No chillers, how do YOU hop tea?

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hathro

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Hi folks,

I'm a no chiller and I cube hop but I'm looking for a bit more flavour to balance out the bitterness. The method of making "hop tea" that make sense to me is to take 2-3L of wort from the cube, bring it to the boil and add the <10 min hop additions. Then add this to the wort in the fermenter, bring it to temp and pitch the yeast. I'm thinking this could balance my beers.

How do you hop tea?
 
Personally if I'm brewing a hoppy ale, I do a single cube hop addition (nothing in the boil) and dry-hop.
I can make a seriously hop-flavour-heavy beer without much bitterness this way if I want...

I haven't found hop tea's necessary, although I'm curious.
 
I aim for about 22 litres, fill the cube like usual with about 20 litres then use soft dink botttles/jug/whatever to collect the rest from the kettle (or urn in my case) and freeze it. I do a stove top boil and add it to the fermenter. I have added it at start of ferment, toward end of ferment and have added it direct to the keg to naturally carb which worked out nicely.
 
hathro said:
How do you hop tea?
I start by putting 20L cube of wort in ferment fridge and cool down to ~12C - this so that when I pour off ~1.5L of wort to boil, cool down to around 80C and add back to cooled wort, it should all end up around 17C for pitching yeast.

So I pour ~1.5L of wort from the cube into a saucepan to boil up. Then before getting to boil, pour into an erlenmeyer flask which is them put on electric stove - set to low-ish carefully when it looks like it's starting to boil. Then I add hop pellets a few at a time to avoid it going volcanic - it'll froth up anyway.

When all hops have been added, turn heat off, put flask into a saucepan with tap water as per pix below to cool off a bit and for the hops to settle to bottom. The hop tea can then be poured into fermenter without too much hops getting in. Then the rest of the wort in the cube is shaken up to aerate a bit and poured into fermenter. Seems to work alright - but a bigger flask might be better.


[zoom]
 
hathro said:
Hi folks,

I'm a no chiller and I cube hop but I'm looking for a bit more flavour to balance out the bitterness. The method of making "hop tea" that make sense to me is to take 2-3L of wort from the cube, bring it to the boil and add the <10 min hop additions. Then add this to the wort in the fermenter, bring it to temp and pitch the yeast. I'm thinking this could balance my beers.

How do you hop tea?
Also called a mini boil, and something I do very regularly.

It is as you describe, you draw off a few litres of cubed wort, bring to the boil and add your hops for the designated time. Put your pot in an ice bath to quickly cool then pitch into your wort.

I pitch hops and all into the fermenter, you just need to make sure you rack off the trub into a bottling bucket and bulk prime to keep the hop particulate out of the bottles (well as much as possible anyway).

JD
 
I don't bother and can make genuinely hoppy balanced beers. Like many others I use a single bittering charge and the rest cube hopped. For cube hopping where i want lots of hop flavour i let the wort cool to about 85C in the urn, then into the cube.
 
Yob said:
I don't.. Are you all cube hops or doing a kettle bittering?
Kettle bittering and 20 minute hops go into the kettle. Anything under 20 minutes goes into the cube.

I'll try of reducing the amount of bittering hops rather than adjust the times. I also think I'm going to give this mini boil thing a go just to see if I notice any difference.
 
I love my mini boils. i use 20% of the batch size.

Also means you can split batches and hop differently.

I reg go 150g of high aa hops into 16l. All in under 5 min adfitions. Super flavour and aroma.
 
having just moved from kit/extract to BIAB, i didnt do any late hops and followed the recipe for my first. Ill be doing my second BIAB AG shortly and was thinking of just doing a late dry hop in a sock to the fermenter. Always got good aroma to balance bitters from K&E in the past..

Might have to try the mini boil soon however!
 
No hops in the kettle, cube hops calculated as 20min additions.

Then a dry hop after 4-5 days
 
Tahoose said:
No hops in the kettle, cube hops calculated as 20min additions.

Then a dry hop after 4-5 days
No hops in the kettle sounds good to me. Less work.

So what you are saying is you cube hop, enter it in your brewing software as a 20 minute addition and calculate your IBU's from there? Won't you be using a lot more hops instead of having a bittering addition earlier in the boil?
 
hathro said:
No hops in the kettle sounds good to me. Less work.

So what you are saying is you cube hop, enter it in your brewing software as a 20 minute addition and calculate your IBU's from there? Won't you be using a lot more hops instead of having a bittering addition earlier in the boil?
OK here's what I do..

Aim for a total of 1/4 (APA) to 1/3 (AIPA) IBU in the kettle, usually 30g to 40g of something like German Magnum (75lt batch) and then all cube hops, my losses to the kettle are miniscule, 200ml - 500ml

for an APA the cube hops might equal ~100g for an AIPA ~150g.. pretty much the same as any kettle additions BUT... I get 3 differently cubed beers from the same wort.

No dry hops in FV unless I feel like it... Keg hop IF required..

My latest keg is a Simcoe Centennial IPA and Ive not even keg hopped it and Im probably half way through it, simply delightful as is.

No mess, no fuss, no mini boil.. Dead simple with stunning results.

In fact, it may well be the keg I take to the swap.

I dont use software these days but when I started with the technique it was added as 20 mins as above.
 
Yob, it sounds like you've got it sorted. What you've posted makes a lot of sense and the less stuffing around the better. Will give it a go.
 
bodum-shin-bistro-8cup-coffee-press-1035816us.jpg


This is how I add hop tea.

Put the hops in the coffee press. Add boiling water, stir for a minute, then press and add to your fermenter. Then add more boiling water, let steep for 5 minutes, then press and add to fermenter.

Better than dry-hopping IMO
 
I used to (and currently) wait until about half way through fermentation, then my 10 minute addition would be added to a coffee plunger with 500mL of boiling water and let it steep for 10 minutes, plunge then pour (hot) into the fermenter. Add another 500mL of boiling water to the plunger and sit for 1 min, plunge, then pour.

I say "used to" because I've seriously been considering cube hopping after tasting some other brewers efforts at the last swap. So you add absolutely no hops during the boil and just add your hops to the cube, which works out to be *roughly* equivalent to a 20 min addition? From previous posts, I'm assuming this is tried and tested from various brewers experiences.
 
I have been running the 'yob' method for the last few brews and am very happy with the magnum bittering and then what ever else I put in the cube (calculated as a 20min addition in beersmith). My last brew was split into 4 cubes each with a different 'C' hop in the cube to work out what I like.

Beercus
 
beercus said:
I have been running the 'yob' method for the last few brews and am very happy with the magnum bittering and then what ever else I put in the cube (calculated as a 20min addition in beersmith). My last brew was split into 4 cubes each with a different 'C' hop in the cube to work out what I like.

Beercus
What's your favourite 'C' hop? Or haven't you had a chance to taste yet? Also, just thought of something: do you shake your wort in the cube before pitching/pouring?
 
Similar to yob, I will either add ~30% IBUs at FWH, then the rest at cube, otherwise I just throw everything into the cube depending upon what I'm brewing.

Cube and dry hopping gives plenty of hoppy goodness IMO.
 
Siborg said:
What's your favourite 'C' hop? Or haven't you had a chance to taste yet? Also, just thought of something: do you shake your wort in the cube before pitching/pouring?
You can shake the cube to help with aeration, otherwise there's no need to if it's to just mix up everything that's in the cube.

After having brewed SMASH beers with cascade, centennial, columbus and chinook, my favourite 'C' hop is Citra :ph34r:
 

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