blind pig.

How long are you steeping the hops at 170 degrees? Also, is there any reason this wouldn't work with hop pellets?

 

[puney_the_youkel]

My last few batches were around thirty minutes. The color did not change much after around fifteen or so. I just used whole hops because that's what I had on hand. I don't see how pellets would not work as well or better. Give it a go. It is OK to start small and add more later. This technique allows you to add hop flavor at any time. If you want more flavor, just repeat the process. The only thing lost is a little time and some green cloudy beer at the bottom of the keg.

 

[Danek]

OK - here's what I'm thinking for a side-by-side comparison of dry-hopping vs Hot French Randalling. All thoughts very welcome.

We want to compare how much bang-per-buck we can get out of our hops, right? So my plan is to make a 5-gallon batch of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, and to split it into two halves, to directly compare dry-hopping and HFRing on the same beer under the same conditions.

The plan is that after ten days in primary, I'll rack the beer into two separate secondary tanks. For the "Hot French Randall" batch, I'll add half an ounce of cascades to a french press, and add 160F water - when this has steeped for 30 minutes, I'll add it to the "HFR" secondary. For the "dry-hop" batch I'll add half an ounce of cascades, plus a french press of boiled, cooled water (this water addition should have very little discernable effect, but is intended simply to equate the final gravity of the two batches).

That way, each half of the batch will be made from the same beer, each will have the same amount of additional hops, and each will have the same amount of liquid. The only difference will be in the technique used to impart the additional hop flavor. This should allow for a direct comparison of the two techniques.

Anyone have any thoughts or comments on the procedure?

 

[ScubaSteve]

Mmmmm....Hot French Randalling.......

 

[Funkenjaeger]

This sounds great. I already first-wort-hop most of my beers to get the most use out of the hops (bittering plus flavor), and this method sounds GREAT for filling in the aroma+additional flavor gap. I don't dry hop as much as I'd like to because it's a bit of a hassle/mess for me, so this sounds like a great alternative. I've got a french press, I've got 5.2 stabilizer, and I've got a porter nearing the end of primary that originally called for dry hopping - looks like I'll be trying this out soon!

And maybe if this works out well, next time I make a porter I could toss some coffee in the french press with the hops and kill two birds with one stone

 

[WortMonger]

I have been following this thread with interest since it began, and I have to say I am liking this idea for the way I ferment. At first, I looked at this post and threads as only for something "beefy" with dry hops like IPA and APA. I am starting to see the possible benefits of any aroma/flavor after the ferment now. The comment about the FWH in conjunction makes me very excited to find out. I am wanting to get into blending so I can get the most from my equipment and fermenter space, and this would work great for this procedure. I could have my "blending" water hopped to whatever wanted recipe amount, and have it contaminant free, O2 purged, sealed up keg for the higher gravity brew. I am assuming of course that the pre-boil of my hoppy water, and the addition of hops once at steeping temperature will be sufficient for preventing oxidation in the final product. I can't try this for a while myself, so I am following this thread in anticipation for your experimental findings.

 

[Danek]

OK - I have all the ingredients ordered. I won't be able to brew this until next weekend as both my fermenters are currently full. But I'll bottle those beers next Saturday, and get the SNPA clone brewed next Sunday so that things are underway.

 

[Chriso]

Dammit, I'm late and Danek beat me to it. But I was going to add:

The reason this "works" so well, and the Boeing guys' idea didn't work well, is that this method involves steeping, so that the temp can gradually back off, and hit a number of different temperature ranges. The hop tea article that he linked to is a great resource.

@Danek, your test is awesome, and you've thought out all the variables to isolate. Congrats and I can't wait to see how this comes out!!!!

 

[Danek]

Chriso - thanks for the kind comments!

Quick update from today's session: I've brewed the batch for the experiment. It's a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, as follows:

9.5lbs 2-row
0.5lbs Crystal 60
0.5lbs Carapils
1oz Perle @ 60
1oz Cascade @ 10
0.5oz Cascade @ 5

Mashed at 154F, using US-05 yeast. OG 1052, 31 IBUs. Hydrometer sample tasted pretty good.

