debittered hops and general banter

[MileHighBrewer]

Anyone using these? I picked up a lbs to use as I'm about to delve into my sour insanity tour (got six 15gal fermenters plus a couple 5&6 gal to get going).

I don't imagine they're the same as aged. More then anything I'm wondering about the amounts per batch. I was figuring on 1-2 oz per 12gal batch. Plan is to overshoot gravity @12 and top up to 15 like a 3 to 5 extract.

For those wondering, I'm not sure all what I'm brewing lol. Have the following cultures

Gigayeast Belgian plum
Gigayeast farmhouse sour
Ecy01 x2 vials
Wyeast DePom (should be here Thursday)
Wyeast oud brune

Plus
Giga fast lacto
Wyeast lacto
TYB new blends (2 I think)
Ecy01 cake
Ecy20 cake
TYB cakes x2 one with lacto
Inland island brett blends



Not to mention 30-40 unique bottle dregs plus my house culture.


Lots of testing going on here, all aimed at my blending house a few years down the road

 

[Oldsock]

I only use aged hops for lambics (spontaneous ferments especially) - in which case you'd want say 6 oz in 12 gallons to dissuade Lactobacillus from taking over. Otherwise a couple ounce of whatever low AA% (debittered or otherwise) you've got should be fine. There is some experimental evidence suggesting aged hops may increase some interesting fruity aromatics.

Lots of fun strains to play with. A microbiologist friend and I are considering some Lacto experiments with all the new strains out there, maybe turn it into a BYO article or something.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

You think they're still going to inhibit lacto activity?

 

[TravisT]

Not to mention 30-40 unique bottle dregs plus my house culture.

You let ke know if you need help emptying any of those bottles

 

[Oldsock]

You think they're still going to inhibit lacto activity?

That's the main idea of aged hops, preservative power without the bitterness. Not exactly sure what they do to debitter hops, but I'd assume the goal is similar?

 

[MileHighBrewer]

I'm guessing they bake them. I THINK they were once 7-9% AA hops....I'd have to look at the package. They're sold by hop union

 

[dantheman13]

I ordered 10 pounds of the stuff during that Father's Day sell... wtf was I thinking.

 

[lawbadger]

I ordered 10 pounds of the stuff during that Father's Day sell... wtf was I thinking.

I got 3 pounds as well from the Hop Direct sale. I think those are "Choice Debittered / Aged" so I figured they were just aged to get them to approx. 0% AA. I thought the debittering occurred through the aging process and not something different altogether.

 

[dcHokie]

I ordered 10 pounds of the stuff during that Father's Day sell... wtf was I thinking.

We used 4 lbs of them for a 60 gallon lambic batch last year...you've got work cut out for you.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

I'm worried to use them now, I don't want to hinder lacto lol at least I'm only in it for a pound @10$ Dan...my sympathies haha

 

[MileHighBrewer]

Just an FYI....this thread is near the top of Google results about brewing with debittered hops....20 minutes after I posted. Basically no info out there

 

[loctones]

I've never used them, but I've been thinking about it. I want to try a beer where I do a semi-spontaneous fermentation--leave the carboy or bucket open in the kitchen for a few hours to collect enteric bacteria, and then pitch a mixed culture a day or two later. I'd assume the preservative properties of the aged hops would help keep the initial bugs from getting out of control.

Do the 15 gal. fermenters you're using happen to be LME barrels offered up by a friendly local homebrewer recently? I'm curious how they might stand work long-term aging as far as oxygen permeability is concerned.

 

[smokinghole]

I used a butt load of aged hops in a lambic I brewed with ECY20 about 2.5 years ago. The hop amount contributed either strong polyphenols that come across as bitter or it contributed bitter. The beer is a sour and funky, but not as sour or funky as other fermentations I've carried out with cultures grown out of bottles.

I just wonder how much bacterial activity they really inhibit especially when talking about lactobacillus. With hop resistant strains that can take 35 ibus and trained to take more, I don't buy the "aged hops keeps lacto in check" claims. It might keep weak strains in check but I suspect that over preferential reuse of yeast from the "good barrels" to get the next ones going and so forth there are plenty of hop resistant lactobacillus even with the use of aged hops. I believe the most interesting thing that comes from aged hop use is a citrusy and fruity character. I've been aging different hop varieties to see how they act in beers, as well as just blends. I store my aged hops over top of my garage in the crawl space for at least one summer in the mylar bag that's been pierced.

