Hop Tea Vs Dry Hop

[Pumpy]

Gday all.

It seems like there's two main post-boil methods of getting aroma hop additions in your beer. The first being dry hopping, chucking hops into your fermenter or keg, or making a hop tea and adding that to your fermenter or keg.

People with experience doing both, what are the negatives and positives of both?

I use the pool skimmer box stockings one or two a boiled SS washer

add up to 14 - 28 grams hops per keg

tie with dental floss and suspend in keg

18 C for five days for best flavour
5 C for 10 days
remove hops from keg

I find effect lasts r five days then you have to repeat

You will only get Grassy flavours if you dont remove hops after five days

Pumpy

 

[Thirsty Boy]

As Batz said - this is two different processes. Dry Hop character and Kettle Hop character are two different things. You cant get a good "dry hop" character by trying to use a hop tea... and you cant get a good "late hop" character by dry hopping.

Dry hopping allows you to get the flavour and aroma of the very volatile hydrocarbon components of the hop oils - these are almost instantly blown off if you boil your hops even for a very short time, like in a hop tea.

The components that you get from late hopping and (mostly) from hop teas are the oxidised terpene fraction of the hop oils including alcohols, heavy esters, keytones and other stuff - these are considerably less volatile and also often even more aromatic than the hydrocarbons. They can survive a bit of boiling & give you the perfumy aromas you get from late hopping.

The compromise is the hopback.. which is the only form of hopping with hot wort that gets you any real hydrocarbon content because its happening in a sealed environment and things are cooled so quickly that some of the hydrocarbon fraction is retained, LOTS of the oxygenated fraction is retained and so you get intensely floral perfume oriented aromas like as you get in a Little Creatures. ... but even then, hopback beers are different to dry hop or late hopped beers. The heat changes things.

I frequently use hop teas when I want a more intense late hop character - subtle late hop aroma I can get from hops into my no-chill cube.. but that also gives you lots of flavour - so if I'm mainly looking for aroma, its hop tea time. I generally boil for very short periods or not at all. Simply stirring the hops into the hot water (Yes Tony, hot water, which works perfectly well in fact - although perhaps if I was boiling for longer it wouldn't) and the more intense a "hopback" character I want, the less time I leave between the hops hitting the heat and the wort being poured into the fermenter to cool down. If I am trying to emulate a creatures style aroma.. then I only leave it for 20-30 seconds or so, just stirred in really, plunge the coffee plunger and into the fermenter it goes - that gives me the really volatile stuff, then I'll add more water and give it a few more minutes to extract a little more of the less delicate aromas and not be tossing then in the bin.

The other thing that a hop tea gives you - is the ability to not have a lot of your late hop aroma blown out the airlock during the vigorous initial fermentation. I put my teas into the fermenter 1/2 the 2/3rds of the way through when things have slowed down a little - BUT - have found that if you don't give the tea some contact with actively fermenting wort - you do end up with grassy and harsh flavours, even if you make the tea with wort rather than water. Teas put into the fermenter right at the end, or into the keg have been in my experience initially quite nasty - they do settle down over time and end up good, but the working yeast and a bit of C02 evolution does in a few days what it takes weeks in the keg to achieve.

I don't much care for straight dry hop character and do it infrequently and/or lightly - I like the hopback character, but being a no-chiller had to muck about quite a bit to come close to it... ergo all the hop tea experimenting.... I call it Ultra Late Hopping and its a little bit of mucking about, but works very well and is a great addition if you happen to be a no-chiller like me

Thats how it works for me anyway

TB

edit spelling and the especially poor grammar bits

 

[Bribie G]

TB - that's basically what I do, as a no chiller. For example with a couple of American Ambers I have at the moment, on pitching the yeast I also added 20g of Centennial to one and 20g of Amarillo to the other, as hop tea. Today they go into cubes for a cold crash and a further 20g of each hop - as hop tea - will go into each cube.

Using a coffee plunger, can anyone see any problems with keeping the pressed hop 'cake' and using it as part of the bittering addition for the next brew?

Edit: I realise that the hop tea right at the end can produce a flavour/aroma that stomps all over some of the other features of the beer but as it's American Ambers this is what I'm looking for as they late hop their beers to buggery, as far as I know. I wouldn't attempt it with a UK beer - I once did it with quite a small amount of Cascade in a UK Special Bitter because I heard that's what Fullers and Brains do with some of their beers nowadays. All you could taste was the Cascade so I wouldn't do that ultra ultra ultra late hop again in that case.

 

[MarkBastard]

Thanks TB, very well explained.

 

[RdeVjun]

Using a coffee plunger, can anyone see any problems with keeping the pressed hop 'cake' and using it as part of the bittering addition for the next brew?

Great minds etc! I have a heap of wet Styrian in a plastic bottle in my freezer to try this with! Only thing is, I didn't keep terribly good records of what went into it, so it is probably worthwhile starting the collection again, or just accept random bittering...

