Hop Tea instead of Dry Hopping?

[SRJHops]

I'm working on low oxygen brewing for my NEIPA and thinking about adding a hop tea when bottling. (I only dry hopped on Day 2 and don't want to open the fermenter again and won't be racking to secondary.)

Three choices: steep hops in boiled water cooled to 175; steep in the boiled priming sugar water at 175; and what about steeping in some of the actual wort for 20 mins? Anybody every tried that?

I'm bottling straight from the fermenter to avoid oxygen, and will use a dropper to put the hop tea right into the bottles.

Anyone used hop tea instead of dry hopping? How much hops to use for the hop tea? I'm bottling 6 gallons and thinking 2-3 ounces of hops for the tea.

 

[IslandLizard]

Hop tea is not gonna work, you cannot pack anywhere nearly enough lupulin in a pint (or two) of water. You end up diluting everything. Besides, dry hops aren't steeped in hot water, they give off their goodness directly to the cool beer, which among many other chemical vehicles contains alcohol, a good solvent for aromatics and flavors.

Omitting a secondary is spot on. There's no need for those at all, with only very few exceptions, such as bulk aging and sours.

How many days has it been in the fermenter by now?
What kind of fermenter do you have? If a bucket you can drop hop pellets through the airlock hole. You'd lose some CO2 that way, but not all. If a carboy, just drop em in. Adding the hops will most likely cause some CO2 to come out of solution too, replenishing some that was lost. Don't sweat it!

Do you have access to CO2?

 

[SRJHops]

Hop tea is not gonna work, you cannot pack anywhere nearly enough lupulin in a pint (or two) of water. You end up diluting everything. Besides, dry hops aren't steeped in hot water, they give off their goodness directly to the cool beer, which among many other chemical vehicles contains alcohol, a good solvent for aromatics and flavors.

Omitting a secondary is spot on. There's no need for those at all, with only very few exceptions, such as bulk aging and sours.

How many days has it been in the fermenter by now?
What kind of fermenter do you have? If a bucket you can drop hop pellets through the airlock hole. You'd lose some CO2 that way, but not all. If a carboy, just drop em in. Adding the hops will most likely cause some CO2 to come out of solution too, replenishing some that was lost. Don't sweat it!

Do you have access to CO2?

Thanks. Yeah, maybe I should just bite the bullet and pick up some Co2, then I can just purge the carboy after a dry hop charge a few days before bottling.

I've been trying to really minimize oxygen contact, but I think my past NEIPA's were probably oxidized more from racking to secondary than dry hopping. I'll take your advice and just throw some hops in a few days before bottling.

But if I WERE to try some hop tea, I wonder if steeping them in a few cups of the wort for an hour would work? Of course, that would expose that wort to oxygen, so maybe I'd be better off just steeping in water at 170...

My plan was to put an ounce of the hop tea right into the bombers, then fill and cap. I've been using carbonation tabs (Coopers Carbonation Drops), but might try just putting the priming sugar in the carboy before bottling. (Trying to skip the bottling bucket of course.)

Here's an article I found about hop teas: https://beerandbrewing.com/use-hops-tea-to-enhance-flavors-in-your-beer/

 

[bonecitybrewco]

I have done a hop tea before. I used it in addition to a single dry hop. It was my last batch I bottled. I added the hops to a French press of 2 cups of boiled then cooled to 140* water and let them steep for 30 mins. Pressed down to filter and added to bottling bucket with dissolved sugar solution. This was the beer with the most fragrance I ever did while bottling. I’m convinced it helped but it also revealed to me how much I hate florally hops like centennial.

 

[SRJHops]

I have done a hop tea before. I used it in addition to a single dry hop. It was my last batch I bottled. I added the hops to a French press of 2 cups of boiled then cooled to 140* water and let them steep for 30 mins. Pressed down to filter and added to bottling bucket with dissolved sugar solution. This was the beer with the most fragrance I ever did while bottling. I’m convinced it helped but it also revealed to me how much I hate florally hops like centennial.

Thanks bonecitybrewco. What would you think about steeping in some of the fermented beer prior to bottling? An old post I sound suggest heating it to 110-120 and steeping, then adding back to the fermenter (or maybe right into the bottles).

 

[bonecitybrewco]

Thanks bonecitybrewco. What would you think about steeping in some of the fermented beer prior to bottling? An old post I sound suggest heating it to 110-120 and steeping, then adding back to the fermenter (or maybe right into the bottles).

In my mind adding it to the bottling bucket or directly to keg would be the best way to do it. Could definitely use fermented beer but I don’t know what effect reheating it would have on the beer itself? Maybe none? Worth the experiment in my mind.

