Hop Tea at Bottling more recently?

[bonecitybrewco]

Lots of really old discussion around this, however, not many people really talk about it anymore.

From what I understand, the original guy, Gerard Lemmens' method was to put your finishing hops in a french press, add just enough hot water (not more than 75C or 167F) to cover the hops, let steep for 20 mins, covered, and then plunge and add to bottling bucket or secondary.

Have people been doing this at all more recently than, say, 2010? It seems it really took off in Oz for bittering etc etc with extract kits, but this concept to add another aroma boost just at bottling time would be the equivalent of keg hops, just for bottles.

 

[b-boy]

I had bad luck doing this using my French press. I got way too much vegetal flavor in the final product.

 

[bonecitybrewco]

I had bad luck doing this using my French press. I got way too much vegetal flavor in the final product.

Do you mind me asking what amount of hops you were using? The successful people I have read of were only using 0.5 oz or so.

 

[pvpeacock]

In the past, I would take 2-3 oz. of pellet hops (for 5 gallons of beer), put them in a French press with water around 160 - 170 degrees and let it sit for an hour. I would then press and pour the hop tea into a keg of beer. It worked great both with a fresh keg and with a half empty keg when I wanted to boost the hop smell/flavor that had faded over time. I stopped doing it for fear that I was oxidizing the beer, but honestly never tasted any oxidation at all. In addition, I think if you were to do that in your bottling bucket, the yeast would use up any oxygen in the process of carbonating the bottles.

 

[jayway]

I've done the french press hop tea twice when transferring to keg. Although those beers were nice and hoppy with great aroma I couldn't give the credit to the hop tea. I'm sure it didn't hurt but I just didn't notice any real difference over my normal dry hopped beers. I used 1oz both times and it was a pain to press it.

I also worried about introducing o2 to the finished beer with this method. I quit dry hopping in the keg as well due to no noticeable difference. In my experience a two part dry hop in primary produces the best aroma.

 

[bonecitybrewco]

I've done the french press hop tea twice when transferring to keg. Although those beers were nice and hoppy with great aroma I couldn't give the credit to the hop tea. I'm sure it didn't hurt but I just didn't notice any real difference over my normal dry hopped beers. I used 1oz both times and it was a pain to press it.

I also worried about introducing o2 to the finished beer with this method. I quit dry hopping in the keg as well due to no noticeable difference. In my experience a two part dry hop in primary produces the best aroma.

By two part, I assume you mean right at the tail end of fermentation and then again a few days before packaging?\

And I guess the real test would be to try it non-dry hopped but with tea, dry hopped on its' own, and then doing both and really see what the differences are.

In the past, I would take 2-3 oz. of pellet hops (for 5 gallons of beer), put them in a French press with water around 160 - 170 degrees and let it sit for an hour. I would then press and pour the hop tea into a keg of beer. It worked great both with a fresh keg and with a half empty keg when I wanted to boost the hop smell/flavor that had faded over time. I stopped doing it for fear that I was oxidizing the beer, but honestly never tasted any oxidation at all. In addition, I think if you were to do that in your bottling bucket, the yeast would use up any oxygen in the process of carbonating the bottles.

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to try it for the first time on this batch, only because my dry hops went in a bit too early. I am hoping for positive results. My next batch may be a 10 gallon split 3 ways just to test this. Did you find that many oz's to be too much? Or no? No vegetal flavours/grassy smells?

 

[jayway]

By two part, I assume you mean right at the tail end of fermentation and then again a few days before packaging?

Correct... good luck! Sounds like a fun and interesting experiment.

 

[b-boy]

Do you mind me asking what amount of hops you were using? The successful people I have read of were only using 0.5 oz or so.

I don't remember. It was instead of dry hopping, so I would assume I used the same amount of hops as if I dry hopped. It was a pale ale.

I blamed the taste on the fact that I really compressed the hops with the French press. I thought I might have overdone it, and extracted more than just the hop oils. It made the entire 5-gallon batch a little funky, so I never tried it again.

 

[bonecitybrewco]

I don't remember. It was instead of dry hopping, so I would assume I used the same amount of hops as if I dry hopped. It was a pale ale.

I blamed the taste on the fact that I really compressed the hops with the French press. I thought I might have overdone it, and extracted more than just the hop oils. It made the entire 5-gallon batch a little funky, so I never tried it again.

Did you remove your hops from the freezer 24 hours before hand and do you remember what variety it was?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm really trying to prevent what happened to you and some others. From the sounds of it, it was a problem of not taking hops out of cold storage early enough combined with too many hops or too much water. Or a combination of things like too high AAU's. Really want to nail down a good process for it.

 

[b-boy]

It was Yooper's Pale Ale, which I believe is 100% Cascade. I'm positive I didn't use frozen hops.

 

[bonecitybrewco]

It was Yooper's Pale Ale, which I believe is 100% Cascade. I'm positive I didn't use frozen hops.

Thanks for the information. Every little bit of info from successful and non-successful brews helps! I appreciate the insight!