I'll give it ten days in primary, then rack to two different secondaries for the main part of the experiment. More updates then.

 

[Danek]

Update: I racked the beer to secondary today and added the additional hops. The Hot French Randall batch had a hop tea steeped at 160F for 30 minutes added to it, and the dry-hop batch had an equal amount of hops and water added to it. Without additions, the beer tasted pretty good. I'll bottle it next weekend.

As an aside - I'd never tasted hop tea before, and it tasted a little sharp and slightly astringent, but interesting. I added a little bit of it to a sample of the beer and it didn't taste bad at all. I'm curious to see what the finished product will be like.

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Depending on how much hops you used, you may need to use gelatin to clarify. I get pretty impatient and like the beer to be clear fast. My next experiment will be to add the hop tea and the gelatin at the same time.
I just finished a batch of Double IPA that turned out great with hop tea. This one started at 1.098 and finished at 1.012 It is a hop-bomb!

 

[NorCal]

Any updates?

 

[gwood]

Any updates?

Wondering the same thing...

 

[BrewBrain]

Wondering the same thing...

You guys made me nervous, LOL

Seems posters tend to disappear during their interesting experiments. Danek, however, posted yesterday, so we're cool:rockin:

Only about three weeks since bottling.

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Any updates?

I added gelatin with the hop tea and I sped the process up quite a bit. It took about two days to finish out the beer. I drew a couple of pints of cloudy-green sediment off the bottom of the keg, and everything after that was hoppy goodness.

 

[Danek]

Hi guys. Update from the Hot French Randall experiment: I bottled the two batches on May 25th, so they've been conditioning for almost two weeks now. I had a quick taste of the dregs left after bottling - both the dry-hopped and the HFR batches were warm and uncarbonated, but both were good and drinkable beers, so I'm happy to report that at the bottling stage things are going OK.

It'd be good to get some of your thoughts on the best way to do a controlled testing of the two batches, for when they're ready to drink. I've got a surprisingly large number of volunteer beer-tasters lined up, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to get a good spread of beer-drinkers' palates for the testing, as well as a good sized sample of participants. Given that tasting is such a subjective experience, I think having a large number of testers is a reasonable way of controlling for individual differences in preference.

What I was thinking of doing first would be a basic test to see whether people could tell the difference between the two batches. For that, I'd give people a blindfold test where they drink three unmarked samples from the two beers and have to state which two come from the same batch. (If they can't do that, then either (i) the beers don't really taste different, or (ii) I'd have some reservations about their tasting abilities). Assuming there is a difference and my participants can notice it, then I'd like to get some structured feedback on the beers. Ideally I'd like something more than just "Which do you prefer?"; that is obviously the most important question in the bigger scheme of things, but it'd be good to have more structure and more specificity in the feedback. Anyone have any thoughts on the best way of doing this?

 

[Warrior]

Hi guys. Update from the Hot French Randall experiment: I bottled the two batches on May 25th, so they've been conditioning for almost two weeks now. I had a quick taste of the dregs left after bottling - both the dry-hopped and the HFR batches were warm and uncarbonated, but both were good and drinkable beers, so I'm happy to report that at the bottling stage things are going OK.

It'd be good to get some of your thoughts on the best way to do a controlled testing of the two batches, for when they're ready to drink. I've got a surprisingly large number of volunteer beer-tasters lined up, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to get a good spread of beer-drinkers' palates for the testing, as well as a good sized sample of participants. Given that tasting is such a subjective experience, I think having a large number of testers is a reasonable way of controlling for individual differences in preference.