 

[SRJHops]

In my mind adding it to the bottling bucket or directly to keg would be the best way to do it. Could definitely use fermented beer but I don’t know what effect reheating it would have on the beer itself? Maybe none? Worth the experiment in my mind.

I don't have Co2, so I'm skipping the bottling bucket to avoid oxidation. I recently made my best NEIPA yet by only opening the fermenter on day 2 for the dry hop charge/biotrans during high krausen, then bottled right from the fermenter on day 14. (I used Cooper's sugar tablets in the bottles.) The result was a tasty beer with no signs of oxidation, but it could use some more aroma -- hence the idea for hop tea.

In theory as long as I don't boil the fermented beer, it should retain most of the alcohol, though not sure what will happen to the flavor. There will likely be some oxidation, but we're only talking 30 ounces of beer. If I use boiled and cooled water for the hop tea, maybe there would be a bit less oxidation? Hard to say...

How did you choose 140 for the temp? Any thoughts about trying it at 170?

 

[bonecitybrewco]

I don't have Co2, so I'm skipping the bottling bucket to avoid oxidation. I recently made my best NEIPA yet by only opening the fermenter on day 2 for the dry hop charge/biotrans during high krausen, then bottled right from the fermenter on day 14. (I used Cooper's sugar tablets in the bottles.) The result was a tasty beer with no signs of oxidation, but it could use some more aroma -- hence the idea for hop tea.

In theory as long as I don't boil the fermented beer, it should retain most of the alcohol, though not sure what will happen to the flavor. There will likely be some oxidation, but we're only talking 30 ounces of beer. If I use boiled and cooled water for the hop tea, maybe there would be a bit less oxidation? Hard to say...

How did you choose 140 for the temp? Any thoughts about trying it at 170?

Absolutely you could try 170, I just chose 140 because of isomerization temps and time. At 170 I was concerned about extracting more bitterness but I don’t see why it couldn’t work.

 

[SRJHops]

Absolutely you could try 170, I just chose 140 because of isomerization temps and time. At 170 I was concerned about extracting more bitterness but I don’t see why it couldn’t work.

I don't really need more bitterness, though a small amount wouldn't hurt. Do you think I'd get a lot more bitterness at 170 vs 140?

Maybe I'll shoot for 140 or even 120 for the steeping temp. I am really looking for more aroma.

Any advice on how much hops to use? I usually do 6 gallon batches. My plan is to heat about 30 ounces of fermented beer. I was thinking 2 ounces of Cryo hops (simcoe and citra), but worried that might be overkill?

I plan to use a dropper to put one ounce of tea into each of my 25 bombers (with sugar tabs in them already). Then fill, cap, and see what happens!

 

[SRJHops]

Absolutely you could try 170, I just chose 140 because of isomerization temps and time. At 170 I was concerned about extracting more bitterness but I don’t see why it couldn’t work.

So I ended up steeping an ounce of Citra Cryo in 30 ounces of boiled water cooled to 140. Since it was powder I didn't strain it, but just put 1 ounce into each bomber (ended up with 28).

Do you think 1 ounce in each bomber was about right, or perhaps too much?

Probably tasted it a bit too soon (after one week in the bottle), because not enough carbonation yet, and the overall taste was a little harsh and more bitter than I was shooting for. Not a ton of aroma, no doubt due to the under-carbonation so far.

I have hopes that it carb up and mellow out over the next 2 weeks. I did notice that my last bottle conditioned NEIPA actually drank best after 3-4 weeks in the bottle...


I'll report back in another week or two with an update...

 

[SRJHops]

Hop tea update:

The hop tea has now been conditioning in the bomber bottles for three weeks. After one week the beer was fairly harsh with a lot of bitterness and "hop burn."

After two weeks the hop tea settled down a bit and, oddly, gave the beer some piney taste -- not bad, but surprising since I was going for more citrus flavor and aroma.

Now after three weeks the hop tea has finally smoothed out and combined better with the other hops.

Overall, the hop tea added more bitterness than I was expecting, and didn't add much aroma. I drank a bottle without the hop tea and preferred it, so at best my experiment is mixed. If I wanted to add bitterness well after fermentation but right at bottling, then adding some hop tea would help. But it did not seem to add the aroma I was hoping for.

As I mentioned, I used 1 ounce of Cryo Citra and did not strain it, since I figured it was a powder. I boiled 30 ounces of water and let the hops steep for 20 minutes once the water hit 140 degrees. I put one ounce of hop tea into each bomber.

If I did it again, I would probably not use Cryo and instead just use 1 ounce of regular hop pellets and strain them before bottling. I might also just make 15 ounces of hop tea, and put 1/2 ounce into each 22 ounce bomber.

But I think instead of more hop tea experiments, I am going to focus on late stage dry hopping and purging the carboy headspace.