French Press Aroma Addition

[Guysmiley54]

Hey all,

I brew BIAB and use a no chill cube. When it comes to late hopping I actually do any additions later that 15 minutes on the day of pitching in a small pot to be added straight to the fermenter into chilled wort from my cube. I have been playing with this idea and variants with pretty good success really. I am just getting a little tired of the second boil up and all the mess and fussing around...

Many on this site talk about french pressing their aroma additions. I have a few questions, if anyone has thoughts or answers that would be super!

1) Does using plain boiled water from the kettle extract (isomerise?) any more bitterness than you would get traditionally when doing the same in hot wort?
2) How long do you steep for?
3) Has anyone tried different water temperatures for effect?
(I love this recipe http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=199 and think that waiting 10 mins before steeping the aroma addition for 20mins gives AMAZING aroma!)

4) Is it possible to steep for a longer time period to maybe approximate a 5 or 10 minute addition?
5) What are your results? Does the method actually give much aroma? Is there any harsh bitterness involved? How does it compare to traditionally boiled (steeped for aroma I guess) and chilled wort?

Cheers :beer:

 

[Steve@PMF82]

I have only done it once. It was not no chill, but i did skip the usual late addition in the boil, aka flame out.

I boiled the kettle, waited 5 mins added the water to my hops in french press
Hops were 1g/ L of my volume of wort.
I stirred them in the french press for about a minute, plunged and added straight to fermenter.
It was almost 72hrs into ferment, i had read that its good to do the french pressing while still some fermentation going on to scrub out any possible grassy or vegetable flavours.
I think i ended up with about 250ml going in.

I am pretty happy with the results, really nice aroma i dont think it did much flavour wise good/ bad or added much bitterness.
Probably a method i will use again in the future.

 

[glassgrenade]

I like to reuse my yeast cake so i don't thrw the hops into the fermenter. I think i get a better taste with throwing them in so i do the following...

Add hops to the plunger.
Add boiing water and let sit for 5 mins.
Push the plunger down and add to the fermenter.

Drain 1L of fermented wort into the coffee plunger (gently!)
Let sit for a minute or two, plunge and add to the fermenter.
Add a teaspoon of sugar

Let sit for a few hours and bottle.

Seems to give a more rounded flavour than just the french press alone.

I add the teaspoon of sugar so that it starts a minifermentation, hopefully using up any oxygen that i may have introduced when i plunge the wort. Haven't tasted any off flavours and it works well for me.

Adding french press hops adds tons of aroma for me. I reckon go for it, you got nothing to lose!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I will french press hop sometimes when i am looking to emulate a very late hop or hop back type aroma.

I use plain boiled water
Add to press and stir for a minute or less
Press and add to fermenter

This is a "fast" process, i work quickly and steep for a short time to try and capture the really fast to volatise aromas.

Then I add some more water to the press and stir it up for 5 mins to get a bit more aroma that might have escaped the first press.

I always add it to the beer when there is still some portion of fermentation still to happen because i find that exposing the "hops" to some actively fermenting yeast smooths out grassy and vegetal characteristics that might otherwise take a week or two in secondary or the keg to amalgamate with the beer. But i dont put it in right at the start of fermentation either because i dont want the aroma i have gone to this extra effort to create, to be blown out of the airlock by CO2.

I dont find that this adds any noticable bitterness - although you could make it if you wanted to by increasing the steep times.

Different steep times, liquid temps, addition times to the fermenter, using wort instead of water.... They are all going to make a difference to the result and its just a matter of mucking about with it till you find a method that suits your tastes.

 

[bigandhairy]

Hi TB. Does adding the hop mixture straight away hurt the yeast in any way because it is really hot, or do you cool it before adding to fermenter.

Cheers
bah

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Nope - add hot. Thats one of the reasons i worked it out this particular way. Very short contact time with the hops and then almost instant cooling as it hits the main body of beer.... Just like a hopback.

You are only talking about adding 500ml or so of hot liquid to a fermenter full of beer, its not going to hurt the yeast.

 

[Deebo]

When people say they dont add to the start of fermentation as the co2 will drive off the aroma.. will kegging it do the same thing?

 

[argon]

Online what you mean about the scone boil. In my experience it has yielded some very good results, but the extra rafting about is a pain. I French press regularly as well and I would do it more often if I used flowers/leaves on a regular basis. I find that the pellets turn to a mush very quickly and are difficult to extract the tea without getting slot of hop matter in the vessel when pitching. With flowers/leaves the extraction is a lot simpler and the tea is very clean.

In saying that i might French press some aurora pellets to tonight to an esb I have going at the moment.

 

[Effect]

When people say they dont add to the start of fermentation as the co2 will drive off the aroma.. will kegging it do the same thing?

Not quite. Continuous venting of the keg (i.e. flushing the headspace with co2 and then releasing it) is said to reduce (or waste) the hop aroma. However, kegging alone will not reduce the aroma of a beer.

 

[Effect]

Online what you mean about the scone boil. In my experience it has yielded some very good results, but the extra rafting about is a pain. I French press regularly as well and I would do it more often if I used flowers/leaves on a regular basis. I find that the pellets turn to a mush very quickly and are difficult to extract the tea without getting slot of hop matter in the vessel when pitching. With flowers/leaves the extraction is a lot simpler and the tea is very clean.

In saying that i might French press some aurora pellets to tonight to an esb I have going at the moment.