What I was thinking of doing first would be a basic test to see whether people could tell the difference between the two batches. For that, I'd give people a blindfold test where they drink three unmarked samples from the two beers and have to state which two come from the same batch. (If they can't do that, then either (i) the beers don't really taste different, or (ii) I'd have some reservations about their tasting abilities). Assuming there is a difference and my participants can notice it, then I'd like to get some structured feedback on the beers. Ideally I'd like something more than just "Which do you prefer?"; that is obviously the most important question in the bigger scheme of things, but it'd be good to have more structure and more specificity in the feedback. Anyone have any thoughts on the best way of doing this?

Just came across this thread today. I really like the idea of using the press to make your own hop tea for flavor and aroma additions. I will be trying some of the things descibed here in a future beer. Great idea and a well wortwhile topic.

 

[miatawnt2b]

Question for you experts. I have an IPA that calls for 1.5oz of Columbus dry hop. I would like to try this method to use less. How much hops should I start with for my 'hop tea' to get me close?

Thanks,
-J

 

[Danek]

Question for you experts. I have an IPA that calls for 1.5oz of Columbus dry hop. I would like to try this method to use less. How much hops should I start with for my 'hop tea' to get me close?

Hi J,

I'm obviously not an expert on this, but AFAIK most people add aroma through dry-hopping; using a hop tea is a much less common procedure. For that reason, I'm not sure there's a standard recommended amount of hops to use for hop tea. Puney might be able to offer some more concrete suggestions as he's done this before, but my guess would be that if you're scheduled to use 1.5oz to dry-hop, and want to work on the assumption that using a hop tea means you can use fewer hops, then you could try using half the amount or two-thirds. Which would be 0.75oz or 1oz. If you try it, let us know how you get on

In my experiment I used identical amounts of hops for both procedures. I hope to have some tasting results by this time next week, so hopefully you'll have a more informed answer by then.

 

[NorCal]

OK, time for an update?

 

[Danek]

OK, time for an update?

Sure thing - though there's not much to report. I tried one of the beers about a week ago, and whilst it was basically fine, I thought it was still a little green. So I decided to leave it for a while longer, so that the taste comparison was on slightly more mature beer. I've got a few bottles of each beer in the fridge, so I'll try one again tonight - if it's ready, I'll get my beer-testers in to give them a try. Hopefully I'll have something more substantial to report then.

 

[puney_the_youkel]

I made another Double IPA about three weeks ago and I dry hopped in last week with the Hot French Randall. I added gelatin with the tea and it was fit to drink in about three days. I have cut down to ¾-1 ounce of hops for 10 gallon batches.
I have been serving it almost daily and I really like the hop flavor. The gelatin is pretty effective at dropping the grassy flavor out of the beer. I have used this technique in about five batches since posting this thread. It works well for me and I will continue doing it in all of my hoppy beers.

 

[Danek]

...I've got a few bottles of each beer in the fridge, so I'll try one again tonight - if it's ready, I'll get my beer-testers in to give them a try.

Just tried a bottle tonight, and it was really nice - this beer's ready. I'll try and round up some tasters for either tomorrow or Friday. I'll post results when I have them.

 

[miatawnt2b]

I made another Double IPA about three weeks ago and I dry hopped in last week with the Hot French Randall. I added gelatin with the tea and it was fit to drink in about three days. I have cut down to ¾-1 ounce of hops for 10 gallon batches.
I have been serving it almost daily and I really like the hop flavor. The gelatin is pretty effective at dropping the grassy flavor out of the beer. I have used this technique in about five batches since posting this thread. It works well for me and I will continue doing it in all of my hoppy beers.

Interesting. Two questions. You are adding gelatin to your hop tea and putting that slurry in the keg? Also, you said you are using 3/4 to 1 oz for your batches. How much would you usually be using if you were simply dry hopping?

-J

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Dry hopping or using the Hot French Randall creates a haze and a bit of grassy flavor. The French press and the gelatin both use hot water, so I combine both into one procedure. It adds the hop flavor/aroma and clarifies at the same time.
On the issue of amount, I quickly found that this technique is very efficient at adding hop flavor. My first batches were almost overpowering and seemed to not fully utilize the hops. Now I use less hops and still get plenty of flavor and aroma. When I dry-hopped, I followed Vinnie’s technique of chilling to drop the yeast, hopping at cellar temp, adding gelatin and carbing. To get the same flavor, I was up to two ounces of dry hops per keg. Now I use around ½ ounce per keg by Hot French Randall.

