Big hop flavor with 1/3 the hops

[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.

 

[Chriso]

I did this with .33oz of Perle and 6 mint tea bags. Used a hot-water kettle to heat to boiling, let sit for ~5 minutes to cool down to 180-190 range, poured into a sanitized Pyrex measuring cup with all my s*** in it, covered with sanitized Al foil, and let it sit overnight (like TOJ, I forgot about it. It was homebrew meeting night. ).... added to fermenter the next AM.... and I think I gave it an infection by doing so. Had the makings of a filmy Brett pellicle on top.

Tasted it, actually was pretty good, along the lines of what I envisioned a Mint Ale to be... and so I racked the little sumb!tch to a keg faster than all gitout and hit it with 35psi.

But am confused about the pseudo-pellicle.

 

[Warrior]

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.

Once again thanks for some great info and helping us all conserve hops on our very hoppy beers. Just bought a coffee press two weeks ago and plan on using it when this years hop crop comes in next month. Used your press idea to add some ginger at bottling time to a saison that I forgot to add when I brewed it, recipe called for 1/2 oz of fresh grated ginger. I added 2 ozs of vodka 8ozs of 170 deg water and a 1/4 oz of grated ginger. Mixed this up and swirled it around quite a bit to extact the ginger flavor. Wasn't enough to use the press but the press made a great strainer for the mixture. Cooled down and added to the bottling bucket and it tasted good. I'll give some feedback on how it tastes in about 3 weeks.

warrior

 

[saq]

Once again thanks for some great info and helping us all conserve hops on our very hoppy beers. Just bought a coffee press two weeks ago and plan on using it when this years hop crop comes in next month. Used your press idea to add some ginger at bottling time to a saison that I forgot to add when I brewed it, recipe called for 1/2 oz of fresh grated ginger. I added 2 ozs of vodka 8ozs of 170 deg water and a 1/4 oz of grated ginger. Mixed this up and swirled it around quite a bit to extact the ginger flavor. Wasn't enough to use the press but the press made a great strainer for the mixture. Cooled down and added to the bottling bucket and it tasted good. I'll give some feedback on how it tastes in about 3 weeks.

warrior

Yes, the hot french randall has many uses. I just cracked open my first beer which had both dry hop for 2 weeks and a small hop tea infusion 3 days before bottling, its very very good.

Anyone tried doing multiple hop teas to match a beer with a multiple dry hopping schedule? From what I've read its best to do the hop tea 3-4 days before bottling to keep in the aroma and freshness.

 

[BeerCanuck]

Cool thread

Its has my left field gears theorizing;

I have gathered that in order to get proper hop utilization that wort sugars need to be present for proper isomerisation to occur. If a tea "starter" was made that mimicked the Original Gravity of your beer and traditional boil kettle additions were made to the HFR (60 minute bittering / 30 minute flavoring / >15 minute aroma) and added to secondary / serving container eliminating the need for 1 hr traditional boil that would be cool / kiss.

Cheers
BeerCanuck

 

[Chriso]

What if you combined it with krausening for carbonation?

E.g. collect sanitized mason jars full of boiled wort, unfermented, and store them in the fridge during fermentation. Reboil, pitch onto hops at 180*F, let cool, and pour into fermenter, then keg. 1.040 IIIIIPA in a 1-qt quantity, essentially.

 

[saq]

What if you combined it with krausening for carbonation?

E.g. collect sanitized mason jars full of boiled wort, unfermented, and store them in the fridge during fermentation. Reboil, pitch onto hops at 180*F, let cool, and pour into fermenter, then keg. 1.040 IIIIIPA in a 1-qt quantity, essentially.

I like this idea, its like making the beer twice. Hmm, I might have to invest in more 1 gal growlers to do this kind of experimenting in.

 

[rasherb]

I HFR .75 simcoe and .25 centennial in my most recent batch.
A bit modded though.

I put the hops in the press then I filled the press with boiling h2o and waited 10 min before pressing it out.

I repeated this four times.

The first two pressings were yellow-green and aromatic.
The second two were green and bitter.

I added the first two "aromatic" teas and the first "bitter" tea to my finished wort.
I don't know about utilization, and don't have much to compare this to as this is my first hoppy beer, but I like the idea of getting aromatic and bitter additions from the same hops, and controlling how much of each.

Great technique! Thanks!

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

In the same line as Biermuncher this has me wondering how effective storing the tea would be to make better utilization of bittering hops.

For example say I make the flavor / aroma extract via coffee press and store the extract in a mason jar for a later addition to secondary or keg and still use the left over hops as a bittering additon in the boil.

I suppose this is very similar to re-claiming dry hops for a boil but this wouldblt require the need to plan out successive brew dry hop use.

This appear to be an ideal way to maximize hop usage. I may have to try this on an IPA.

 

[WortMonger]

I am loving this after trying it on my last beer as a dry hop addition, and having just read the article in BYO about the boiling addition having the aroma and flavor removed prior to use. This really does sound like a great way to save yourself a lot on hops. I am just moving into lagers and feel like this would really benefit them as well with very minimal hops used. Ales are a no-brainer... As much hops as you need for bittering/flavor/aroma this just makes since, and I will use the HFR on every dry hop addition from now on with them.

 

[mew]

I just read the BYO article. Are you lurking, Chris Colby?