Bottle Hopping

[kmckiou]

I tried hopping in the bottle a couple days ago and, so far, the results are spectacular. I just filled a few bottles with my Chincade APA and then added 1/10 ounce of Cascade whole/leaf hops to each bottle and capped them. After 24 hours I drank one.

I just poured the beer gently and the hops formed a "plug" in the neck and the beer filtered through it - like a Randalizer. The taste was the brightest and freshest hop flavor and aroma I have ever experienced. It was not overwhelming like some super-hopped beers, but brilliantly defined.

I expect the life expectancy of such a technique is only about a week, but boy oh boy, the result in the short term has been really impressive. I did search the forum for this subject and found several threads - with mixed results. I took my other two bottles and entered them in a local competition which will finish judging in just one week. I thought it might be worth a shot.

Anybody else tried this?

 

[Ladd]

I tried this with pellet hops and it did a great job adding flavor and aroma. I found though that once the bottles were fully carbed as soon as I cracked them, they started foaming like crazy and just mixed all the hop matter up into the beer making a mess. Sounds like the key here is to use whole leaf hops like you did!

 

[kmckiou]

I should have pointed out that my beer was kegged and fully carbed before I put it in the bottle. I don't think I would have attempted this if I was bottle-conditioning the beer.