Dry hops to bitter/finish hops?

[betch]

I have some cascade and galena dry hopping some APA. Can I then take the hops and use them in a boil, as bitter or finish hops? Has anyone tried this before or if so any luck?

 

[david_42]

You can certainly use them for bittering. I've done a few brews where I made a hop-tea and then used the hops for bittering. The tea was added to the fermenter.

 

[moger777]

I read about this in byo. Is there a way calculating ibus after a hop tea?

 

[Shawn Hargreaves]

Absolutely you can do this. In fact, this is where the term "dry hop" came from in the first place!

Back in the day, British breweries making bitters would take fresh hops in from the fields (which start out dry) and add them to their fermented beer in the cask to extract aroma. Then after the beer had been removed, they would take these used hops (which are now wet) and add them to the boil of a subsequent batch to extract bitterness. All hops were used twice in this way.

Hence the terminology: wet hops = bittering, dry hops = added to beer after fermentation.