Hop Bottle

[kiwirevo]

I've come up with a technique to create similar results to a hop back which I can't do with my BIAB setup. The idea is to put hops in a bottle with 85 degrees Celsius water, seal it up and chill it down as fast as possible. (you could use wort as well). I know it's similar to a hop tea however all the aroma is contained whilst it's cooled. I've just tried it in 2 fresh hop brews I did yesterday and when adding the juice to the fermenter it had an amazing aroma and was coming out milky green. I'm hoping it's really helped get the most out of the fresh hops but this wasn't really a test as I have never brewed with fresh hops before so have no control reference. I will at some point brew 2 identical beers except 1 with and 1 without the hop bottle but just from these initial brews it seems like a promising method. Let me know what you think.

View attachment 1426983252584.jpg

View attachment 1426983294040.jpg

 

[Culbetron]

Check out Chris Colby's french press idea for adding fresh hop aroma. I've tried doing it at bottling by adding the priming sugar and water to a french press, dumping in some hops, letting it sit, pressing, then pouring it into the bottling bucket.

http://beerandwinejournal.com/hop-aroma-extract/

 

[kiwirevo]

Check out Chris Colby's french press idea for adding fresh hop aroma. I've tried doing it at bottling by adding the priming sugar and water to a french press, dumping in some hops, letting it sit, pressing, then pouring it into the bottling bucket.

http://beerandwinejournal.com/hop-aroma-extract/

Hi Culbetron, Yes I've seen that method before but I figured theres still some loss to steam and you're still pour off the water/wort when it's hot. My method is very similar, just another way of getting more hops in (you can never have too many hops ). It would be good to do a side by side of 1 with a french press style infusion and 1 with a hop bottle and see if there's any benefit to the hop bottle being completely sealed and cooled with the hops to contain all the aroma.

 

[kiwirevo]

As a test this weekend I'm going to brew a super lazy iipa.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/227576/super-lazy-iipa
All the hops will be thrown in a hop bottle whilst all the malt extract will go straight in the fermenter. I expect this to take me about 10 minutes to 'brew' and we'll see how it goes.
I'll feed back how the bitterness etc is

 

[kiwirevo]

I just brewed the Super Lazy IIPA. Bizarrely I got a 20% higher gravity from the dry malt extract than what Brewers friend said, so it ended up at 1.084 OG.
I put the hops in the 2L bottle with 85C water then let them sit at room temp for 10mins then put it in cold water until it cooled down.
I then combined the hop bottle water (sieved the hops out) with the DME already dissolved in water and topped up to 5L.
Sprinkled the yeast on and chucked in my fermentation area.

I tasted the wort and whilst it is bitter I'm concerned it won't be bitter enough to combat the potential 10%abv, will report back when it's ready.

 

[Culbetron]

I think that recipe uses the full wort volume in the hopback for bittering. If you used only 2L of the 5L you aren't going to get utilization you need.

I'm curious to hear how it goes.

 

[kiwirevo]

I think that recipe uses the full wort volume in the hopback for bittering. If you used only 2L of the 5L you aren't going to get utilization you need.

I'm curious to hear how it goes.

I played around with it to see what calculations it would give with a 10min boil addition, with no sugar, as well and it gave about that IBUs. It's all just a guess so it could be anything, but we'll see, it may be bitter enough.

 

[kiwirevo]

I'm bottling the Super Lazy IIPA today and from the hydrometer sample this is going to be a tasty beer, the bitterness is reasonable and the aroma and flavour are excellent, the only thing is the DME only let it get down to 1.020 so it's a little sweet for an iipa. But definitely a good option for a lazy brew.

View attachment 1430627927685.jpg

 

[JohnSand]

Interesting.

 

[kiwirevo]

So I just cracked the first bottle and whilst the underlying beer is good, bitter but a little sweet, there's a huge DMS issue so the hopping technique paid off but the no boil meant the DMS didn't get evaporated.

 

[armedcor]

That's strange, there shouldn't be any DMS. Malt extract has already been boiled then dehydrated. People use dme with cooper's kits etc and never have dms issues.

 

[kiwirevo]

Good point, but it's definitely a creamy aroma, could be a yeast issue. I'll get a bottle or two to some other Brewers and see what their feedback is