 

[saq]

Dry hopping or using the Hot French Randall creates a haze and a bit of grassy flavor. The French press and the gelatin both use hot water, so I combine both into one procedure. It adds the hop flavor/aroma and clarifies at the same time.
On the issue of amount, I quickly found that this technique is very efficient at adding hop flavor. My first batches were almost overpowering and seemed to not fully utilize the hops. Now I use less hops and still get plenty of flavor and aroma. When I dry-hopped, I followed Vinnie’s technique of chilling to drop the yeast, hopping at cellar temp, adding gelatin and carbing. To get the same flavor, I was up to two ounces of dry hops per keg. Now I use around ½ ounce per keg by Hot French Randall.

Would you be willing to share with us a detailed procedure of what your current hop tea practices are?

From what I've read it sounds like this

1: Sanitize Hot French Randall
2: Add 2 shots of vodka
3: Fill up with 170f water (32oz?)
4: Add gelatin and hops
5: Put lid on and extend press keeping hops down
6: Steep for 60 minutes

After that it gets a little hazy.
Do you let the hop tea cool to room temperature, then add to secondary and shake it around a bit?
How much gelatin are you adding?
Are you doing 32oz of water or does it vary on batch size?
Where are you fitting the dry hopping in the secondary fermentation schedule?

I went out and got a french press and I'm about ready to add my last batch of dry hops for the last week of secondary fermentation before going to bottling.

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Would you be willing to share with us a detailed procedure of what your current hop tea practices are?

From what I've read it sounds like this

1: Sanitize Hot French Randall
2: Add 2 shots of vodka
3: Fill up with 170f water (32oz?)
4: Add gelatin and hops
5: Put lid on and extend press keeping hops down
6: Steep for 60 minutes

After that it gets a little hazy.
Do you let the hop tea cool to room temperature, then add to secondary and shake it around a bit?
How much gelatin are you adding?
Are you doing 32oz of water or does it vary on batch size?
Where are you fitting the dry hopping in the secondary fermentation schedule?

I went out and got a french press and I'm about ready to add my last batch of dry hops for the last week of secondary fermentation before going to bottling.

Here you go….
Generally, I rack the beer out of fermentation into Corney kegs, add the hop tea and gelatin all at the same time.
I sanitize everything but the screen with Starsan. I sanitize the screen with the boiling water that I will use for the tea. I let the water cool to around 170f and I add two ounces of Vodka, I qt. of hot water, and a pinch of 5.2 ph stabilizer. (my water is alkaline) I add around one ounce of leaf hops and stir with a sanitized spoon. I punch the hops down a couple of times to get all of the air out of the hops and let it sit for around 45-60 minutes with the hops fully submerged and covered in the water. While I am waiting, I usually mix up some gelatin and add it to the kegs while the hop tea is steeping. BTW, I do ten gallon batches.
When the time’s up, I hook up the CO2 to the keg and flow a little gas into the kegs while pouring the hop tea out of the press. Then put the lid on the kegs shake and chill for a couple of days. When I am feel that the gelatin has done it’s thing, I transfer the beer to fresh kegs and force carbonate.
I have also experimented with Vinnie Cilurzo’s technique of adding gelatin and chilling to drop the yeast out of the beer and then adding the hops (hop tea) later. His technique seemed to allow for stronger hop flavor, but adding the hop tea required more time for the beer to clarify a second time. However, the beer clarifies faster the second time without all of the yeast floating around. For speed’s sake, I don’t use this technique anymore. I am too impatient.
I am going to keep using the Hot French Randall. It allows me to use less hops in the dry-hop addition, where I was previously added obscene amounts to get a strong hop aroma and flavor. It allows me to adjust the hoppiness of the beer easily and it is much faster than standard dry-hopping. Despite many peoples apprehension with this technique, I have not found any down side to using hot water to extract hop flavor and aroma, other than it is easy to over-hop the beer.
I have shared my beer with a number of professional brewers, savvy home brewers and brew shop folks and nobody has identified any weird flavors from this technique. People that like hoppy beer, like my beer alot. My signature Double IPA is dry, light in color, has a great hop aroma, strong and bright hop flavor. I like it alot!
Have a sip....

