Hop Tea

[BarleyWater]

I was wondering about the effects of making a hop tea. I am just guessing from reading, that you basically steep some hops the way you would specialty grains, and add them to your wort. But when do you add it and what flavors or bitterness does it impart on the brew?

 

[knipknup]

My understanding of this is for a more affective dry hopping with whole leaf hops. You soak the hops in a bit of water at 180F (maybe 1oz hops in 6-8oz water), then put it all in the batch, water and all. It should add only aroma but no bittering.

 

[homebrewer_99]

What's the purpose of the tea? Bittering or aroma?

I boiled 1 oz of whole hops in 1/2 gal of water for an hour, but had to add more water because of evaporation.

I added it to the brew while in the secondary to bitter it up some. I ended up using 2 C tea.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

What's the purpose of the tea? Bittering or aroma?

I boiled 1 oz of whole hops in 1/2 gal of water for an hour, but had to add more water because of evaporation.

I added it to the brew while in the secondary to bitter it up some. I ended up using 2 C tea.

I would think you could do bittering or aroma, depending on how long you boil the hops. Can anyone verify that?

Seems to me, it opens a lot of possibilities for experimental hopping.

 

[Torchiest]

My understanding was that you make a hop tea if you want to add bitterness to the beer. I boiled about 1/2oz of hop pellets for 30mins or so in about a pint of water to add some more bitterness to my last batch of porter, and it came out great. One thing to consider is that the hop utilization will be extreme in pure water, so a little bit of hops goes a long way.

However, if you're only looking to add aroma, you just add the hops directly to the secondary. I don't think you're supposed to steep or boil the hops beforehand, because you'll lose some flavor and aroma by doing that. I'm going to be adding two ounces of hops to the secondary for my IIPA; I'll just put them in a sanitized muslin bag and forget about them for a couple weeks.

 

[david_42]

Boil for bitterness, steep for flavor, dry hop for aroma.

 

[BarleyWater]

Thanks David, that's how I understood it would be, but had been getting conflicting reports. So, if I wanted to add some extra bitterness to an IPA without using a lot of hops (I'm in an apartment and can only do partial boils at the moment), I could boil them on the side and add it to the wort in the fermenter. What would the utilization be like doing this, I know it would be much higher, but is there any way to figure it out exactly?

 

[homebrewer_99]

The max utilization is 30% at a 60 minute boil.

 

[Glibbidy]

Here is a great podcast on hop tea

 

[BarleyWater]

O.K. So one ounce of pelleted hops, alpha acid 10.5%, boiled in 1/2 gallon of water gets about 480 IBU's, diluted to 5 gallons is about 48 IBU's, is this the bitternedd that will be added to the brew, or does adding it to the wort, Dilute the bitterness even more? The thought of being able to add that much bitterness without a large amount of hops is enticing, and makes me wonder why even hop the boiling wort, and just make a hop tea on the side with the same timed additions, just in smaller amounts. Would you lose all of the hop flavor still?

 

[homebrewer_99]

OK, back off...you only add the tea about 1 Cup at a time...stir slowly, let sit for about 5 mins and re-sample.

If you over hop it's a goner. Take your time to get a brew flavor you like then STOP!!!

The trick is...would you want a second taste of the last taste? If so, take a second taste and STOP adding tea.