Has anybody made hop extract

[mr x]

I am thinking about making some hop extract in the future. Has anybody ever done this before, or know how it's done? I'm thinking steam distillation or maceration/Soxhlet extractor using ethyl alcohol...

 

[david_42]

The industry uses liquid CO2 most of the time. Steam distillation is used for making hop oils.

From Probrewer.com

"Even today an ethanol extract is available in Europe but by far the predominant extracts are "organic" solvent extracts (hexane) and CO2 extracts (supercritical and liquid)."

So, I'd guess the information is out there.

 

[mr x]

I'm kind of puzzled by the hexane being described as 'organic' as opposed to ethanol. Do you have any idea what the difference is between extract and oil?

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

I added pellet hops to everclear and the result was a gorgeous green liquid.

I tried the same thing with vodka and it turned brown.

They were both bitter though.

 

[Sean]

yuck, why?

 

[mr x]

Resins can usually be removed with a hydrocarbon (butane, ethyl, and isopropyl alcohols are the ones I am familiar with). Of course, in this case I would prefer to use ethyl. I am thinking C02 is a little complex, and probably cost prohibitive. Looking at bittering, flavor and aroma components, I am trying to find out which can be removed by various methods, but I am having a hard time finding solid technical info.

 

[mr x]

yuck, why?

Various reasons. Experimenting with wild hops, long term storage, dry hopping options, etc...

 

[mr x]

OK making some headway:

http://www.hoptech.com/cart/cart.php?target=category&category_id=266
http://www.botanix.co.uk/html/overview.html

 

[david_42]

Hop extract is alpha/beta acids (bittering) in iso- or tetra- form. Hop oils are the flavor/aroma oils. Which are you trying to do?

Good places to start.

http://www.hopunion.com/products.shtml

http://www.probrewer.com/resources/hops/products.php

 

[mr x]

Well, I was more interested in the aroma side, but bittering may also be of some interest. It certainly appears that CO2 extraction is the most efficient method, but at a glance is too complicated for home experimentation. I'll check out your links and see where I get.

 

[mrkristofo]

I'm kind of puzzled by the hexane being described as 'organic' as opposed to ethanol. Do you have any idea what the difference is between extract and oil?

Typically, when chemists refer to "organic" solvents they mean nonpolar, (usually) water insoluble, volatile solvents that can easily be used to extract organic compounds from a reaction. Ethanol is miscible in water. Humulone is not, making hexanes a better solvent for extraction.