Adding hop tea, but not steeped....

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H0U5ECAT

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I've been reading alot of late about adding hop tea instead of dry hopping during second fermentation or adding a sock to the keg etc etc etc.
There are pros and cons for either option.

The main thing I have noted is that when people add a "hop tea", the process that involves steeping your hops for 10 -20 mins in water that is generally around the 70 deg mark, is that it may tend to give of a more grassy flavours and not be aromatic as it should.

Vs Dry hopping or adding a sock to a keg is that it can possibly introduce the possibility of contamination from the sock etc.
Please note, before there is a backlash of people saying "I do it all the time and it's fine", I would like to stress the point I said POSSIBILITY. Not always.

So somewhere between schooner 4 and 5, I thought has anyone steeped hops in water at pitching/fermentation temp?

To reduce the risk of contamination, I would bring 200mls (around abouts) of water to the boil and let it simmer for 5 mins.
Secondly I would boil my hopsock in a different saucepan to sterilise that.
Letting the water cool down in a sealed container by either forcing it in a tub of ice, down to 18 deg, I would add the sock and hops to the water and let it steep for a period of time.
Then after that, I would add this to my keg/fermenter during racking.

Has anyone else thought this would be a viable option, or has anyone done it in a similar fashion?
 
There are going to be a bunch of pros and cons.
One thing you will notice is that "cold steep" will extract different flavours, two big contributors to this will be that there is no alcohol in you steep and alcohol is a very powerful solvent. The other is the lack of carbonation, dissolved CO2 lowers the pH (which affects solubility for some fractions) and carbonic acid will act a solvent in some cases.
Read up on the original "Torpedo" as is in Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra...
Mark
 
Thanks mate.
I knew there would be a whole science behind it.
I guess the only real way to compare the finishes is to create 4 batches. one dry hopped, one steeped, one w/ tea and a control batch without hops.
I should also add in the Ph testing of the waters etc and give levels both pre and post fermenting.
I was sure I wasn't the only person who ever thought about this. You gave a bit of valuable insight into the actual process of drawing out the flavours etc.
 
Not many commercial breweries I know of would even consider this, and for good reason
 
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