Hop Tea

[AnOldUR]

I have a really high gravity beer (OG=1.133) that tastes under hopped in the secondary. I thinking about making a hop tea by boiling an once of hops in ½ gallon of water and racking the beer on top of this in a new carboy. If my calculations are correct this will drop the theoretical OG to 1.122, but add about 50 bitterness points. Anyone try this? Results?

(I’m sure this has been tried, but I can’t get the search engine to take "hop tea" as search criteria.)

 

[k1v1116]

I think it should work, but the IBUs added depend on the AAs of the hops used and how long you boil them. since your boiling them in plain water I think the hop utilization will be high because its supposed to go down as wort gravity increases. I dont know where you would find it but I think ive read about hop extract that can be used in much smaller quantities to adjust the IBUs it might be worth looking into.

 

[AnOldUR]

To get that IBU number I stuck 1oz of Centennial (10%) and .5 gallons boil with a 5 gallon batch size and a 60 minute boil time into BeerSmith and it came up with 54 IBU. Not sure if that is an accurate way to do the calculations?

 

[homebrewer_99]

I've done hop teas in the past out of necessity and experimentation.

If you start to boil 1/2 gal in a large soup pot (with a large surface area) you will lose about 1/2 your water to evaporation.

The bitterness (of the water) will be concentrated so your calculations will be off anyway presuming you calculated an ending volume of tea at 1/2 gal.

The first time I made a tea I kept adding water to keep the volume up. In the end I added 3 C of tea and it really improved the flavor of the brew to a more enjoyable level.

IMO, you need to add 1 C at a time, give is a slow gentl stir and let it sit a few minutes to blend with the brew. From there you can take a sample drink and adjust (add) the tea as you deem the proper level.

You will know when the brew's flavor (hoppiness) is just about perfect when you want to try another sample.

Don't overdo it because it's easier to add than subtract bitterness.

Incidently, if you boil the same amount of water, double up on the hops, but only boil for 30 mins you will get the same bitterness AND some flavoring characteristics of the hop.

Don't forget to strain the hops out of the tea.

Any extra tea can be saved in a jar in the fridge.

 

[calpyro]

I have a really high gravity beer (OG=1.133) that tastes under hopped in the secondary. I thinking about making a hop tea by boiling an once of hops in ½ gallon of water and racking the beer on top of this in a new carboy. If my calculations are correct this will drop the theoretical OG to 1.122, but add about 50 bitterness points. Anyone try this? Results?

(I’m sure this has been tried, but I can’t get the search engine to take "hop tea" as search criteria.)

Read this thread. It is all about hop tea:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=55721&highlight=french+randall