Big hop flavor with 1/3 the hops

[BarleyWater]

Is there something wrong with this?

Not at all, actually after taking dry hopping into account, I have almost reached the same amount, I just wasn't thinking about dry hops at the time.

 

[BarleyWater]

I am building a hop inducer out of a canister filter so I can get the "green" right before my glass. I mean you have to run beer through and let it sit before you start using it, but I have heard this gets the freshest flavor and aroma out there.

I believe that this is similar to what Dogfish Head does with Randall the Enamel Animal. Get Randallized :rockin:

 

[puney_the_youkel]

I believe that this is similar to what Dogfish Head does with Randall the Enamel Animal. Get Randallized :rockin:

I thought about calling the use of a French Coffee Press for adding hop tea as a "Hot French Randall"
What do you think?

 

[WortMonger]

LOL, yep sounds like a winner, lol.

That is where I saw the idea DFH.

 

[NorCal]

Just wondering if you've tried steeping the hops for a shorter time period. Was there a noticeable addition to the hop character in the beer? More hoppy less bitter?

I've got a batch of blind pig in primary right now. It calls for dry hopping but I was thinking about employing your method instead. Whatever departs the most hoppyness!

 

[Danek]

Man. If ever an idea needed side-by-side experimentation, it's this. Next time I make an APA I'll split the batch in half, and add a French Press of hops to one half, to see what the taste difference is.

Would it make any difference if I added this to the secondary, or to the bottling bucket?

 

[EvilTOJ]

I now have a reason to buy a french press. I've been debating whether I drink enough coffee at home for some, but now that's cinched the deal!

 

[homebrewer_99]

Have you seriously thrown a pound of hops into 5gal of beer?

I must be doing something wrong...I only use 1/2 oz (of 6%AAs) in my Hefe Weizens... :rockin:

 

[CBBaron]

I must be doing something wrong...I only use 1/2 oz (of 6%AAs) in my Hefe Weizens... :rockin:

Yep, Your doing something wrong, brewing Hefe Weizens instead of IIPAs

This ideal of the French Press Hops sounds like an easier way to get hops flavor and aroma in a beer. Dry hopping is such a pain because I have to use a secondary and I have to be very careful when transfering to avoid the hops matter. With this method I can add the hops flavor directly to bottling bucket, or to the fermenter shortly before bottling.

Craig

 

[Danek]

OK, I've been thinking about this a little more and have been trying to come up with a properly designed experiment to test the effect of the Hot French Randall. First, I thought I'd split a batch of beer and just add a HFR to one half. But then I thought that wouldn't be comparing like with like, as the HFR version would have more hops; regardless of the efficiency of the process, it should taste at least a bit more hoppy than the non-HFR version.

So then I thought a better comparison would be comparing the Hot French Randall with dry-hopping. I thought I'd dry-hop one half of the batch, and add an equal amount of hops via a HFR to the other half. Both halves would therefore receive an equal amount of hops, so any difference between them would be due to the method of adding flavor. That seems like a better plan, though there's still a slight problem in that the HFR half would have extra liquid added via the French Press so the beer would be slightly more dilute; to compensate for this I was thinking of adding a French Press of boiled, cooled water to the dry-hopped batch.

I'm not quite sure whether to dry-hop/add the HFR at the end of primary, or in the secondary. If anyone has any thoughts on this, or any of the above, they'd be greatfully received.

 

[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...