I haven't used the plunger for a while though, partly out of laziness but also trying to reduce the number of individual operations* and also ambivalence about whether it was giving the desired results, so recently I have just been adding more late kettle hops. That seems to give satisfactory flavour and aroma in my ESBs, but I could probably fiddle around with aroma again with a some tea going in towards the end of fermentation.

Also, I agree with Thirsty about not adding the teas too late, it can get grassy and rather obnoxious if added after fermentation has ceased.

* With 4 batches on the go at once and at varying stages of completion, from brewing the stuff, fart- arsing around with yeasts, tea hopping, gelatining, racking and so on, there was something needing doing every day and it started to made it difficult to go away/ have a life etc, so I looked to trim back the number of operations.

 

[Bribie G]

A major criticism of No-Chill in a cube is the possible muted hop flavour and aroma character of the finished beer. Now I may be wandering into totally politically incorrect territory here but with my next ale brew, I might use a good dual purpose hop such as Northdown or Challenger and do the following.

• Using say 50g of the hop, make hop tea with a very short boil and fridge it in a sanitised jar (Schottie)
• Use the pressings for bittering in the kettle
• Add the tea to the beer on pitching the yeast into the cooled wort

A bit like those operations where they remove some of your tissue/cells, do the nuke procedure then inject the healthy stuff back into your body. Might work.

 

[fraser_john]

You will only get Grassy flavours if you dont remove hops after five days

How long would you think the real-ales in England are kept around? They often dry hop as it leaves the brewery. You have me concerned as I have a bag of hops in one of my kegs I am naturally carbonating as an experiment and its going to be more than 5 days!

 

[Bribie G]

I have teaballed a plug of Styrians in a keg and kept it for two weeks before chilling, then another week cold before serving. Took it to the QLD case swap, no complaints However I'd be a bit cautious with traditional Fuggles or with some of the Germans such as trad. Hallertauer.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

A major criticism of No-Chill in a cube is the possible muted hop flavour and aroma character of the finished beer. Now I may be wandering into totally politically incorrect territory here but with my next ale brew, I might use a good dual purpose hop such as Northdown or Challenger and do the following.

• Using say 50g of the hop, make hop tea with a very short boil and fridge it in a sanitised jar (Schottie)
• Use the pressings for bittering in the kettle
• Add the tea to the beer on pitching the yeast into the cooled wort

A bit like those operations where they remove some of your tissue/cells, do the nuke procedure then inject the healthy stuff back into your body. Might work.

It might work, but I wouldn't hold out any great hopes.

The alpha acids, which is what isomerise to give you your iso-alpha acids and thus bitterness - are insoluable in cold water/beer.. but are soluble in hot wort, so my take on what would happen is that you make your tea, many if not most of the hop acids dissolve out of the hops into the wort and start to isomerise - they of course stop isomerising when you pour the tea into the fermenter, and the insoluble un-isomerised alpha acids fall to the bottom of the fermenter.

Leaving a wet cake of hops that for sure will have some.. but certainly far from their full compliment of alpha acids and aroma compounds. This would be less true with hop flowers where it takes an amount of time in the movement of the boil to physically access the hop resins within the cone... so there might be something in it with flowers.

Perhaps worth a try for shits and giggles, but I wouldn't expect much... it would be kinda cool if it did work though.

 

[Pumpy]

How long would you think the real-ales in England are kept around? They often dry hop as it leaves the brewery. You have me concerned as I have a bag of hops in one of my kegs I am naturally carbonating as an experiment and its going to be more than 5 days!

FJ It is only my opinion ,maybe as I use pellets and not plugs to dry hop , those plugs take a bit of time to absorb and break open completley
plus if you are dry hopping at 18 C or 5 C would make a difference

 

[MarkBastard]

Anyone who does double batches but ferments in two 30L fermenters, willing to do an experiment and provide feedback? Would be awesome if someone could do a side by side.

 

[TidalPete]

I use a 20cm square of swiss voile (yep the BIAB stuff). Boil the voile in some water for a few min then add 1g/L of hops/ sometimes 2g/L to the square, tie it up with a plastic coated twistie tie and drop it in the keg. As soon as the hop aroma reaches the desired level (4 to 10 days) I fish it out with a piece of wire with a hook on the end.

Screwy

Got Swiss voile bags designed for this very purpose but have only dry hopped to keg a couple of times. I don't "no chill" & find adding my aroma hops after the boil is turned off then steeping for 20 minutes before chilling works ok.
To dry hop in the keg toss a big (sanitised) ball bearing in with the hops & fish them out with this -----


T

 

[Bribie G]

Got Swiss voile bags designed for this very purpose but have only dry hopped to keg a couple of times. I don't "no chill" & find adding my aroma hops after the boil is turned off then steeping for 20 minutes before chilling works ok.
To dry hop in the keg toss a big (sanitised) ball bearing in with the hops & fish them out with this -----
View attachment 36222

T

You've lost me there Pete, is that a sex aid?

