Myrcene Extaction - Aroma Steep

Hello

So i have been reading up on Hop chemistry.

I am looking to get as much flavor from my aroma hops as possible (Cascade) which is high in the hop oil Myrcene.

Listing to a webcast by BeerSmith on Hop Chemistry.

The chap from the hop farm says its best to steep your high Myrcene hops at around 45 degree’s C as this is when the oil can be best extracted.

Anyone have any views on this. The Chemistry and theory seems sound.

I’ve been thinking along the same lines myself, but I was thinking about all the hop oils, not just Myrcene. My only question is how temperature relates to solubility of oils. In other words, even though a particular oil flashes off above a certain temperature, does it dissolve into solution faster than it flashes off?

I’m planning on testing this at some point. My plan is to take a batch of wort and split it into 5 parts immediately after boiling. Four of them go into an ice bath right away, and one gets hops immediately and steeps at room temp for a specific length of time. After that, it goes back into the ice bath to finish chilling. The other four get pulled out one-by-one as they reach the flash point of each of the 4 major hop oils. They would each in turn get a dose of hops and steep at room temp for the same length of time, then go back into the ice bath. I’m curious if you can bring out different flavors/aromas depending on what temp you steep at, and whether the overall hop flavor/aroma will be increased or decreased versus the high-temp hop steep.

I figure I’ll do this in an APA, and use a clean bittering hop at 60 minutes to get to ~30 IBU. Then I’ll start looking into oil content of the various hops I have on hand and pick one (or a blend of 2) that will give me a fair amount of each of the various oils to use for the flameout hopping.

I did a small batch yesterday and hopped with Centennial. At the magic 45 degrees C

I didn’t really see a big increase if anything less of a hoppy punch that the standard flame out addition i normal do for the recipe (APA).

Hmmm.

Interesting. How long did you steep at that temp?

Steeped for around 10 minutes.

So i guess that poses another question. What is the optional time for extraction.

The beer is close to finishing primary and is starting to show some REAL big fruit flavor now.