Commercial brewing: what is the use of CO2 hop extract?

[Finlandbrews]

I have had beers with a grassy, vegetable, herbal like bitterness and I read long boil of high oil content hops can provide these flavors. Also, I have seen an official recipe from Cloudwater's v1 double IPA and they only used CO2 hop extract during the boil. All the pellets addition are added at flame out, hop back and dry. Is this recipe made so to avoid any harsh herbal grassy bitterness? If so why does CO2 hop extract avoid contributing to any of these harsh herbal grassy flavour? I believe less vegetable and oxygen content, is that it? What other benefits does it have?

Also, do you know if CO2 hop extract is used commonly by quality micro brewers, do you know which ones? I know for example that pliny the elder uses hop oil extract...

 

[IslandLizard]

You already answered your own question, less vegetable matter in the boil.
Also easier to get consistent bitterness, very stable, so there's hardly any AA degradation, and less material to filter out. Some (pro) places, such as YCHHops, even sell hop specific oils, so you can get oils of Warrior, Cascade, Mosaic, Simcoe, etc.

They also have a new "cryo-hops" product.
Check them out.

 

[Finlandbrews]

You already answered your own question, less vegetable matter in the boil.
Also easier to get consistent bitterness, very stable, so there's hardly any AA degradation, and less material to filter out. Some (pro) places, such as YCHHops, even sell hop specific oils, so you can get oils of Warrior, Cascade, Mosaic, Simcoe, etc.

They also have a new "cryo-hops" product.
Check them out.

Thanks for your comment again! Good to know I answered to my questions then. yes i had seen these cryo hops but I have not yet digged into why these are better. Any clue? Maybe similar to CO2 hop extract...

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks for your comment again! Good to know I answered to my questions then. yes i had seen these cryo hops but I have not yet digged into why these are better. Any clue? Maybe similar to CO2 hop extract...

You can read all about them here.

Hop hash is another hop (by)product especially useful for dry hopping with maximum lupulin potency while low in vegetable matter, preventing grassiness.

Now dry hopping in many commercial (craft) breweries is done through recirculation, taking far less time (4 hours), and leaving no hop mess in the conicals.

Yesterday we were at DuClaw Brewery. They use this dry hop puppy.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Once you cross the line to dipa hop content you can begin to see grassy notes from the large amount of pellet hops. Hop extract is the essential oils of the hop, it's a thick highly bitter concentration of alpha acids from hops. It will reduce your hop content while adding big levels of bitterness. It's primarily used as a bittering addition at the start of the boil. I have used them several times for really hoppy beers like a dipa. I have a few cans in the freezer. I like the product and think it has a place in homebrewing. Again it's not really necessary until your talking about 90+ ibu beers.

The commercial brewers mcb use them exclusively for bittering and aroma additions from what I have read. There are several different types of extract that are not easily accessible to home brewers. I have used this product to play with adding bitterness to beers for recipe development. https://www.hoptech.com/products/iso-alpha-extract-2-oz

 

[Finlandbrews]

You can read all about them here.

Hop hash is another hop (by)product especially useful for dry hopping with maximum lupulin potency while low in vegetable matter, preventing grassiness.

Now dry hopping in many commercial (craft) breweries is done through recirculation, taking far less time (4 hours), and leaving no hop mess in the conicals.

Yesterday we were at DuClaw Brewery. They use this dry hop puppy.

Thanks for your answers and comments!