 

[TidalPete]

You've lost me there Pete, is that a sex aid?

:lol: Sadly not mate.

Tip the keg slightly to one side & the ball bearing rolls the hop bag to the side of the keg where these very powerful magnets (Some use them for a stir bar) guided by your sober (?) hands raise the hop bag to the top of the keg for painless extraction.
Best $5 or $6 I ever spent. These little buggers have lots of uses around the brewery. :super:

T

 

[fraser_john]

FJ It is only my opinion ,maybe as I use pellets and not plugs to dry hop , those plugs take a bit of time to absorb and break open completley
plus if you are dry hopping at 18 C or 5 C would make a difference

Off topic, but info about dry hopping non the less, I had 30gms of each cascade and chinook in an APA whilst it was naturally carbonating, home grown flowers.

After over two weeks I have put it on tap and thankfully no grassy flavours! Yippee.

Might be right Pumpy, could be the pellets, much greater surface area for leeching that out.

 

[The_Duck]

Hi All,

Just want to make sure I have my head around the thoughts in this thread:

1. If you make a hop tea, it will give you aroma unless you boil the hops for a while and then you run the risk of off flavours (grassiness, harsh bitterness etc).

2. Doing a very short steep in hot water (< 1 minute) in a coffee plunger then adding to the fermenter about 1/3 to 2/3 of the way through the ferment should give a good result

3. Adding hops to a hop ball and dropping in the keg COULD be hit and miss for delivering flavour and aroma. If it works it will probably be for about 1 week so drink up quick ?

4. Depending on the hop variety, hop rates should be approx 1-2g/L of beer you are modifying ? Is there any more science around working out the right rate ?

5. Adding stuff to the fermenter or keg that has not been boiled is OK ? Is this not risking infection in the brew ?


I am testing something with a current brew (ANZAC Pilsner - Aussie Malt with Kiwi Hops ) where I did a late addition (flameout) of hops right before I dumped it all into a 17L cube. I has a litre or 2 of riwaka and malt in the bottom of the kettle which I put in a small airtight plastic bucket (malt extract bucket from LHBS) and sealed up.

When I pitched the brew into the fermenter, I also dumped the hoppy mix in as well. Not sure how that will all turn out but I am expecting the aroma will still be there but little or no added bitterness.



Duck

 

[Nick JD]

Putting a small hop pellet into your left nostril while sipping your beer gives by far the best hop aroma of any other method.

 

[The_Duck]

Putting a small hop pellet into your left nostril while sipping your beer gives by far the best hop aroma of any other method.

Yes... yes it would.

Can't say it is the most practical method and certainly would get some strange looks from my friends when I give them a piece of green vegetable matter and tell them to shove it up.... somewhere.

Could end in tears.

Thanks for thinking outside the box though.


Duck

 

[Bribie G]

Nick, you've started early today - must be Oktoberfest :icon_cheers:

Duck, one thing about hop tea, if you use boiling water and make it just like a pot of normal tea, preferably in a french press, it can add a fair amount of bitterness. I know the Gods of Brewing Information have all these graphs and charts that tell you that alpha acids need to be boiled for hours etc to impart bitterness. I'd challenge them to drink half a cup, nay quarter of a cup, nay even a tablespoonful of my hop tea that I get out of the french press without looking like this



Dry hopping with pellets straight into the fermenter or a teaball into the keg, on the other hand, will impart more aroma and a bit of flavour (never could work out what hop flavour is supposed to be as flavour and aroma are intertwined. I was always under the impression that there is only sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami)

 

[The_Duck]

Nick, you've started early today - must be Oktoberfest :icon_cheers:

Duck, one thing about hop tea, if you use boiling water and make it just like a pot of normal tea, preferably in a french press, it can add a fair amount of bitterness. I know the Gods of Brewing Information have all these graphs and charts that tell you that alpha acids need to be boiled for hours etc to impart bitterness. I'd challenge them to drink half a cup, nay quarter of a cup, nay even a tablespoonful of my hop tea that I get out of the french press without looking like this

View attachment 41108

Dry hopping with pellets straight into the fermenter or a teaball into the keg, on the other hand, will impart more aroma and a bit of flavour (never could work out what hop flavour is supposed to be as flavour and aroma are intertwined. I was always under the impression that there is only sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami)

Hi Bribie,

French Press = Coffee Plunger ?

I generally don't need bitterness, I would just like to "bump" the aroma up a few notches in some brews. Hopefully as my limited skills progress there will be less need to do adjustments.

I will play around with teas for a bit and see how I go. As with most stuff I found in brewing, it is a moving target due to seasonal changes in products, weather, process etc.

I have 2 teaball's ready to roll for the keg hopping if I go that route.


Thanks for the comments.


Duck