Hop Tea???

[ILBMF]

Hey guys, what's the best way to prepare a cup or 2 of hop tea with the intention of increasing the hop presence in an already tapped keg? I've been dry hopping the kegs with a bag/heavy stainless bolts which is great for a while, but eventually I can sense a tad of grassy flavor after a couple of weeks in there.

I just want the equivalent of adding a half oz to a whole ounce of hops in the bag.

 

[jester5120]

Can you just pull the bag back out before it gets the grassy flavor

 

[ILBMF]

Yeah, I was thinking that and wondering if a piece of thread would still seal along with the corny keg large o-ring. In other words, lower it to ''near the bottom'' and have the lid's o-ring pinch the thread to keep it suspended slightly above the bottom of the keg.

 

[jester5120]

I've never done it myself but I've heard of people using fishing line to do that. They weight the hop bag with marbles or something so it sinks then just pull it back up

 

[ILBMF]

Yeah, I use sanitized stainless steel bolts and lower it to the bottom and just drop the string in and leave it, but I would like to see if a nylon string or fishing line would seal along the o-ring so I can hang it close, but not all the way to the bottom and pull it up when I feel it's peaked..

 

[jester5120]

i bet it's thin enough to still keep an air tight seal. just keep some soapy water handy so you can check for leaks when you try

 

[944play]

French press. The Bodum Young has an insulating jacket which is nice for mashing little all-grain starter batches.

 

[ILBMF]

I'm aware of making a small starter like batch and using the french press, but that's usually explained as something done in the secondary, not the keg. If someone has an exact method for a cold, kegged beer I'd like to try it.

In the meantime, I'm trying the fishing line and spraying soapy water to check for gas leaking.

 

[944play]

The one time I made a hop tea, it was indeed for a kegged beer. I made about a liter of ~1.060 wort, boiled it with ~.1oz of hops, then steeped the other .9oz at around 150ºF for 15 minutes, pressed, then decanted the wort into a flask, cooled, and pitched with a small amount of yeast harvested from the main batch. It began to ferment overnight, then went into the main batch in the keg at high kraeusen. The keg was left to condition for two weeks at about 60ºF (lager yeast), then lagered for another couple weeks. The beer was perfectly carbonated and relatively diacetyl-free with a nice hoppy profile after this process.

 

[rednekhippiemotrcyclfreak]

The one time I made a hop tea, it was indeed for a kegged beer. I made about a liter of ~1.060 wort, boiled it with ~.1oz of hops, then steeped the other .9oz at around 150ºF for 15 minutes, pressed, then decanted the wort into a flask, cooled, and pitched with a small amount of yeast harvested from the main batch. It began to ferment overnight, then went into the main batch in the keg at high kraeusen. The keg was left to condition for two weeks at about 60ºF (lager yeast), then lagered for another couple weeks. The beer was perfectly carbonated and relatively diacetyl-free with a nice hoppy profile after this process.

So are you saying that dumping some straight up hop tea into a finished batch of beer wouldn't work?.. or IOW hops need to go through some fermenting stage to produce acceptable flavors?

 

[ILBMF]

To be honest, I recently did an all grain Pliny clone from this site and wanted to just make it sick with hops. It's already 13 ozs of hops in 5 gal, but I just tonight dropped another 1/4oz Simcoe and 1/4 oz CTZ in the keg with a weighted, fine nylon bag and 5 hours later I'm not asking further questions.