Hop Percolator/Hop Teas

[Crusader-Rob]

Has anyoneused any process like this??

Theres not alot of information, but after listeningtop the brewing network, theres a brewery called shipyard brewing in america, who do it.

Heres a small bit of information to how they run it: "The Hop Percolator steeps whole aromatic leaf hops at 180F for up to 4 hours. During this time the volatile oils responsible for aroma and hop taste versus bitterness are steeped into solution creating a hop tea. This is then introduced at 68F into the fermenting vessel just prior to the boiled wort. 

The reason for doing this is that hops added for the aroma at the end of the boil (done by many people)will lose many of their volatile aroma oils up the flue due to their volatility. Depending on the external atmosphere the rate of evaporation and hence oil boil off can vary hence leading to inconsistency in this area. The hop percolator system introduces the same extraction rate for each brew. Peter Austin and I developed this at Ringwood in 1984 searching to find better ways to make great consistent beer."

This seems like a very interesting process, and wondered if anyone had done anything similar with the flameout hops.

What sort of ratio should be used with this?

[Ralph]

Sounds plausible. Worth experimenting with. I would just use the standard amount of hops you would add to the brew to start with. There may be slightly less extraction into the water depending on the volume of water used for the hop tea and the plain water may not extract the same hop things as when you soak hops in wort... but from a consistency point of view I am sure it must be good.

[Jess9]

I hopped a 25l batch of all grain pale ale using a coffee percolator and let boil for about 5 minutes, then added to beer, just prior to bottling.  That batch tasted great, unsure how much difference it made as have only brewed a few all grain batches to date.

I'm going to do the above approach again, but leave for 2-3 days prior to bottling and will use "wet hops" fresh picked from bines.

Will report back on taste in a few weeks.  

This batch is brewing in a 50l ss conical so could be different to the last (was using coopers 25l plastic bucket).  Dumped trueb etc also after 7 days (the SS has a big port dump valve), so is in 2ndry ferment now.

[Crusader-Rob]

Yeah, i think my plan wouldbe to get up to temperature, and put maybe 750ml or so into a thermos, with the standard 1min/flameout addition, and leave in there for the 4 hours brewing period...

 cool and add to fermenter. 

Maybe I should split a batch up and do it that way with a flameout addition in one and hop tea in the other?

that way I can compare as such.

It would cause any astringency would it?

[Crusader-Rob]

It says, Whole Leaf hops... Where do I purchase these from??

[Chris P]

brewerscoop have a few types.

 

www.thatbeerplace.com could be the most useful for whole cone hops though... flick them an Email regarding the ones you are after. I have had a look through their list and it seems they have 1kg lots of many varieties.

[Ralph]

Rob, if you are doing a hop tea and are able to strain it, you will get more flavour from hop pellets simply because they have been munched up so you can get more of the oils/flavour out of them. I do not think there would be much advantage to making a hop tea using whole hop cones apart from the fact they are easier to remove from solution.

[Crusader-Rob]

Will there not be a bit of a straining issue with pellet hops?, given they are so munched up?

chances are 
I'll be straining through a Sieve most likely, other option is a hopsock steeped for the time period, might have to go for that... easier.

HOp Pellets it may be.

[Crusader-Rob]

So, Im going to try this process soon, but seeing I'm still on the fence about pellets and leaves, I'll stick with pellets to start with in a bag, kind of like a smal BIAB for hops, not an actual hop sock... 150-200ml per 10 grams of hops, at 80 Deg C for 2-4 hours.

If I were to add the hops straight in then strain off the mush from pellets, would i have an issue through a sieve?

[Crusader-Rob]

I'm looking at trying this in the weekend. I'll be steeping for 1-2 hours in about 1 litre of 82deg water.

Should I make adjustments to the flameout additions, I'll be using Pellets rather than Cones.

Original recipe states 30g of motueka and cascade nz at Flameout, I feel like i should compensate, as additional bitterness and flavour will come out? Any auggestions??

standard 20-23litre batch, using Kolsch yeast. should be around 1.056-8 OG

[Crusader-Rob]

WEll I adjusted my recipe to 25grams of Cascade and Motueka, steeped in 1 Litre of Water for about 1-1.5 hours, while I brewed, I used a Thermos I bought from Payless before they shut.

Ended up with about 6-700 mls of tea.

Original smell on the hops was a bit grassy, but after an hour, and filtering out the hop matter (I used Pellets, as I don't have Wholeleaf) it was a nice hop aroma. I Put this in the fermenter and racked the wort on top of it. 

I will post results, through the process, and, I'll take a bottle for the CHCH guys when its done.

The other thing I did is cold steeping dark Grains, for a black IPa version of this. 50g of carafa II for 4 Litres of beer, came out nice and dark. so I racked off 4 litres of wort, before adding the yeast and  chucked it in this. Interesting Experiment.