I found in the beginning that it was easier for me to use chux than to use a french press for pellets. I would get a fresh piece of chux (blue variety), give it a good soak in hot water before using it like a little hop bag. I would sit it in a plastic container for 2 mins with the hop pellets in it. Afterwards I would put on some gloves and give it a good squeeze. Even if you don't do the last bit, it was a simple process...you could use the chux as a second filter after the french press...

Cheers

 

[argon]

Damn iPhone autocorrect... Anyway yeah I was thinking of using a bit of voile in or after the French press to catch some of the hop matter when using pellets. Could just be my plunger though so YMMV. Nice idea withe the chux though... I'll make sure that I use the blue one as I'm sue that's where all the aroma comes from.... mmmm blue :icon_drool2:

 

[bigandhairy]

Nope - add hot. Thats one of the reasons i worked it out this particular way. Very short contact time with the hops and then almost instant cooling as it hits the main body of beer.... Just like a hopback.

You are only talking about adding 500ml or so of hot liquid to a fermenter full of beer, its not going to hurt the yeast.

Cool, thanks TB

bah

 

[pimpsqueak]

I'm going to have to try this on my next brew. I think I will use a paper coffee filter instead of a blue chux though. We shall see if blue is best!!

 

[Guysmiley54]

All good info guys.

When converting recipes, how would you treat a schedule that has 10, 5 and flame out additions in a no chill/ french press situation?

Also, I don't think I will actually french press as I use pellets. I will just use a jug and add the whole thing hops and all and hope that gelatin, CC and polyclar take care of most of the floaties!!

 

[Siborg]

I normally do a 10, 5 and/or 0 min addition in a similar way to TB:

I generally only do 2 additions.

Start with your amount of hops required by the recipe in 500mL of boiling water from the kettle. Steep for 1 min, plunge and into the fermenter. Then add another 500mL of boiling water and steep for 5-10 mins, depending on how much flavour you want.

I've had great results doing it this way. Anything on the recipe that calls for less than 15mins (which becomes 0 min addition).

 

[Siborg]

All good info guys.

When converting recipes, how would you treat a schedule that has 10, 5 and flame out additions in a no chill/ french press situation?

Also, I don't think I will actually french press as I use pellets. I will just use a jug and add the whole thing hops and all and hope that gelatin, CC and polyclar take care of most of the floaties!!

No problem on using french press with pellets. I've only ever done that.

I'd add the 10 min addition at flameout. Do the flameout addition for 1 min in the french press, and the 5 min addition for 5 mins in the french press. Are they very different amounts? what's the schedule?

 

[Guysmiley54]

No problem on using french press with pellets. I've only ever done that.

I'd add the 10 min addition at flameout. Do the flameout addition for 1 min in the french press, and the 5 min addition for 5 mins in the french press. Are they very different amounts? what's the schedule?

I am hoping to decide on a technique that will work with a wide variety of recipes so I don't have a specific recipe in mind really. If I don't use a french press, I don't get a second steeping... Do you think I will miss out on some aroma that way?

 

[Siborg]

I am hoping to decide on a technique that will work with a wide variety of recipes so I don't have a specific recipe in mind really. If I don't use a french press, I don't get a second steeping... Do you think I will miss out on some aroma that way?

I suppose you could do your aroma addition in your jug, then tip that in, and do another addition in the jug and leave that for longer to get a 10 or 5 min addition then pour that in. If the recipe was calling for the same hop addition (ie. 15g cascade @ 10; 15g cascade @ flameout) and you did it that way, you'd use twice the hops.

From what I understand, you can do it in a french press and steep twice due to efficiency, or lack there of. So your second press would isomerise (partially) any remaining oils which you may not have extracted 100% from the first one.

Not too sure of the effect of throwing the hop material in there with the boiling water... would it maybe have a similar effect to dry-hopping? Maybe that's what you're after.

I've got an APA which I no chilled. That's going to get a couple of presses as well as some dry hopping for good measure.

 

[Guysmiley54]

I think this comes down to personal taste and a bit of suck it and see mentality.

Was thinking that for 5-10 minute additions I could stick the jug in the microwave on low to keep temperature high enough to extract bitterness but then we're really getting away from the core idea and closer to Argons method...

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Ahhh - wrong terminology being tossed about here.

Hops have (as a simplified picture) essentially two components that interest us as brewers

Alpha acids - which once exposed to hot wort for a period of time, convert to iso alpha acids which give beer its bitterness.

Essential oils - which give beer its aroma

The alpha acids need time in the heat to be useful as bittering in beer - the longer they are there, the more they will convert, the more bitterness they will contribute.

The essential oils are almost the opposite, they are really quite soluble and range from very to extremely volatile and the longer they are in the hot wort, the more of them just evaporate away and contribute nothing to your beer.

So - an extra steep for your hops isn't about extra "isomerisation" or any process that is similar, its just that - well, smell the hops after a quick press.... They still smell plenty nice. Plainly some of the nice smelly stuff didn't get steeped away. So i have a second go. Its a plant, bits of it will come off easer than others. Quick action for the delicate fast evaporating stuff, a second crack for the more stubborn aroma compounds.

I more or less only use hop pellets and they work perfectly well in my press, you do lose a bit of liquid to absorption by the plant matter though.

This sort of technique really has nothing to do with bitterness - its about aroma. If you want bittering, add more bittering hops to your boil.