Hop Stew

The latest creation of the K&R Brewery (my friend and I brew monthly) is called Hop Stew. It is a black IPA that was brewed with about 2lb of whole flower hops in a 10gal batch. There were so many hops it was like a stew and we had to literally press the wort out of the hop material. I added them FWH, then at 60/10/5. The hops were the rest of what I grew this year and I wanted to use them up. They filled a 7gal fermenting bucket, mashed in. Its a combination oc Columbus, Centennial and Magnum.

What a mess this was! Next time I’ll maybe use 5gal paint strainer bags as hop bags. We couldn’t use the pump to whirlpool or transfer, had to stir with the IC and then run the stuff through a colander.

The grist was Rahr 2row, biscuit, crystal 40, Midnight wheat and debittered black malt. We got 11gal at 1.072. Its in the Brewhemoth now at 67F, fermenting with US05 cake from our last beer (a stout).

The pic is of the 20gal kettle and IC.

Lovely! I’ve done a Pliny clone with 16oz of hops in 5 gallons; it’s a hoppy mess. I’ve made a simple press for hoppy beers like this, and I started using it for pressing the grain when I went to BIAB. It’s just a stack of three buckets, the middle bucket has a bunch of holes and holds the grain/hop bag. Put a lid on the top bucket and take a seat = nearly instantly squeezes out the bag.

I’m confused about your final volume on this one. You said you did a 10 gallon batch, then finished by saying that you got 11 gallons. I’m also wondering how you got so much volume when you used 2 whole pounds of whole flower hops. You must have spent quite a bit of time and effort squeezing every last drop of wort out of those hops to end up with anything like the volume you’re specifying. But what is that final volume?

A lot of people like to put 5.5 gal in fermentor to account for trub loss ect… To have 5 gal in the keg/bottle. So on a 10 gal batch 11 g would be what I would shot for.

It’s very common to get 11 gallons for a 10 gallon batch. Similarly, most people that do a “5 gallon batch” really brew 5.5 or more gallons. The idea is that after fermentation trub loss, etc, you’ll have 5 gallons in the keg. I have to assume this is what the OP did. I commonly brew “7 gallon batches”, which is actually 8 gallons split between two fermenters.

Ah! You beat me to it. Well played sir, well played… :cheers:

I made the grain bill for around 12gal but I also knew we were going to lose some volume to the hops. I was actually surprised that we got as much as we did, my co-brewer was thorough in his pressing of the hop cake. Basically when we brew we want a full 5gal keg each, anything more is just bonus beer. So 11gal is nice to get there as mentioned above.

I checked this morning, temp was at 65F and there was already a little pressure building so I set the spunding valve to 5psi and away we go. I was relieved, I wondered if the yeast would be stunned by all the hop oil. I do not plan to dry-hop this one, I think there ought to be enough going on.

Nice! My pressure relief valve clogged on my current brew. Two days into fermentation the pressure was at 45 psi :shock: . Degassed it, which was a foamy mess, and finally got it to stabilize at 20psi. I’ll have to take it apart when the batch is done, but I might be needing a new one, b/c manually relieving is no fun.

One thing Brewhemoth’s new spunding valve lacks is a pressure relief valve, so if the variable pressure valve gets clogged I’ll have to relieve pressure through the built-in QD. No big deal there I guess. I think the conical itself is pressure-tested to 100psi. Thats scary.

Was your ferm done? Did the 45psi hurt the yeast or did you notice anything? I’ve read that above 15psi there is a negative effect on yeast health but I don’t know what that means as far as the beer is concerned. I suppose they might get the bends or pop if you relieve pressure too quickly.

The only aspect of this brew that I’m not sure of is the color. I don’t know if its going to be dark enough to call it a black IPA, and it’ll definitely be too dark for a regular IPA. Not that I’m going to enter any comps but I do like to hit style so people that drinki it will know what to expect from one. I may add some sinamar, I don’t know.

Yeah, I tested it this weekend and if anything it actually over-attenuated; 1.005, I was expecting 1.010. The sample tasted great too. I’m not sure how long it was sitting at 45psi, could have been as long as 36 hours though. What I’ve read and experienced is that fermenting under pressure seems to have a protective effect and really minimizes off flavors. Not sure what the upper limit of that pressure effect is though.

You’ll have to invent a new style…Brown IPA. :wink:

I’m sold on pressurized fermenting for sure. We’ve had nothing but success in the batches we’ve done this way. Plus with pressure transfers the beer never sees oxygen so I think that is also a big improvement over my old methods.

I was thinking India Brown Ale, or I-BRA. The R is to distinguish brown from black. So you can say “I’d love to get my hands on a nice I-BRA.”

It’s what’s underneath that counts 8)

Reminds me of the Frank Zappa tune, Titties 'n Beer.

Looks great!! I do one or two batches a year that have 12-16 oz of hops per 5 gallons (including dry hops). More than that is too damn expensive.

I think DFH already beat you to the India Brown Ale. Couldn’t you just cold steep some more Carafa?

I could do that, I have the sinemar and also Maltoferm A, a dark DME at 600L.

Never wanting to leave well enough alone, I went ahead added some sinemar last night, just a few tablespoons probably not enough to make a big difference. Got rid of the last of the sinemar though.

I may run a little trub out the bottom valve tonight and while I’m at it I’ll let it settle to see what the color is. I generally do this early to make my subsequent yeast harvest a little cleaner.

HOMEGROWN hop stew! Nice.

Did you make any efforts to estimate %AA on your hops or just wing it?