I'm a bit late to the thread, but here's a suggestion on hop teas that might give you what you're looking for. After flameout, decant a couple of liters of the hot wort into a cleaned container like an Erlenmeyer flask. Let it cool to your desired hop stand temperature (something > 180F if you want isomerization; something < 175F if you want to emphasize flavor/aroma. This effectively becomes your F.O./whirlpool/hopstand addition. Run it through the French press and add to the fresh wort. Chill, pitch and ferment as usual.
Alternately, chill the reserved 2L volume of wort (German brewers call it speise) in a sealed container in your refrigerator. In making the hop tea, add 2~4 oz. of a neutral spirit like vodka or Everclear to the hop pellets for a day or two, then add the tincture to hot water in the French press for the steep. The alcohol extracts hop oils from the pellets that water alone does not. Chill the hop tea in a separate container, and store it in your refrigerator. When the wort in the fermenter reaches high krausen and begins to subside, mix the reserved wort and hop tea, bringing it up to fermentation temperature. Then mix it into the fermenter (or rack to secondary on top of it if you're doing a secondary fermentation). This effectively becomes your "dry" hop addition.
The benefits of a hop tea are less wort loss due to absorption into the hops (more of a problem with whole hops), less hop debris suspended in the finishing beer (quicker clearing), fewer vegetal flavors in the finished beer, and arguably higher utilization and better control of hops especially on the cold side.
I've had good success with hop teas, even in LoDO brewing. I usually perform a single stage three-week fermentation, then do a closed pressure transfer into sanitized and CO2 purged kegs for conditioning and carbing. If I'm going to dry hop I steep a hop tea and put it in a 1 or 2 liter sanitized PET bottle with a carbonating cap. Then I pressurize the bottle to 15~20 psi and introduce it into the keg thru a jumper line. Sanitary, oxygen-free transfer. It works great.
My last batch (all Centennial IPA) I krausened the reserved speise and transferred it to the keg along with the hop tea using the PET bottle method, then transferred the beer on top of the krausen/tea. Seven days later, under a spunding valve and at room temperature, it was carbed and 'pressure conditioned'. Another 4 days of cold crashing to drop any solids and I'm drinking a finished beer (after 2 pulls on the tap to clear the bottom of the keg).
Hop teas can be a viable option in brewing despite the dismissive opinions of many on this forum. It's just another tool in the toolbox. With the advent of and easy access to hop shots, hop oils, hop hash and cryo hops, the ability to brew great beers with clean hop flavors and aromas, sparkling clarity and fewer suspended particles, in a shorter turn-around time from grain to glass, I'm surprised there aren't more converts to the process.
Brooo Brother
