Question on Hop Tea Techniques?

[zyx345]

I'm considering making a hop tea in lieu of dry hopping a DFH 60 clone. I plan to steep 1oz of Simcoe in 2 cups of 170 degree water for 1 hour.

Only question I have is will I get a lot of aroma from 1oz of hops in a tea?

I limited it to 2 cups of water because I don't want to dilute my beer especially since I'll be batch priming with 2 cups of boiled dextrose water solution.

 

[Calichusetts]

They are pretty potent...I use it with dry hopping to give it a nice punch. I add the hop tea to the secondary first then rake, whirlpooling to make sure it all mixes nicely. 2 cups is fine...

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Why? DFH and all of the clone recipes I've seen use dry hop. Just dump the hops directly into the fermenter (with some Amarillo too).

 

[zyx345]

Why? DFH and all of the clone recipes I've seen use dry hop. Just dump the hops directly into the fermenter (with some Amarillo too).

I've done that before and I find it to be a pain to rack to my bottling bucket. Wanted to try the hop tea method to avoid having to filter before bottling.

 

[hbbend]

I'm planning to try the hop tea method myself. Going to use a french press, which I figure would be perfect for this method. My question; would it be possible to use the priming sugar water to make the tea? That way you're not using the priming sugar water and the tea water to prevent watering the beer down. I'm thinking of boiling the corn sugar water, let it cool, then add it to the french press with 1oz of hops in it. Let it sit for an hour or so, let it cool and pitch it before bottling. Has anyone tried it this way and is there any reason this is a bad idea?

 

[eastoak]

hop tea work great as far as aroma and flavor but you may get cloudiness that does not ever clear up (i don't mind that at all) and you may get a lot more bitterness out of the tea than you would expect. i've been experimenting with lowering the temperature of the water to around 120f, i feel 170f extracts too much bitterness.

 

[Wynne-R]

I used to put an oz of Kent Golding in a French press. I would add a cup or more of beer, let it soak a while, then add enough boiling RO water to get the temperature you want. I went for 70C (158F) Allow to cool, add to beer before bottling.

I think the lower pH of the beer helps the extraction and hey, a little alcohol can’t hurt. Some people complain about grassy flavors, but I think that comes from using alkaline water. The only reason I quit doing it is that I grew to prefer a flame out addition to a dry hop.

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

I've done that before and I find it to be a pain to rack to my bottling bucket. Wanted to try the hop tea method to avoid having to filter before bottling.

This is why I started using whole cone hops. Problem solved.

 

[Calichusetts]

Or add the hop tea to the secondary and give it a while. I add a hop tea then dry hop if I am after a super hoppy beer

 

[sweetcell]

I've done that before and I find it to be a pain to rack to my bottling bucket. Wanted to try the hop tea method to avoid having to filter before bottling.

have you tried putting a fine-mesh hop bag over your racking cane? i find that a bag makes for a great filter, leaves all the gunk behind.

I'm thinking of boiling the corn sugar water, let it cool, then add it to the french press with 1oz of hops in it. Let it sit for an hour or so, let it cool and pitch it before bottling. Has anyone tried it this way and is there any reason this is a bad idea?

personally i would reverse the order: make hop tea first, then boil (quickly) with sugar. i wouldn't want sugar water sitting around, warm - seems to me that is asking for an infection.

 

[zyx345]

have you tried putting a fine-mesh hop bag over your racking cane? i find that a bag makes for a great filter, leaves all the gunk behind.

I did try that before and I found the bag kept getting clogged and I had to keep readjusting it and moving the racking cane around which then further stirred up some trub. Took me almost an hour to rack to my bottling bucket. This was an IPA with 3oz of dry hop pellets.