 

[Oldsock]

With hop resistant strains that can take 35 ibus and trained to take more, I don't buy the "aged hops keeps lacto in check" claims. It might keep weak strains in check but I suspect that over preferential reuse of yeast from the "good barrels" to get the next ones going and so forth there are plenty of hop resistant lactobacillus even with the use of aged hops.

From The Microbial Diversity of Traditional Spontaneously Fermented Lambic Beer:

"In both batches, P. damnosus remained present throughout the fermentation process and these bacteria were accompanied by D. bruxellensis after the decrease of Saccharomyces spp. Remarkably, no other LAB were isolated, while Lactobacillus spp. and other LAB species have also been isolated from American coolship ales recently."

They are referring to a study on Allagash, which lowered their aged hopping rate as a result of identifying off-flavors in early batches they attributed to high hopping rate.

 

[smokinghole]

Interesting. Consider me more of of a believer I guess.

I've been mixing fresh and aged hops for a beer like I imagine what saison would have been like before pure culture hit them. Brew for ~1.040 hop to 20ibu with fresh and match that with aged added to the kettle during lauter. Grist is about 30% unmalted and the pitch is pretty small. Sour in a month but takes 6-9 months to be worthy of consideration for bottling.

 

[smokinghole]

Interesting. Consider me more of of a believer I guess.

I've been mixing fresh and aged hops for a beer like I imagine what saison would have been like before pure culture hit them. Brew for ~1.040 hop to 20ibu with fresh and match that with aged added to the kettle during lauter. Grist is about 30% unmalted and the pitch is pretty small. Sour in a month but takes 6-9 months to be worthy of consideration for bottling.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

Do the 15 gal. fermenters you're using happen to be LME barrels offered up by a friendly local homebrewer recently? I'm curious how they might stand work long-term aging as far as oxygen permeability is concerned.

Yes and no. One was an LME barrel rom my LHBS, four came from a local cider maker, one was a starsan barrel. They are all the same thing though.

As to oxygen exposure we will see! Lots of us use better bottles and these are much thicker . Pretty heavy hpde, i know its still not glass, stainless or bîg wood barrel but i do not think this will let in as much as a bucket, probably less then a BB as well.

 

[loctones]

As to oxygen exposure we will see!

If you remember to update this post in a few years, please do! I use better bottles, and they've been good up to 1.5 years for me. I've only gone longer than that in glass.

 

[hilts]

Digging up this old thread....has anyone used debittered hops in a sour beer? I'm making a sour with imperial sour batch kids. Any reccomendations on how much debittered hops from hops direct to boil, and for how long?

 

[RPh_Guy]

The Lambic style of beer is very yeast-forward, so we want to encourage yeast expression -- production of esters and phenols.
Acidity suppresses yeast expression. We add hops to a Lambic to inhibit the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from creating acid too quickly. This delayed souring results in greater yeast expression and more flavor.

However, if we add too much hops, the beer may never sour to our liking, or it may take an extraordinary amount of time to sour. Not all LAB has the same level of hop-tolerance, so it's important to tailor the amount of hops to the particular hop tolerance of the LAB in your beer.

The bacteria we use that comes from a yeast lab is not very hop tolerant. On the other hand, if you use dregs, those LAB do tend to be hop-tolerant, so you may want to use more hops or pitch the dregs at a later time after allowing other Brett cultures to develop.

So, what's the deal with using aged hops vs new hops? As hops age, the compounds oxidize. The alpha acids lose their bittering potential and anti-microbial effect. However, beta acids that normally aren't relevant in new hops actually become soluble. Beta acids are a more potent inhibitor of the LAB than alpha acids, therefore we can use less hops to achieve the same level of LAB inhibition without as much bitterness. That's a good thing because sour and bitter flavors are typically undesirable together.

The hops should be boiled at least 60 minutes. We want to extract all of alpha and beta acids.

How much? These recommendations are for aged noble hops which have equal amounts of alpha and beta acids and generally low levels of them:
Low to medium hop-tolerant LAB: 0.4-0.8oz per 5 US gallons
High hop-tolerant LAB: 0.8-2oz per 5 US gallons
(These are my personal "safe" recommendations that won't prevent souring. FYI it's twice what I recommend for new hops.)

Other types of hops may need to be adjusted based on their acid levels. And again, if you have any info/experience about the hop-tolerance of your particular bacteria, you should tailor it.

If you want your beer more sour, lean toward the lower end of the range.

Hope this makes sense. Cheers!