 

[brewt00l]

Puney, I like the sounds of your technique...I'll have to try it with a future IIPA.

One question: You mention that the gelatin drops some of the grassy flavor out of the brew and that Vinny adds his tea post gelatin. What's he doing to prevent the grassy flavor at that point?

I would also be curious to find out if anyone has noticed any additional stability benefits in the extracted hop aroma compounds over dry hopped components?

 

[puney_the_youkel]

Puney, I like the sounds of your technique...I'll have to try it with a future IIPA.

One question: You mention that the gelatin drops some of the grassy flavor out of the brew and that Vinny adds his tea post gelatin. What's he doing to prevent the grassy flavor at that point?

I would also be curious to find out if anyone has noticed any additional stability benefits in the extracted hop aroma compounds over dry hopped components?

Just a clarification:
I add hop tea, Vinnie dry hops. I heard him talking about using hop tea in a podcast on the Brewing Network, but I an not aware that he does anything but dry hop his beers.
According to Vinnie, adding gelatin prior to adding hops keeps the hop flavor not getting all tangled up with the yeast in suspension. I think that the grassy flavor is somewhat inherent to dry hopping. The more hops you use, the more grassy flavor you get. I have found that the grassy flavor is somewhat transient. If you use gelatin, it drops it out pretty fast. If you chill the beer and wait, it drops out as well, but takes longer. However, once I added so much hops, that the grassy flavor never went away.
I don’t know what Russian River does to avoid grassy flavor. Their beer is awesome and never has weird flavors.
It has been working for me to add the hop tea and gelatin at the same time even if I do loose some flavor to the yeast.. If I don’t get enough hop aroma and flavor, it is pretty easy to add more than an ounce to the press.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

puney_the_youkel - Thanks for posting this information, it is defiantly causing some stray sparks of ideas in my mind. This is usually where people start running. I think I will give this a shot on my next IPA.

 

[NorCal]

Let me add my thanks to Puney as well for starting this thread.

 

[saq]

puney

How do you work out hop tea additions to beers that have multiple dryhopping schedules like a pliny clone? (ie, add 1oz magnum hops when you rack to secondary, 1oz simcoe a week later, 0.5oz chinook a week after that)

Do you do scaled back hop tea additions to the same schedule and then gelatin at the end?

 

[EvilTOJ]

OK I have tried this twice, and both time I have had failures. Here's my procedure.

I run a quart of water through my coffee maker and it gets to 170º. It is clean and since I got the french press I haven't been making coffee in it anyways.

I added .5 oz of Amarillo hops to the water and tamped it down. The first attempt I'd actually let it sit overnight because I forgot about it (d'oh) but when I smelled and tasted it in the morning it was divine. I added just the water from the tea into the fermenter

The second attempt was the same way, same hops, only I let it steep for an hour then added it to another fermenter. This time, I also added the hops from the tea into the fermenter.

I didn't use any gelatin at all.

I'm getting what I could describe as an acrid flavor. It's not quite grassy, kinda bitter, but it's not right. I added my first experiment to a red ale that had otherwise tasted pretty good, and it's ruined with this off flavor. I've had it bottled for 4 weeks now and the flavor isn't disappearing.

The second batch was the Red Dragon IPA, and I really wanted a hop flavor in that one. The off flavor is overpowering in both batches and I can't taste anything else in the beer. It is also bottled.

I want to try again, but I'm not going to do 5 gallons. I already have infection problems and other off flavors and I'm getting really sick of having bad beer in the house.