I’m curious if anyone has ever used a “hop tea” as a substitute for dry hopping? What was the outcome? Did you notice any odd qualities in the finished product?
As I understand it, the procedure is: pour a small amount of hot water (<113 deg. F) over your hops, steep for 20 minutes minutes and pour into the secondary.
I’ve made hop tea using a number of methods and the best I’ve ever gotten was disgusting. Nothing I’d want in my beer.
If you search this forum you’ll find at least a couple of threads on making hop tea. I tried many different methods and the best results were from steeping the hops in hot (160F) beer, not water (water was simply awful). By “best” I don’t mean good though - it definitely added hop aroma and flavor, but it was grassy and took months to age out, pretty much defeating the whole purpose of adding the tea in the first place.
When you dry hop, how do you make sure that you are not introducing bacteria? I was wondering this the other day.
I thought about this a lot when I started dry hopping. From what I understand is that hops are a preservative and with all their acids really don’t harbor any nasties normally. Also, when you dry hop your wort is now beer! So it has alcohol to protect itself.
Honestly, just through them in and have a home brew!
I thought about this a lot when I started dry hopping. From what I understand is that hops are a preservative and with all their acids really don’t harbor any nasties normally. Also, when you dry hop your wort is now beer! So it has alcohol to protect itself.
Honestly, just through them in and have a home brew![/quote]
Alcohol AND a low pH.
So using hop tea for dry hopping leaves a very grassy taste. I was actually looking at the NB DIPA kit, and it calls for a hop tea of the 60 and 30 min hop additions.
This tea is added at the conclusion of boil.
What benefit does this offer? I would imagine more utilization being that they are not being boiled in an ultra concentrated wort, but wouldn’t the hops react differently to being boiled in plain water?
I’ve heard people tell of grassy flavors from using hop tea. The reason, they state, is that the tea is being made with water. I just tapped my DIPA after about 6 weeks and omg it is the best IPA I’ve made! So much hopppy goodness!
What I did with the hop tea is made the water as instructed and then added a quart of my boiling wort to the mix. I think the reason for the hop tea is that you are adding 12lbs of malt syrup to 3 gallons and getting a HUGE gravity wort that will squelch any hop bitterness. I’ve read that a little wort will inhibit the compounds that produce the grassy flavor produced when boiling with just water.
The instructions say this is ready in 2 months, but after I sampled it before kegging, there was no way I was going to wait to drink it. It’s fantastic!
:cheers:
Thanks! I for sure will add a bit of wort to the tea. NB DIPA is on the docket for next weekend!
